San José.— The three large letters in white or yellow on a black or blue background stand out to the officers on the back of their body armor or jackets and on the front of their caps: to give.
Gun at the ready, in armored vans and with communications equipment, the officers of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are sometimes discreet in giving orders and coordinating raids against the drug trafficking… From American soil and in spite of the sovereignty of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Once the missions are completed, they appear to be withdrawing to leave the stage at the disposal of the national authorities, but the presence of US troops or subjects recruited by the DEA, with command and dominance, bothers and disturbs the police units and judicial systems of the countries.
Arrest in the United States on October 15 of the former Mexican Defense Minister, Salvador Cienfuegos, Due to allegations related to drug trafficking, it caused a lot of inconvenience in Mexico as it was not informed that there was a DEA investigation against the general.
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Although Cienfuegos was returned to Mexico on November 18, the Mexican government’s response came in the form of a reform of the Security law In order to restrict the activities of DEA agents in the country, to waive their immunity and to force them to share with the government of this country the information they collect in the performance of their functions in Mexico, they must not make any arrests, they need permission to carry weapons and they can be expelled if they break the law and warn them that they have no immunity.
The DEA has a history of controversy in Latin America.
On July 21, 2009, the Guatemalan media published on their front pages: “Great DEA Operation Fails in Gualemala.” Dozens of heavily armed DEA agents were in command that day police units, Guatemalan military and judicial officers, launched an air and ground hunt in La Reforma, a village in eastern Guatemala, to capture six leaders of the United States and extradite them to the United States. Lorenzana Cartel, one of the most powerful in the area and linked to Mexican cartels such as from Sinaloa. The operation was aborted by an information leak and the block of capos escaped (he was imprisoned several years later), while at the same time a wave of criticism erupted for violation of sovereignty.
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“Sovereignty in Guatemala is just a pretext,” said the Guatemalan Iduvina Hernandez, executive director of the [no estatal] Association for the Study and Promotion of Security in Democracy, of that country, which explains that it is a factor that the authorities, depending on the convenience of the moment, use or discard.
The presence of armed foreign agents must be authorized by the Congress of Guatemala, otherwise “sovereignty will be violated,” Hernández told EL UNIVERSAL, warning, “The DEA would hardly operate in Guatemala without a signed document.” by both governments, although never subject to a legislative process.
War
Heir to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs – Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) -, the DEA was born on July 1, 1973 to bolster the war on drugs that the then US president, Richard Nixon, launched in the early 1970s.
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The market at the time was based on marijuana, produced in most of the area, and cocaine, the production of which was concentrated in Colombia and Peru with raw materials from both countries and Bolivia. He also fought heroin and its production networks in Mexico and Colombia or the supply of raw materials in Guatemala.
The company changed after 47 years. The crisis spread strongly in the 21st century synthetic drugs with suppliers from Latin America and the Caribbean, China and Europe and with the US as the main market. Honduras and Guatemala now produce cocaine.
In nearly half a century, the DEA has been characterized by extreme cases: it received a free pass or green light in Guatemala. On the other hand, in Venezuela the then president Hugo Chavez He ordered his deportation in 2005, claiming that the agents were supporting the drug traffickers instead of fighting them, and “doing intelligence work against the government.” The DEA accused Chávez of not wanting to cooperate with the fight against narco. Three years later, Bolivia would follow in Venezuela’s footsteps. On the grounds that they conspired against his government, the then president Evo Morales He gave DEA agents three months to leave Bolivian territory. Its operation was never allowed in Cuba.
Haiti is an exceptional case in cases of smuggling drugs. With a strategic position in the Caribbean Sea, the island became an operational place to deceive that country Latin American drug traffickers and Caribbean people who, after being caught by the DEA and without lengthy extradition proceedings, travel to a federal court in Florida or New York in less than 24 hours.
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In Colombia, the role of the DEA was crucial in the fight against cartels from Medellin O from CaliBut then came Plan Colombia, costly and controversial, to which experts attribute the displacement of thousands of people and very few results. “Despite its stated goals, the DEA has not achieved any in the broadest sense,” he said at the time. Bruce Bagley, Director and Professor of International Studies at the University of Miami.
Speaking to the BBC, Adam Isacson, a regional security analyst for the Washington Office on Latin American Affairs (WOLA), said the antonarcotics agency has not really been able to make a dent in the drug trade and experts as well as NGOs spoke of a “failure” in the fight against drug trafficking.
The DEA has four territories in the Americas – North and Central America, Andes, Caribbean, and Southern Cone – with 40 offices, four of which have regional command: Mexico City, including Central America; San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the Caribbean, Bogotá for Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela; and Lima for Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The agency has 15 permanent offices in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and the Bahamas and 21 ‘country offices’: Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Venezuela , Chile, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana, Bahamas, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, and Curaçao.
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Without getting an answer, EL UNIVERSAL asked the DEA headquarters in Washington about the legal constraints facing its work in Latin America and the Caribbean due to the rules for carrying weapons. arrest ban and immunity. In its statement of principles, the agency explained that it is working with foreign governments to improve the availability of illegal drugs in the US market and using nonviolent methods to eradicate and replace illegal crops. But Mexico’s security law reform is just the most recent example of the change of approach being demanded from various countries and institutions in the fight against drugs.