The Honduran Minister of Defence, Marlon Pascua, has said in
an interview that Honduras has been invaded by drug traffickers who are using the
country’s territory to pass hundreds of tons of cocaine annually from Colombia
to the United States.
Officials estimate 25 to 30 tons of cocaine arrives in
Honduras each month by air and sea, one-third of the world's total volume.
“Given our geographic situation...Honduras has been invaded
by the traffickers and has become a victim of the drug trade,” he said.
He then went further and squarely put the blame on Mexico.
“The invasion of traffickers into Honduras has been provoked
by the open war on drugs...And the battle is exacerbated by the government of
Mexico’s war on drugs.”
The
minister acknowledged that Honduras is a transit point for large amounts of drugs from South American producers to consumers in the United States.
Marlon Pascua, Defence Minister for the most violent country on earth
In fact, Mexico’s success may be Honduras’s failure: Pascua
stated that it was Mexico’s increasingly rigid control that was driving the cartels
into the Central American country, where institutions are weak and violence is
on the rise.
Pascua lamented that the Washington Post has referred to
Honduras as a world’s
homicide capital, which he called undeserving.
Pascua noted that in 2011 Honduran authorities seized a record
of over 21 tons of cocaine. In past years, the average has been about ten or
five tons per year. He further complained that the media and international
organizations only focus on the bad, without recognizing some good results from
Honduras’s efforts to deal with the problem.
Honduras had 6,723 murders between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec.
15, 2011, an average of 81.5 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants, the
highest per capita rate in the world (the global rate, as calculated by the
United Nations, is 8.8 homicides per 100,000). This is an increase of 881 over
2010.
However, the Honduran government has claimed that murders
are down in 2011 compared with last year, crediting “Operation Lightning,” a
joint police and military operation launched last month.
Honduran lawmakers have chosen the Mexican solution, having
voted overwhelmingly last month to deploy the country's military against drug
traffickers.
Political violence has also flared since the 2009 coup that
deposed left-of-center President
Manuel Zelaya, with journalists, labor activists and gays also apparently
being killed with greater frequency.
On Dec. 7, former security minister Alfredo
Landaverde, an outspoken critic of growing police corruption tied to
organized crime, was gunned down in his car, only a day after radio journalist Luz
Marina Paz Villalobos was assassinated.
The United States has been drawn deep into Honduras'
counter-drug fight, spending at least $50 million on security assistance since
2008. Most recently, security concerns prompted the Peace Corps to announce that
it would pull all 158 volunteers out of Honduras.
Twitter: @TimothyEWilson
Email: lapoliticaeslapolitica [at] gmail [dot] com
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