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30/10/2012

Central America under siege: Drug Trafficking and Institutional Weaknesses (DIEEEO82-2012)

The peace achieved at the end of the civil wars in Central America was ephemeral. Soon political violence was replaced by criminal violence unleashed by the drug trafficking. Central American states have neither the resources nor the capacity to successfully tackle the drug cartels and the US assistance is too scarce. Police forces have been surpassed in its capacities and the governments have decided to use their conventional militaries to fight an asymmetric war, thus militarizing security and endangering the feeble democracies all around the region as well as remilitarizing it. Overwhelmed by criminal violence and looking for funds Central America presented to the donor community and the international financial institutions a Regional Security Strategy. What Central America got did not fulfill the expectations, but perhaps the main problem is the limited capacity of the communitarian bodies, mainly the Central America´s Security Commission, to successfully advance such strategy.

Author: Roberto Cajina

THIS DOCUMENT IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN SPANISH LANGUAGE.