Monday, August 30, 2010

Defenses needed on Mexico's Border with Central America

By Jerry Brewer

Assessing current and past threats to the Mexican homeland necessitates the launching of new strategic initiatives against murderous narcoterrorists and transnational organized criminals.  It is critical that the U.S. and Mexico begin to view the latter's contiguous frontier with Central America as the frontline of defense for North America. This must also include the airways and waterways surrounding both free nations.

And this should become the new strategic and proactive line in the sand.

Responding appropriately to those affected regions where Central American “choke points” are the main entry for drug trafficking, gangs and other paramilitary-type transnational insurgents into North America could become a major interdiction gain.

Unstable meanderings and tumultuous underpinning south of the United States and Mexican borders call for unity and solidarity against viable threats to democracies throughout Latin America.  To further engage or not engage in assisting free nations within Latin America's future must currently be a critical concern for U.S. leadership.  This even though leftists, the left-leaning and essential dictators in the western hemisphere would continue to call any U.S. involvement in Latin America "meddling." 

It is time for all Latin Americans to end the pervasive climate of impunity.  The U.S. does need to convey and support the issue of self-sufficiency as opposed to dependency within the region.  However, rogue and oppressive regimes continue to threaten human life and democratic freedoms.  Too, their actions and inactions pose great danger to Latin America as a whole. Many of these fears and hysteria brought about by the nascent epidemic of extreme violence and the massive death toll.

Most left led regimes continue to aggressively deny basic freedoms, which as of late is demonstrated with aggressive oppression against journalists and their press freedoms.  Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, as well as Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, often dismiss press oppression claims as “politically motivated by the U.S. Empire."  Too, this is a popular theme of Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro.

Castro, the professed mentor of Chavez, remains a quasi-divine influence and inspiration to their publicly nebulous agendas and those of their left-leaning followers. Their collective regional interests are not so cleverly disguised as intense rhetoric and manipulation of their populace and Latin neighbors.  A popular theme directed at their dissidents is their homeland sovereignty being at stake, and in the path of U.S. intervention and attack. 

The maladies of transnational crime, terrorism, and narcoterrorism reaching through Mexico and as far as the U.S. are real and graphic, and they are nightmarish elements of the western hemisphere today.  As well, they are threatening to get far worse.

There is little doubt that the U.S. proactively leads the way in this war, with its actions evident in the funding, training, and support to those democracies reaching out for a lifeline.  Mexico has continuously stepped boldly forward as a valiant leader in facing this scourge against the homeland, and many Mexican soldiers, police officers, government officials, and journalists continue to die.

Central America’s pervasive ambiance of impunity raised its sinister head as the drug traffickers and organized transnational criminal insurgents literally targeted the heads of those opposing them. Mexico’s DTOs followed with their versions of mass murder, torture and beheadings.  As well, corruption has flourished at government and law enforcement levels, thus creating greater fear and complacency in challenging those with supreme weaponry and head-on confrontation.

As Central America struggles to contain escalating violence, powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations are expanding southward and intensifying operations in neighboring nations due to the escalating Mexican government push at home.  This much like traditional aggressive law enforcement “zero tolerance” operations that sweep or displace offenders to areas of lesser control. 

As new and quasi-safe havens mature for displaced assassins, as well as current strategies of currency and arms interdiction efforts by Mexico and the U.S., the Central American borders that Mexico shares with Belize and Guatemala must be strengthened.  Too, the sophisticated nature and resources of the vast intelligence collection network, and military air and waterborne support, must play strong roles. 

Central America remains a main transit route for drugs and organized criminals trafficked north.  Mexican DTOs are purchasing land, storing arms and drugs, and hiring members of local criminal networks in Central America to help them move and sell drugs.  Los Zetas are believed to be recruiting in Central America and training new members in camps in remote areas of Guatemala, near the Mexican border, to further regroup and launch murderous assaults to the north.

The narcoterrorists and their support networks will continue to retreat to safe havens where they can regroup and re-strengthen.  This is an excellent advantage for interdiction efforts in attempts to isolate and contain.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.