Ninety-five percent of the drugs that reach North America from South America do so by way of Central America, with the consequence that the Central Americans need to work with Colombia and Mexico to fight against narcotics shipments, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield said.
Ninety-five percent of the drugs that reach North America from South America do so by way of Central America, with the consequence that the Central Americans need to work with Colombia and Mexico to fight against narcotics shipments, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield said.
At the same time, he warned that the governments of the region are the ones who should lead the effort to eradicate the illegal trade in drugs, since the U.S. Congress is probably not going to appropriate significant amounts for foreign aid now that its priority is cutting spending.
According to the UN, the region is the most violent in the world, outside of war zones.
“There is no silver-bullet solution. … It took us many, many years to get into this mess, and it is going to take years to get out of it,” the diplomatic official said at an event held at the Council of the Americas, a Washington think tank.
“Our challenge … is to reach common agreement and understanding on the basic elements of the (anti-drug) strategy,” Brownfield said. “We’re pretty close to being there.”
The official announced that in two weeks, the authorities of the Central American Integration System (SICA) will meet to set a timeline for its anti-drug strategy. This strategy was launched in June, with U.S. support, to combat and prevent drug trafficking and arms trafficking, strengthen border security, and defeat gangs.
It seems to me, a personal opinion, if the United States lowers the pressure on Central America and South America, and if better conditions improve the quality of life, the topic of drugs has to die down a lot. All those people do what they do out of a terrible need, and to improve their quality of life, and by the way, they work full time and with hunger, tight in all extortion forms, they rape their women and children as a form of torture, I’m not saying that there aren’t people who do it because of other conditions, this topic is really difficult, by the way this is only my personal opinion.