Kenney, From Pablo to Osama, viii.
273. In 1997 Michael Horn, DEA chief of International Operations, testified to Congress, “The drug trafficking arena is in a constant state of change: restructuring organizations, adapting to law enforcement efforts, responding to demand, and incorporating new trafficking groups that bring specialties or advantageous distribution networks to the trade.” See the Horn Statement in U.S. Senate, Drug Cartels, 44.
274. Garzón, Mafia and Co., 57.
275. As major heroin trafficker Kon Yu-Leung testified before the U.S. Senate, “I think it is important for you to know that although we lost half of our heroin shipments to law enforcement or stealing, that did not discourage us from continuing in the business. It only pushed us to smuggle more drugs to make up for our losses.” “The confessions of a heroin smuggler,” South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), 9 August 1992, 3.
276. “Guatemala Is Latest Battlefield in War on Drugs,” Associated Press, 12 May 1991; “Just What the Smuggler,” A1.
277. INCSR (2003), 2:11.
278. See Belize’s Misuse of Drugs Act (1990; Laws of Belize); Costa Rica’s Law no. 7233, Law on Drugs, Psychotropic Substances, Drugs of Non-authorized Use and Related Activities (1991; Ley sobre estupefacientes); Guatemala’s Law Against Drug Activities (1992; Ley contra la narcoactividad); Honduras’s Law on the Undue Use and Illicit Traffic of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1990; Código penal de Honduras); and Panama’s Law no. 13 (1990; Código penal de la República). Particular provisions of these laws were sometimes later amended or additional laws were passed to form a more elaborate legal regime. See, for instance, Guatemala’s Law Against Narcoactivity (2005; Ley contra la narcoactividad) and Law Against the Laundering of Money or Other Activities and Their Regulations (2005; Ley contra el lavado).
279. Aguilera Peralta, “Fighting the Dragon,” 222–24, includes a useful review of these developments.
Belize
British novelist Aldous Huxley wrote what became perhaps the single most oft-quoted statement about Belize, formerly British Honduras: “If the world had any ends, British Honduras would certainly be one of them. It is not on the way from anywhere to anywhere else. It has no strategic value. It is all but uninhabited.” Huxley’s subsequent observation has been much less widely publicized: “and when Prohibition is abolished, the last of its profitable enterprises—the re-export of alcohol by rum-runners, who use Belize as their base of operations—will have gone the way of its commerce in logwood, mahogany and chicle.”1 Who could have foreseen that the illegal drug trade would become exponentially more profitable than its rum-running predecessor? In fact, at an early date the Central American drug trade encompassed Belize, with notable repercussions for Belizeans, for others in the region, and for North American drug users.
Our first case study involves a country unique among the Central American states. Its roots are British, not Spanish, and relative to its neighbors, Belize is a newly independent society, wedged among countries that gained sovereignty much earlier. In British Honduras, calls for independence grew after World War II. The Belizean nationalist movement that blossomed in the 1950s then bore fruit in the following decade, as Great Britain granted self-government in 1964. The state took the name Belize in 1973, attaining full independence in 1981.2 Thus, as Central American drug transshipment soared, the last two decades of the twentieth century marked for Belize the period just after its transition to full sovereign statehood. Equally important, Belize differed from its Central American neighbors in that its laws, judicial and political systems, and Commonwealth of Nations (British Commonwealth) membership duly reflected its British colonial past.
Map 2.1
Certain aspects of Belizean society might appear to have been inauspicious for the advent of significant drug trafficking. The country has never experienced a civil war. Instead, decolonization occurred in a relatively orderly fashion, and no leftist revolutionary movement has ever coalesced. The lack of internal conflict has sharply differentiated Belize from Guatemala, as well as El Salvador and Nicaragua, which have suffered not only from deep internal divisions but from extensive postconflict turmoil, including the continued circulation of weapons. Also unusual for the region, Belizean political culture, including both anticolonial elements and social and political traditions common to the British Caribbean, has long stressed civilian leadership. While Belize has a small army, its role in society has invariably been strictly limited.3 Firmly controlled by civilian authorities, the Belize Defense Force (BDF) has never become bloated in size, nor has it intervened in political or economic life. Hence, the prospect of corrupting a powerful officer corps has not enticed drug traffickers, as it has in neighboring Guatemala and Honduras.
In terms of geography Belize is the only of these bridge countries that is not crossed by the Pan-American Highway, that major artery for overland drug smuggling. Indeed, its road network is quite small, limiting the efficacy of ground transport. Traffickers could much more easily ship or fly narcotics from the Caribbean coasts of Honduras and Guatemala than send them overland across Belize. Thus, certain bridge-favoring factors common to much of Central America have been notably absent in Belize
Furthermore, particular aspects of Belizean society might be postulated as discouraging transshipment—bridge-disfavoring factors. Ordinarily, the Belizean government has enjoyed warm and friendly relations with Great Britain and the United States, both eager to assist in stemming regional trafficking. Two parties have contended vigorously for political power, and the media has never been cowed by government authorities or drug traffickers. Moreover, Belize has had a largely respected and independent judiciary, with cases heard in open court, sometimes before juries. This greater transparency might be expected to curtail opportunities for corruption to infect the legal system. Belize also has the smallest economy in the region, with the fewest connections to other Central American states.
And yet, by the 1990s Belize had become a key Central American bridge state. Powerful Latin American drug syndicates were frequently calling on homegrown Belizean smuggling expertise, and foreigners were deeply involved in initiating and supervising as well as participating in drug trafficking. While networks of Americans often bought and transported marijuana in the heyday of that trade in Belize, Colombian and eventually Mexican cartels used their extensive resources to stimulate a cocaine-transshipment boom starting in the late 1980s. Thereafter, leading drug-smuggling rings have regularly sent large cocaine loads through the country.
To date, however, very little scholarship has examined the development of Belizean drug trafficking. Why and how have foreign and domestic networks turned Belize into a prominent Central American bridge state? How exactly has the Belizean drug trade evolved? To what extent has it become truly extensive? How has it differed from the trade in other Central American countries? Which routes and methods have drug traffickers operating in Belize preferred, and why? Which principal organizations have operated within the country? Which Belizeans and foreigners have figured most prominently in the trade, and how have they interacted? This chapter addresses these often overlooked questions.
Bridge-Favoring Factors Relevant to Belize
Geography
The
