Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Rapidly going downhill

In the July/August issue of 'Foreign Policy' (FP) magazine, the cover story is 'Failed States'.  There is a smaller article within the main feature called 'Watch List' in which Honduras and Guatemala are cited as two of four countries in 'big trouble'.  The other two are Nigeria and Iran.

The article states: "A mere 1 percent of South American cocaine went through Central America as recently as 2007; today, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent does.  Cartels from Mexico,...have moved south, while Columbian traffickers have moved north."

It goes on to say that the only place where the violence may be worse than Guatemala is neighboring Honduras where "the country of just 7.3 million sees 15 murders per day...the state has very limited control over entire chunks of the territory...they are very weak states by almost any indicator."

One authority is cited as saying that the task is daunting because "a lot of people in the Honduran Elite are doing business with drug traffickers."

This says a lot and paints a very pessimistic picture, but I truly hope our future in Honduras will not be so bleak...

Pepe wake up!!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I fear Pepe is too sick to wake up.