Honduras is the latest focal point in America’s drug war. As Mexico puts the squeeze on narcotics barons using its territory as a transit hub, more than 90 percent of the cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela bound for the United States passes through Central America. More than a third of those narcotics make their way through Honduras, a country with vast ungoverned areas — and one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.
The drug war is definitely heating up in Honduras. The strategy seems pretty simple, and that as you can see with the quote up top, Honduras is a main smuggling route on land and the US plans on helping to stop that. Also, the amount of land to cover is smaller and you could consider Honduras a choke point that US and Honduran forces plan on blocking. Or at least trying to.
Below I have posted two stories in regards to the efforts in Honduras. The first is about DEA’s FAST teams working with the Hondurans on operations, and the second is a story about the US applying lessons learned in Iraq towards operating bases in Honduras.
What is cool is the whole ‘outpost’ concept that is being applied to the effort. To get folks closer to the smuggling routes, as opposed to making long trips back and forth. You can also stay closer to the cities next to smuggling routes, and do more patrols that way as well. In comparison to Afghanistan–this is moving the guys off the FOBs and out into outposts so they are closer to their AO’s.
In past drug operations, helicopters ferrying Honduran and American antinarcotics squads took off from the capital, Tegucigalpa, whenever an intelligence task force identified radar tracks of a smuggler’s aircraft. The three-hour flights required to reach cartel rendezvous points did not leave much idle time to spot airplanes as they unloaded tons of cocaine to dugout canoes, which then paddled downriver beneath the jungle canopy to meet fast boats and submersibles at the coast for the trip north.
In creating the new outposts — patterned on the forward bases in Iraq and Afghanistan that gave troops a small, secure home on insurgent turf — spartan but comfortable barracks were built. Giant tanks hold 4,500 gallons of helicopter fuel. Solar panels augment generators. Each site supports two-week rotations for 55 people, all no more than 30 to 45 minutes’ flying time from most smuggling handoff points.
No word if any contractors are helping to set up these outposts or do work in the outposts, and I will be keeping my eye open for any jobs related to Honduras.
Another note about Honduras, which is equally interesting to me, is the concept of charter cities there. Paul Romer has been working with the government to establish a charter city called the RED. The reason for this, is all based on the hope for elevating the prosperity of the country–something like what Hong Kong did for China.
They are currently looking for a country that would sponsor this charter city, and so far no one has taken a bite. But if someone were to sponsor it, then that city would provide work for the region. The hope would be to bring immigrants south, and they would work in the RED to make a life, instead of them running to places like the US and Canada illegally.
That kind of dynamic would not bode well for the drug cartels either, just because they depend upon immigrants delivering their drugs up into the US. Or at least taking advantage of the massive flow of people crossing the border every year–because it overwhelms law enforcement. A charter city like the RED would also require excellent law enforcement/security in order to keep drugs and crime out.
Now one idea for Honduras is to let the US know that if they want to operate in Honduras for the drug war, that they should help out with the Charter City concept. Either the US could become that sponsor, or the US could help apply some leverage to get a country to jump on board? I would think that if both Canada and the US is wanting to clamp down on illegal immigration, that providing an alternative like this charter city, would be an option to help alleviate that problem. Especially if Honduras is willing to do this, and businesses are drawn to the RED because it is such a good deal.
Interesting stuff, and lots of things going on in Honduras right now. –Matt
D.E.A.’s Agents Join Counternarcotics Efforts in Honduras
By Charlie Savage and Thom Shanker
May 16, 2012
A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied the Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has set off a backlash against the American presence there.
It remains unclear whether the D.E.A. agents took part in the shooting during either episode, the first in the early hours of May 6 and the second early last Friday. In an initial account of the second episode, the Honduran government told local reporters that two drug traffickers had been killed and a large shipment of cocaine seized; he did not mention any American involvement. Several American officials said the D.E.A. agents did not return fire during the encounter.
But this week, a local mayor and a Honduran lawmaker said that four innocent bystanders had been killed and called for an investigation into what the Honduran news media are now portraying as a botched D.E.A. operation.
Lucio Baquedano, the mayor of Ahuas, a small town near the incident, told El Tiempo, a Honduran newspaper, that a helicopter-borne unit consisting of both Honduran police officers and D.E.A. agents was pursuing a boatload of drug smugglers when it mistakenly opened fire on another boat carrying villagers. Four people died — including two pregnant women — and four others were wounded, he said.
Honduras is a growing focus of American counternarcotics efforts aimed at the drug cartels that have increasingly sought to use its ungoverned spaces as a way point in shipping cocaine from South America to the United States.
But the murky circumstances surrounding the firefights underscore the potential successes and risks in the United States’ escalating efforts to help small Central American governments battle well-armed and financed transnational narcotics smugglers by adapting counterinsurgency techniques honed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The challenge has been to help bolster local security forces without raising a nationalist backlash fueled by memories of interventions by the United States during the cold war.
The American efforts include the use of D.E.A. commando squads — called FAST, or Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team — to train and work along side specially vetted local forces in the Western Hemisphere. This year, the military built three “forward operating bases” in isolated areas of Honduras to prestage helicopter-borne units so they could more quickly respond.
Dawn Dearden, a D.E.A. spokeswoman, confirmed that American agents had been present alongside Honduran counterparts at both episodes. She said the D.E.A. worked “hand in hand with our Honduran counterparts” but were “involved in a supportive role only” during the two operations.
She declined to comment further, citing the delicacy of the matter. But other officials said that government forces in the two operations seized more than a ton of cocaine that had just been flown in on small planes from Venezuela and was probably bound for the United States. They also said door gunners for the helicopters were Honduran.
The episode last Friday began when an American intelligence task force detected a plane from Venezuela headed for a remote airstrip in Honduras. The military sent a Navy P-3 surveillance plane — developed for anti-submarine warfare in the cold war — high over the site, where it detected about 30 people unloading cargo from the plane into a vehicle, according to officials briefed on the matter.
The smugglers, they said, then drove to a nearby river and loaded the materials into a canoe. It is a standard technique for smugglers to ferry their contraband in canoes, which glide under triple-canopy rain forest to the coast, where the cargo is put into fast boats or submersibles for the trip north to the United States.
Meanwhile, helicopters were scrambling from one of several “forward operating bases” that the United States military has recently built, this one at Puerto Castilla on the coast. The helicopters carried a Honduran strike force along with members of a FAST unit.
The helicopters, officials said, landed and seized the boat along with its cargo, about 2,000 pounds of cocaine. American and Honduran officials have said a second boat arrived and opened fire on the government agents, and a brief but intense shootout ensued in which government forces on the ground killed two drug traffickers.
But Mr. Baquedano told El Tiempo that the helicopter was pursuing the drug traffickers when they mistook another boat, filled with villagers and traveling with a light on, for the traffickers, whose boat was unlighted. He said gunners on the helicopter fired on the villagers’ boat, while the smugglers abandoned their boat and escaped. Mr. Baquedan said the four slain villagers were innocent bystanders.
Just as in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen, it is often difficult to distinguish insurgents from villagers when combating drugs in Central America. One official said it is a common practice for smugglers to pay thousands of dollars to a poor village if its people will help bring a shipment through the jungle to the coast.
The FAST teams were created in 2005 to help Afghan forces go after drug traffickers in the war zone who were helping to finance the Taliban. Most of them were military veterans and received Special Operations-style training from the military. The D.E.A. had a similar program during the 1980s and early 1990s in which agents worked alongside Latin American police and military officials to go after jungle labs and smuggling planes. That program was ended early in the Clinton administration after complaints that it was not having enough of an impact to justify its risks.
Because they are considered law enforcement agents, not soldiers, their presence on another country’s soil may raise fewer sensitivities about sovereignty. The American military personnel deployed in Honduras, for example, are barred from responding with force even if Honduran or D.E.A. agents are in danger. But if their Honduran counterparts come under fire, FAST teams may shoot back. For similar reasons, the helicopters are part of a State Department counternarcotics program — and not military.
A FAST team was involved in a firefight in Honduras in March 2011 in which a Honduran officer was wounded and two drug traffickers were killed. In that case, the presence of the team was fortuitous — it had been on a training exercise with Honduran counterparts nearby when a smuggling plane was detected coming into a remote airstrip. On the May 6 mission, an American intelligence task force identified a plane leaving Venezuela and heading toward Honduras. A surveillance plane spotted the single-engine airplane as it landed in the wilderness of Miskito Indian country of eastern Honduras, and watched as about 100 people unloaded bales of cargo into several vehicles, officials said.
The landing strip was less than 30 miles from one of the new outposts, called Forward Operating Base Mocoron. A joint Honduran-D.E.A. squad arrived on a State Department helicopter as two vehicles were leaving the landing zone. Drug smugglers on the ground, officials said, opened fire on the helicopter, and the government forces returned fire. In that episode, officials said, the drug smugglers fled into the rain forest, and there were no casualties.
Story here.
—————————————————————Lessons of Iraq Help U.S. Fight a Drug War in Honduras
By Thom Shanker
May 5, 2012
The United States military has brought lessons from the past decade of conflict to the drug war being fought in the wilderness of Miskito Indian country, constructing this remote base camp with little public notice but with the support of the Honduran government.
It is one of three new forward bases here — one in the rain forest, one on the savanna and one along the coast — each in a crucial location to interdict smugglers moving cocaine toward the United States from South America.
Honduras is the latest focal point in America’s drug war. As Mexico puts the squeeze on narcotics barons using its territory as a transit hub, more than 90 percent of the cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela bound for the United States passes through Central America. More than a third of those narcotics make their way through Honduras, a country with vast ungoverned areas — and one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the world.
This new offensive, emerging just as the United States military winds down its conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and is moving to confront emerging threats, also showcases the nation’s new way of war: small-footprint missions with limited numbers of troops, partnerships with foreign military and police forces that take the lead in security operations, and narrowly defined goals, whether aimed at insurgents, terrorists or criminal groups that threaten American interests.
The effort draws on hard lessons learned from a decade of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops were moved from giant bases to outposts scattered across remote, hostile areas so they could face off against insurgents.
But the mission here has been adapted to strict rules of engagement prohibiting American combat in Central America, a delicate issue given Washington’s messy history in Honduras, which was the base for the secret operation once run by Oliver North to funnel money and arms to rebels fighting in neighboring Nicaragua. Some skeptics still worry that the American military might accidentally empower thuggish elements of local security forces.
In past drug operations, helicopters ferrying Honduran and American antinarcotics squads took off from the capital, Tegucigalpa, whenever an intelligence task force identified radar tracks of a smuggler’s aircraft. The three-hour flights required to reach cartel rendezvous points did not leave much idle time to spot airplanes as they unloaded tons of cocaine to dugout canoes, which then paddled downriver beneath the jungle canopy to meet fast boats and submersibles at the coast for the trip north.
In creating the new outposts — patterned on the forward bases in Iraq and Afghanistan that gave troops a small, secure home on insurgent turf — spartan but comfortable barracks were built. Giant tanks hold 4,500 gallons of helicopter fuel. Solar panels augment generators. Each site supports two-week rotations for 55 people, all no more than 30 to 45 minutes’ flying time from most smuggling handoff points.
Before his assignment to Central America, Col. Ross A. Brown spent 2005 and 2006 in Iraq as commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment’s Third Squadron, responsible for southern Baghdad. It was a time so violent that President George W. Bush ordered an increase in troop levels to retake the initiative.
Colonel Brown is now commander of Joint Task Force-Bravo, where he and just 600 troops are responsible for the military’s efforts across all of Central America. He is under orders to maintain a discreet footprint, supporting local authorities and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which leads the American counternarcotics mission.
American troops here cannot fire except in self-defense, and they are barred from responding with force even if Honduran or Drug Enforcement Administration agents are in danger. Within these prohibitions, the military marshals personnel, helicopters, surveillance airplanes and logistical support that Honduras and even the State Department and D.E.A. cannot.
“By countering transnational organized crime, we promote stability, which is necessary for external investment, economic growth and minimizing violence,” Colonel Brown said. “We also are disrupting and deterring the potential nexus between transnational organized criminals and terrorists who would do harm to our country.”
To reach Forward Operating Base Mocoron, an Army Black Hawk helicopter flew through fog-shrouded canyons, over triple-canopy rain forest and across savannas that bore dozens of 200-yard scratches — pirate runways for drug smugglers.
Conducting operations during a recent day at the outpost were members of the Honduran Tactical Response Team, the nation’s top-tier counternarcotics unit. They were working alongside the Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team, or FAST, created by the Drug Enforcement Administration to disrupt the poppy trade in Afghanistan. With the campaign in Afghanistan winding down — and with lowered expectations of what Washington can do to halt heroin trafficking there — FAST members were in Honduras to plan interdiction missions in Central America.
And Honduran Special Operations forces, with trainers from American Special Forces — the Army’s Green Berets — were ferried from the outpost by Honduran helicopters to plant explosives that would cut craters into smugglers’ runways. Honduran infantrymen provided security for the outpost, which remains under Honduran command.
Those missions were conducted amid reminders of the dirty wars of the 1980s. One such reminder was a delegation of Congressional staff members visiting recently to assess local forces’ respect of human rights. Legislation prohibits United States military assistance to foreign forces that violate human rights, so before Joint Task Force-Bravo can cooperate with Central American militaries, they must be certified by American embassies in the countries where those operations are to take place.
Another reminder sits across the runway at Soto Cano Air Base, the large Honduran base outside the capital that hosts a local military academy and Colonel Brown’s headquarters. Behind a high fence is a compound once used by Mr. North, a Marine lieutenant colonel at the center of the Iran-contra operation, a clandestine effort to sell weapons to Iran and divert profits to support rebels in Nicaragua, despite legislation prohibiting assistance to the group because of human rights abuses. Today, tropical undergrowth is erasing traces of the secret base.
But that history still casts a shadow, skeptics of the American effort say.
“We know from the Reagan years that the infrastructure of the country of Honduras — both its governance machinery as well as its security forces — simply is not strong enough, is not corruption-proof enough, is not anti-venal enough to be a bastion of democracy,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy research group in Washington.
The American ambassador to Honduras, Lisa J. Kubiske, is responsible for bringing order to the complex and sometimes competing mix of interagency programs, and she oversees compliance with human rights legislation. She described the Honduran armed forces as “eager and capable partners in this joint effort.”
One of those partners, Cmdr. Pablo Rodríguez of the Honduran Navy, is the senior officer at the second of the forward bases, at Puerto Castilla on the coast. He pointed to his “bonus fleet” of several dozen vessels seized from smugglers, the fastest of which were retrofitted with Kevlar armor over outboard engines and mounts for machine guns for chasing drug runners. The improvements were financed by the State Department.
“We have limitations on how quickly we can move, even when we get strong indications of a shipment of drugs,” Commander Rodríguez said. “We can’t do anything without air support. So that’s why it’s very important to have the United States coming in here.”
Permanent American deployments overseas are shrinking to match a smaller Pentagon budget — and missions will increasingly reflect partnership efforts traditionally assigned to Special Operations forces. A significant effort is the presence of 200 of those troops assigned as trainers across Central America.
The third forward base, at El Aguacate in central Honduras, has sprung from an abandoned airstrip used by the C.I.A. during the Reagan era.
Narcotics cartels, transnational organized crime and gang violence are designated as threats by the United States and Central American governments, with a broader consensus than when that base was built — in an era when the region was viewed through a narrow prism of communism and anticommunism.
“The drug demand in the United States certainly exacerbates challenges placed upon our neighboring countries fighting against these organizations — and why it is so important that we partner with them in their countering efforts,” said Vice Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, the No. 2 officer at Southern Command, which is responsible for military activities in Central and South America.
Before this assignment, Admiral Kernan spent years in Navy SEAL combat units, and he sees the effort to combat drug cartels as necessary to preventing terrorists from co-opting criminal groups for attacks in this hemisphere.
There are “insidious” parallels between regional criminal organizations and terror networks, Admiral Kernan said. “They operate without regard to borders,” he said, in order to smuggle drugs, people, weapons and money.Story here.