Drug smugglers rule jungle no man's land

[Euphoric]

Drug smugglers rule jungle no man's land


Guatemala's ragtag forces of law and order no match for the gangs that roam the Peten
Jul 14, 2008 04:30 AM

Los Angeles Times


EL NARANJO, GUATEMALA–Here in the Wild West of the Central American isthmus, tough hombres like "the Bald Guys" make mahogany trees disappear in the middle of the night. Here, "cattle ranch" cowboys wrangle cocaine that falls from the sky.

This is the Peten, for centuries a thinly populated frontier where jaguars ruled an unspoiled natural kingdom and the rainbow-coloured scarlet macaw flew unmolested over towering Mayan temples.

Now the jungle region is a lawless no man's land, prized by smugglers for its proximity to the lightly guarded border with Mexico and for the swamps and dense forest undergrowth that give them an advantage over the ragtag forces of law and order. It's a place where immigration police have no guns, park rangers have neither radios nor automobiles, and the Guatemalan air force can't see or chase the "kamikaze" cocaine-smuggling pilots.

Drug trafficking is the most profitable activity here, with the Peten serving as a key way station in a vast air-and-land route from Colombian coca fields to U.S. consumers. But many other illicit enterprises thrive, too.

Every working day, young boatman Juan Izquierdo ferries small groups of illegal immigrants into Mexico along the San Pedro River, one of several smuggling routes along the Mexico-Guatemala frontier. Izquierdo helps his passengers avoid a nearby Mexican border post, their first serious obstacle on the journey from Honduras, El Salvador and other Central American countries to the United States.

Izquierdo, in fact, has little to fear. The officers staffing the nearest Guatemalan immigration office, in the river port of El Naranjo, have no guns, no boats and just one vehicle. The post consists of a teetering shack overlooking the river.

Immigration agent Manuel Salguero points out a passing boat that appears to be ferrying immigrants and says, "To tell you the truth, all we do is watch them go by."

Even if they wanted to arrest the smugglers, they face one big obstacle: They have no holding cells.

Staff and equipment shortages are endemic to every law enforcement and military agency operating in the region. An overstretched army brigade of about 700 soldiers covers an area the size of Belgium. Guatemala's air force owns two helicopters and no tactical radar capable of detecting low-flying aircraft.

In June, in response to growing lawlessness in the border regions, the Guatemalan government announced it would dispatch 500 more police and soldiers to the Peten and other areas later this year.

Large chunks of the Peten are ostensibly protected as national parks and nature reserves.

"The wood poachers have satellite telephones, and we don't even have two-way radios," says Claudia Mariela Lopez, regional director of the National Protected Areas Commission, which oversees the reserves.

North of Flores, the Peten capital, a criminal band known as Los Pelones, the Bald Guys, holds sway, according to federal and local officials. Unpaved roads run through here, among smouldering trees and brush set aflame by farmers. "There's no way to oppose them," one official says. "The only way you can come in here is with heavy weapons."

The targets of the poachers are exotic woods in the jungle, especially the umbrella-shaped mahogany trees that bring poachers a small bonanza – the wood is prized for furniture and guitars.

Marlon Hernandez, a ranger supervisor, says he was attacked this year by a mob of 200 people in San Andres, when he and other rangers tried to arrest wood poachers.

"They would have killed us, but we ran away," Hernandez says.

But the money wood poachers make is small compared with the drug trade. "The amounts of money they deal with are so large they can buy any politician, any judge, official or police officer," says Yuri Melini of the Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social Action in Guatemala City.

Organized crime groups have bought the loyalty of large numbers of poor farmers who take over broad swaths of jungle as squatters, Melini says. The squatters present themselves as needy migrants from other regions of this overpopulated country and offer the drug dealers cover and protection.

These "narco cattle ranches" and "narco communities" have spread in ostensibly protected regions of the Peten, Melini says, wreaking havoc on an environment normally lush with towering canopies of trees, spider monkeys, river turtles and countless other flora and fauna.

http://www.thestar.com/article/459583g

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good stuff!