Central America
From target to enforcer: Honduras minister vows ‘surgical’ cartel fight
AFP
Forced into hiding after targeting a drug cartel with alleged ties to the then-government, Honduras’s hounded police chief-turned interior minister has vowed to extract criminal tentacles in the State with “surgical” precision.
Ramon Sabillon, minister in the new cabinet of leftist Xiomara Castro, told AFP he was fired from his former job as police chief after dismantling a drug cartel in 2014 without informing then-president Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Hernandez is today awaiting extradition to the United States on drug trafficking charges.
The cartel he had hit, named Valle Valle, “had penetrated the structures of State” under Hernandez, Sabillon told AFP in an interview.
Hernandez had him fired, he said, and “threatened with death, I had to leave the country… I had to either save my life or continue in the police… I preferred life.”
Now Sabillon is back as Castro’s interior minister, and in a twist of irony one of his first tasks was to execute an arrest warrant for Hernandez.
Hernandez, who held office from 2014 to early this year, is accused of having facilitated the smuggling of some 500 tons of drugs — mainly from Colombia and Venezuela — to the United States via Honduras since 2004.
In return, he allegedly received millions of dollars in bribes as well as protection money from drug kingpins such as Mexico’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Hernandez’s brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernandez, is serving a life sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.
– ‘A mafia’ –
“When organized crime gets embedded in the State, it becomes a mafia because it holds the power of the State. So it is a surgical job that we have to do, democratically, by enforcing the law,” Sabillon told AFP.
Extraditing a former president, he added, “sends a strong message to the entire population, to those seeking public office, that the State will not tolerate” such actions.
At least 40 Hondurans are sought by the United States on drug allegations.
The minister said a number of coca plantations and laboratories have been dismantled since the beginning of the year.
Cartels are seeking to become more autonomous, he explained, with production in Honduras itself, “so they need not depend on the point of origin” in South American countries such as Colombia and Peru.
Hernandez, a right-wing lawyer, left office on January 27 when leftist Castro became president of the country with a poverty rate of at least 60 percent among its 10 million inhabitants.
The country’s first woman president faces an uphill struggle to reform a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Tens of thousands of its citizens have tried to flee to the United States.
She has vowed to tackle deep-seated government corruption.
Central America
Bukele warns crime can become a ‘parallel government’ during visit to Costa Rica
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, accompanied by his official delegation, arrived at the site where the new facilities of the Center for the High Containment of Organized Crime (CACCO) are being built. Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves welcomed Bukele, marking the start of the cornerstone-laying ceremony.
“Thank you very much to President Rodrigo Chaves and his cabinet for this invitation,” Bukele said, noting that this was his fourth meeting with the Costa Rican leader in the past two years.
In his address, Bukele stressed that insecurity is a problem that undermines all aspects of society. “When insecurity advances, jobs collapse, education becomes more difficult, and the economy slows down. People stop going out, businesses close early, investment leaves, and tourism disappears,” he said.
The Salvadoran president warned that if crime continues to grow, it can turn into a parallel government—“the dictatorship of gangs, criminals, and drug traffickers.” He added that this situation has not yet occurred in Costa Rica and that the country is still in time to prevent it.
Central America
U.S. and El Salvador maintain close partnership, embassy says
The Chargé d’Affaires of the United States Embassy in El Salvador, Naomi Fellows, said on Monday that relations between the two countries remain “very close” and that both governments continue to work together in several areas of shared interest.
Speaking at a press conference, Fellows highlighted the longstanding friendship between the United States and El Salvador, as well as the achievements reached through bilateral agreements.
“In terms of our relationship with El Salvador, it continues to be very strong, very close. We are partners on security issues, on economic development; partners on migration, and on many other matters,” she said.
Fellows added that the relationship remains solid and is expected to continue strengthening through joint actions and cooperation initiatives.
On security, she noted that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has underscored the results of the measures implemented by the government of President Nayib Bukele to improve public safety in the country.
Senior U.S. officials have visited El Salvador to observe firsthand the impact of the Territorial Control Plan, including tours of the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Fellows also emphasized the strong personal ties between the two nations, pointing to family and friendship connections that link Salvadorans and Americans.
Central America
Taiwan’s $10 million donation after 2001 earthquakes allegedly diverted in El Salvador
Amid the national tragedy left by the earthquakes of January 13 and February 13, 2001, a controversial corruption scandal emerged that later implicated former presidents Francisco Flores and Elías Antonio Saca, as well as senior executives of the ARENA party.
Although there were efforts to conceal a scheme involving the misuse of public funds, subsequent investigations revealed that between October 2003 and April 2004 the government of Taiwan, led at the time by President Chen Shui-bian, delivered at least three checks totaling $10 million in donations to El Salvador. The funds were diverted and never recorded by the Technical Secretariat for External Financing, the government body responsible for coordinating and monitoring international cooperation resources.
The plight of more than 1.5 million earthquake victims prompted an outpouring of international solidarity. However, it also fueled ambitions among sectors that allegedly took advantage of the emergency to improperly appropriate resources intended to ease the suffering of those affected.
Part of the $10 million donation was earmarked for the construction of housing for residents of Las Colinas, one of the communities hardest hit by the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck on January 13, 2001, at 11:35 a.m. Plans also included the creation of a memorial park to honor the 525 victims buried by landslides.
At a press conference in January 2014, Alejandro Flores, president of the Las Colinas community board, stated that residents received some assistance from Taiwanese cooperation funds. However, he clarified that this support came from different resources and that the destination of the $10 million donation was never known to them.
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