This week we see a shift in the violence experienced in the region, from being state perpetrated to other more marginal groups.
The disappearance of people in the internal conflicts of several countries was a common feature, even to the most recent event in Colombia. It is interesting to see that mothers are the first to speak out and act as a threat to the government, and it is also an important moment that drove women out of the private sphere into the public (although for the wrong reasons)
The talk on drugs is an important and very complicated one. As Dawson points out, this is such a high profit business that if it is destroyed in one part of Latin America, the vacuum is quickly filled in another part of Latin America. And it is also interesting to see the role of corruption in fighting drug trafficking and other crimes. The states are so weak that even the police and military are easily influenced into becoming part of the drug trade and allowing it to continue its operation. People are also likely to be involved in the drug trafficking because it is an easy and fast way of making money. The complexity of the situation goes beyond Latin America and what people often seem to forget is that there is a consumption market in the United States and Europe that fuels this drug trafficking culture to exist. It is not simply about fighting the drug trafficking in Latin America, it is about finding ways to combat the consumption of the drug as well. And I think this is what many of the initiatives have failed to see, Plan Colombia helped dismantle drug cartels in Colombia but simply created a void that was rapidly filled with Mexican cartels, and now that the Mexican government is fighting against these cartels, the drug trafficking has moved to Central America. And I think that this will continue to happen, due to the profitability of the business, unless something is done about the production.
My question for this week is: how can drug trafficking be combated in Latin American countries given the high profitability, and easy/fast money that rural/poor population make out of the business?
Interesting read. After watching the videos I didn’t realise the extent through which people had to go through just to bring drugs into countries- or rather drug traffick. Without a doubt it is a complicated situation and your question is extremely throught provoking- I think at the time drugs were beneficial to some extent for Latin America as it would bring in huge amounts of easy and fast money to the poor population but at the same time it put their lives and health at risk as usually they had to ingest cocaine to be able to transport it and it would sometimes cause cocaine overdoses and ultimately their death.