Costa Rica Seeks Extension of US Military Presence, Claims False War on Drugs

This week the Costa Rican government is calling for a six month extension of the permission to allow 46 US Coast Guard ships and 27 US Navy vessels in Costa Rican waters. The Costa Rican Minister of Security José María Tijerina said that the request is part of ongoing operations against drug trafficking.

The Government asked the deputies to extend permission for U.S. artillery boats to dock at ports in Costa Rica for another six months, from 1st January to 30th June 2011. The boats would be authorized to dock on the Pacific coast and the Caribbean, to refuel or escort anti-drug boats, but crews can not enter Costa Rica with weapons.

According to the Costa Rica Constitution, only Congress can approve foreign military vessels docking in Costa Rica.

“It’s a routine request. Costa Rica does not have to discontinue monitoring the seas. Costa Rica has the right and nobody should feel alarmed,” said Tijerina. “It is to patrol the sea, not Calero Island (Caribbean end of the border recently invaded by the Nicaraguan military). We do not care how the Nicaraguan authorities interpret this.” He states that: “We do not adjust our foreign policy to please the likes of Ortega (President of Nicaragua),” and also added that: “If they are annoyed or they don’t like it, that’s their problem.”

On this occasion, the U.S. government sent their list which included fewer boats and also excluded the large helicopter carriers. During the most recent period, 53 Coast Guard ships and 46 Navy vessels had permission to dock in Costa Rica, in the next six months the figures will drop to 46 and 27 respectively. For example, in the case of Coast Guard crew numbers would fall from about 4,700 to 4,300 while the number of helicopters would rise another 34 to 43.

The Costa Rican Minister of Security stressed that not all boats will come at once, but each is authorized to do so if needed and, members Juan Carlos Mendoza (PAC) and Walter Cespedes (PUSC) announced their opposition to the arrival of US Navy’s ships.

In my first article in July 2010 46 US Warships Plus 7,000 US Marines On Route To Costa Rica? I asked “With this kind of nation destroying firepower, it gives real meaning to the expression “war on drugs”, but if this a real six month “war on drugs” we should expect to see some fantastic results, right?”

While I wholeheartedly agree with genuinely serious efforts made to stop drug trafficking, the one glaringly obvious question that nobody appears to be asking is how successful has this “war on drugs” been against the traffickers?

After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what?

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked. “In the grand scheme, it has not been successful,” Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. “Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.”

On 17th September 2010 in an article in La Nacion the Costa Rican Minister of Security José María Tijerina declared that since 2006 Costa Rica had dismantled 381 organizations (48 of them international) and captured 102 tons of cocaine which is a very impressive haul for a tiny little Central American country with limited resources.

Tijerina has always insisted that “we need better support” but even though Mexico receives more than US$800 million from the US as part of the Merida Initiative to help with the “war on drugs”, Costa Rica receives a tiny fraction of that – only US$5.3 million.

Yet the US claims to have accurate intelligence on illegal drug trafficking – one can only assume from satellites – which one would hope would guarantee a lot of big drug busts… The US Southern Command says that 970 tons of cocaine will pass through the isthmus this year and, in 2009 US authorities detected 552 “suspicious” maritime voyages on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and 489 on the Caribbean.