LatinWeek

Central America: On 25 February the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Frank Mora, said that drug traffickers were increasingly moving operations to Central America. Mora's remarks, made in a talk at the US Brookings Institution, reflects growing concern in the US about the growing presence of drug gangs in the region, attributed to the success of anti-drug efforts in Mexico, Colombia and the Caribbean. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Costa Rica and Guatemala tomorrow (5 March) as part of a “strategic evaluation" of Central America. Mora is also planning to visit both countries and El Salvador over the next few weeks. The US plans to assign US$100m in aid for fiscal year 2011 to combat drug trafficking in the region as part of the US$1.4bn Mérida Initiative, a multi-year programme to combat organized crime in Mexico and Central America.