6. In 1985 the first DEA agent assigned to undertake undercover work entered El Salvador. He later wrote, “As I leafed through the files, I discovered the drug war in this corner of the globe amounted to piles of reports documenting traffickers’ identities and movements, but few seizures and arrests.” Castillo and Harmon, Powderburns, 112.
7. See generally U.S. House, Nicaraguan Government, and Cockburn and St. Clair, Whiteout, 283.
8. U.S. Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (hereafter cited as INCSR) (1991), 145. In the early 1990s, one source claims, the Cali cartel bought four 230-kilo cluster bombs from Salvadoran military officials. Strong, Whitewash, 267.
9. Metric tons are hereafter referred to simply as tons. “Costa Rica el guardián de Centroamérica,” Siglo Veintiuno (Guatemala), 14 February 1999, 22.
10. The Kerry Commission concluded that “individuals who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking, the support network of the Contras was used by drug trafficking organizations, and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers.” See U.S. Senate, Law Enforcement: Report, 36. Once the Sandinista regime took control, the CIA and DEA, through undercover informant Barry Seal, procured photos implicating Sandinistas in cocaine trafficking. A former internal affairs official in Nicaragua’s Interior Ministry, Álvaro José Baldizón Avilés, likewise testified that Nicaraguan officials had trafficked in cocaine. Imprisoned Nicaraguan trafficker Enrique Miranda Jaime stated that from 1981 to 1985 he had been personally involved in Sandinista efforts to raise funds by drug trafficking. And, Medellín insider Roberto Escobar later revealed that Sandinista officials had agreed with the cartel to hide its leading fugitives and to use an
island for aerial trafficking. See U.S. House, Nicaraguan Government, 3; Shannon, Desperados, 150–55; CIA, Allegations of Connections, 6; and Escobar, Accountant’s Story, 69, 119.
11. “Central America Fights Its ‘Drug Bridge’ Image,” United Press International, 30 August 1990.
12. In 2007 Nicaraguan authorities seized 20 tons of cocaine, 184 kilos of heroin, and $5.5 million in confiscated assets, a twelve-fold increase over the prior year. “Police Make Record Drug Busts in 2007,” Nica Times (Costa Rica) (hereafter cited as NT [CR]), 11 January 2008, 2. In 1991 Salvadoran authorities seized approximately three tons of Medellín cocaine in a container off a Liberian ship transporting goods from South America for a Mexican company. See “Salvador’s Drug Role Growing,” Miami Herald (hereafter cited as MH [US]), 4 December 1991, international ed., 3A, and “Gran decomiso de coca en El Salvador,” La Nación (Costa Rica) (hereafter cited as LN [CR]), 30 October 1991, 30A.
13. Use of the word transnational is meant to highlight the fact that nonstate actors engaged in the drug trade are carrying out activities that cross state boundaries, as opposed to the interactions between governments that are the traditional focus of international relations. See Farer, Transnational Crime, xvi, n1.
14. See Reuter, Crawford, and Cave, Sealing the Borders, v, 1n2.
15. See generally Kenney, From Pablo to Osama.
16. We are indebted here to Alan Knight’s views on empiricism and theory in scholarship regarding Latin America; see his “Modern Mexican State,” 177–80.
17. Strange, Retreat of the State, xvi.
18. Fowler and Bunck, Sovereign State, 2–3.
19. Krasner, Sovereignty; Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty.
20. See Strange, Retreat of the State, 68.
21. See Walker, “Limits of Coercive Diplomacy,” 143; and Friman and Andreas, Illicit Global Economy, vii, 2.
22. Cf. Claude, Global System, 35.
23. With a few liberties we paraphrase here Strange, Retreat of the State, xii.
24. Friman and Andreas, Illicit Global Economy, 3.
25. At present, very few Central Americans and no governments favor legalization of all or even most drugs. A 1993 Costa Rica poll, for example, found 93 percent opposed to legalizing drugs. “Ticos opuestos a legalizar venta de drogas,” LN (CR), 14 October 1992, 1. In 2009, however, the Argentinian and then the Colombian Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional prosecution for possession of drugs for personal use, an approach that may gain traction in Central America. “New Approach to Drugs Seeks Footing in C.R.,” Tico Times (Costa Rica) (hereafter cited as TT [CR]), 16 April 2010, 3.
26. See, for instance, Decker and Chapman, Drug Smugglers, and Reuter and Haaga, Drug Markets.
27. See Robinson and Scherlen, Lies; Gootenberg, Andean Cocaine, 327; and Reuter, “Mythical Numbers.”
28. Consider, for instance, the following exchange recounted in the memoirs of a DEA agent temporarily assigned to a desk job in the Latin American unit. Another agent advised him, “‘The other half of the job is makin’ up fact sheets and briefing papers—you know statistical bullshit, how we’re winnin’ the war—so one of these clowns can go on TV or testify before Congress.’ ‘Where do you get the statistics?’ Tom laughed, ‘Outta your head, where else?’” Levine, Big White Lie, 129. If some DEA statistics have lacked reliability, one must wonder about the data compiled by police forces across Central America that may be less professional still.
29. Here, the situation in Central America has analogues elsewhere in the region. For instance, for the allegation that the U.S. State Department was underestimating Mexican marijuana production for political reasons, see Shannon, Desperados, 126.
30. Thoumi, Political Economy, 180, 201n4.
31. For example, when annual marijuana seizures are reported without distinguishing between domestic marijuana and Colombian marijuana being transshipped through a country, its utility is reduced for those studying bridge-state trafficking, as it is when annual totals of seized cocaine erratically factor in instances in which traffickers jettisoned their cargo while being pursued or U.S. Coast Guard seizures with national ship riders on board. Statistics can mislead in more subtle ways as well. For instance, much of the marijuana grown in Central America for export is of the sinsemilla strain, in which the top is the most valuable portion. However, when governments reported that a certain number of marijuana plants had been eradicated, they did not state whether the tops of the plants had already been harvested, a ploy used by marijuana