QCOSTARICA BLOGS – So far, we certainly are far from the brutality, murder rate and gang threats of El Salvador, but the truth is we do have a pandemic murder scale right here in Paradise.
So far it has mostly been limited to gang members, narcos against narcos but that is changing as in the case of a Monday afternoon’s assassination of a local who has no connection at all to the drug trade.
Similar to El Salvador the killings are not only assigned to the typical areas of danger, but as in Monday, also just outside a taco bar in upscale Santa Ana/Lindora.
According to Q Costa Rica and our very own OIJ the fact is that so far this year there have been 163 murders and the World Health Organization considers anything above 10 murders per 100,000 population is pandemic. In short, uncontrolled and excessive killings compared to other countries.
We, Costa Rica, have been warned over and again about infiltration of major narco-trafficking and yet little law enforcement is dedicated to these crimes and even less to the judicial system which tends to set the suspects free for both lack of funds as well as politics and corruption within.
The reality is that it is only a moment in time before Paradiso becomes dominated by drug dealings in addition to corruption.
We have no military and limited resources on top of law enforcement accomplices. The perfect setting for organize crime. Meld these two things with a heavy dose of bureaucracy and we, in Costa Rica, offer up the near perfect environment for crime, especially organized crime.
With each killing and each transport of drugs, Costa Rica becomes just a little closer to El Salvador.
Unless a concerted and dedicated effort is made to stop it, we will continue to be both pandemics to murder and the future home of gangs. Now we read about “Gangs” but we never have their names and very few arrests have ever been made, less convictions.
Many, while declaring “Peace “ in Paradise have made their voices loud and clear against the U.S military loading up on gasoline in Liberia. This is the same military who patrol the waters on behalf of Cost Rica looking for drug runners. One minute, “Welcome” the next the country cries out is disdain “”they have sent foreign troops on our sacred land.”
So tell us, why CR will not become the next El Salvador?
The universally feared Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 are but a one long day drive to our sanctuary. I recall Dr. Edwin Green of National University San Diego, California, himself a former undercover agent lecturing that the mafia, narco gangs and traficante seek out dysfunctional legal systems, countries who do not intend to purchase sophisticated detection equipment and most of ll a legal system that is made up of politics and operate in self-serving disarray.
That’s us!
