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Narcos and Politicos: The Politics of Drug Trafficking in Honduras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Mark B. Rosenberg
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Extract

Honduras Has Emerged as a cocaine transshipment point between Colombia and the United States. One informed source suggests that as much as fifty tons of cocaine have moved through the country during the last fifteen months. This paper examines the politics of drug trafficking in Honduras. Special attention is given to the relations between drug trafficking and the Honduran political environment, the emergence of a new “powder elite, ” and the manner in which US and Honduran authorities are addressing these problems.

One of the hemisphere's poorest countries by almost all standards of development, Honduras has a population of about 4.5 million people and an area the size of Tennessee. Unlike neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador where a national oligarchy has enhanced its wealth through an extensive coffee industry, Honduras first emerged in the international economy through its foreign-owned banana enterprises which still are a leading source of foreign exchange.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 30 , Issue 2-3: Special Issue: Assessing the Americas' War on Drugs , Summer 1988 , pp. 143 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1988

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