-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.newsmakingnews.com/#ARMS%20TRAFFIC%20TO%20COLUMBIA%20WORRYING%20COS TA%20RICAN%20OFFICIALS Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.newsmakingnews.com/#ARMS%20TRAFFIC%20TO%20COLUMBIA%20WORRYING %20COSTA%20RICAN%20OFFICIALS">NewsMakingNews Secret Connections Covert Operat… </A> ----- ARMS TRAFFIC TO COLUMBIA WORRYING COSTA RICAN OFFICIALS. By Tim Rogers© Tico Times Staff 9/22/00 While the U.S. "War on Drugs" continues to draw extensive media coverage throughout the Americas, here in Costa Rica, cocaine is not the only lucrative contraband being smuggled across the borders. In the last two weeks, Panamanian officials have discovered two large illegal weapons shipments that reportedly originated in Nicaragua and passed through Costa Rica before being confiscated en route to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Totaling more than 3,000 lbs. of military explosives, 300 AK-47 assault rifles, 318 grenade launchers, and more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition, the Cold War relics are reported to have passed from Nicaragua to Panama hidden in vegetable trucks — a fact that is worrying Costa Rican officials. According to a report in the daily La Nación, Minister of Public Security Rogelio Ramos met with members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) last Thursday to ask for help in curbing the illegal flow of weapons through Costa Rica. "We agreed to share all of our proposals with the U.S. to see how they can help us combat the problem [of weapons trafficking]," Ramos told La Nación. According to Ramos, the U.S. government shares an interest in combating arms traffic and will most likely supply the aid Costa Rica needs to fight the flow of contraband. However, when asked by The Tico Times about the meeting with Ramos, the DEA denied that it ever took place. "Sometimes the local press gets confused about what functions are attributed to different agencies within the U.S. government," Vance Stacy, Country Attaché of the DEA in Costa Rica, told The Tico Times. "The DEA sometimes gets credited [in the press] with doing everything." Stacy went on to clarify that the DEA’s mission in Costa Rica is to work closely with the government to advise, train, and mentor law enforcement agents in combating the trafficking of narcotics across national territory. Through the use of wiretapping, controlling the export of precursor chemicals (legal substances used to process cocaine and other illicit drugs), controlling border checkpoints, monitoring overland transportation routs, and initiating drug prevention programs, the 27-year-old relationship between the DEA and the Costa Rican government has been both positive and successful, according to Stacy. Regardless of which agency of the U.S. government Ramos actually approached for help, arms trafficking through Costa Rica is becoming an issue of serious concern to the government. In response to the recent discoveries of weapons caches in Panama, Ramos met early this week with the director of the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ), representatives from the Attorney General’s office, and members of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DIS) to come up with ways to combat illegal arms-trafficking. The functionaries discussed ways to tighten border controls and increase efforts to monitor the Inter-American Highway for weapons shipments. According to an investigative report last July by La Nación, an AK-47 assault rifle from Nicaragua can be sold for $50 to $100 in Costa Rica, resold for $300 to $700 in Panama, then sold again for $2,000 to the FARC in Colombia. However, not all the weapons smuggled south may be Cold War relics originating in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Although Costa Rica was not directly involved in the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, a 1981 investigation headed by the Legislative Assembly found that several high-ranking government officials were involved in large-scale clandestine weapons trafficking from Cuba to Costa Rica during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In response to a threat of invasion in 1979 by the forces of Anastasio Somoza, then-dictator of Nicaragua, Costa Rica scrambled to borrow weapons from Venezuela and Panama. However, in addition to the weapons on loan from the two "friendly" countries, it was later discovered that Costa Rican President Rodrigo Carazo and former Minister of Security Juan José Echeverría had masterminded a clandestine air bridge operation which supplied tons of Cuban war material to both the Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua and to Costa Rican security forces. According to testimony given by Guillermo Martí, the former security official responsible for receiving the secret arms shipments in Costa Rica, more than 300,000 lbs. of weapons were siphoned off by ranking members of Costa Rica’s security forces during the operation (TT, Jan. 30, 1981). While many of the weapons borrowed from Panama and Venezuela were returned to the respective countries after the threat of invasion passed, an unknown number of weapons trafficked from Cuba are thought to remain in secret caches in the north of Costa Rica. Although the government officials involved in the arms shipments claimed that all the weapons that arrived from Cuba were inventoried and accounted for, official reports suggested otherwise. According to a 1981 audit compiled by the office of the Comptroller General, 2,018 weapons were missing from the nation’s public security arsenals at the beginning of that year (TT, Feb. 6, 1981). Meanwhile, Colombian Police officials have alleged that a number of the arms that are now being smuggled to the FARC are originating in Costa Rica. Ramos was unavailable for comment this week. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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