With Costa Rica increasingly becoming host to international drug trafficking organizations, President Laura Chinchilla claims that the Central American country’s democratic institutions, which have a relatively strong reputation, have never faced such a serious threat.
In an interview with the Global Post, President Chinchilla claimed that her country is doing its best to fight the recent crime epidemic, but needs “more instruments, more resources, and more international cooperation” to win.
The Costa Rican president also characterized organized crime as one of the biggest threats to the country in its history. “This has to do with the institutions, and what [drug cartels] do is corrupt institutions to disrupt the legal system and the rule of law,” Chinchilla said. “I don’t remember in our whole history a menace like this menace from organized crime”
InSight Crime Analysis
Costa Rica has long stood out as a bastion of peaceful democracy in a historically unstable region. It is the only country in Central America with no standing army, and has not had an internal political conflict since 1949. But while it is still the least violent country in the region, drug trafficking is on the rise.
As InSight Crime has reported in a three-part series on the subject, drug trafficking networks from Mexico and other countries are increasingly using the country for drug trafficking, and the capacity of local police to combat organized crime is questionable.