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08/28/2005:

"''Central America's Street Gangs Are Drawn into the World of Geopolitics''"

Over the course of the past year, the Bush administration has begun to shift its focus in Latin America away from asymmetrical threats, such as terrorism, and toward the more traditional power politics of the region: containing the left-leaning governments bent on curtailing Washington's influence in the region. Threats previously espoused by the administration -- Hezbollah's presence in the tri-border region and in Chile, Venezuela's Margarita Island serving as a terrorist resort and Islamic groups working with the drug traffickers in the region -- have all seemingly been knocked down in their threat level in public declarations. However, in Central America, Washington is getting serious about a problem it helped to create -- and not simply because the region's street gangs and vast criminal networks are making their presence known in the United States.

While media reports, often fueled by some in the Bush administration, have focused on the possibility of al-Qaeda tapping into the criminal networks controlled by the gangs, this threat seems overstated for the time being. However, the street gangs represent an opportunity Washington is likely to exploit in the region. Even as Washington adopts a traditional power politics stance in Latin America, it can be expected that it will use Central America's gang problem to deepen its influence in the region through joint initiatives and training programs, in part designed to block Venezuela's attempts to put a rift between the region and Washington.
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