The National Police have been recognized by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for their outstanding work in recent years against the drug trade, including numerous busts totaling several tons of cocaine. Top DEA officials recently met with President Daniel Ortega, who has been critical of the work of the agency here.
Ortega took the opportunity to propose further joint cooperation with patrols in the Caribbean, including the waters that Nicaragua was awarded in a World Court ruling on a long-running territorial dispute with Colombia. This poses a conundrum for the United States. It brokered the treaty back in the early 20th Century to divide the sea at the 82nd meridian, slicing off a large portion of Nicaragua’s offshore holdings, including the archipelago of San Andrés, occupied by Columbia since 1822. The DEA also has a cooperation program with that government to stem the flow of coke.
The Colombian Foreign Minister was quick to respond to Ortega’s proposal, calling it a provocation that could lead to chaos and threatening to extend Colombia’s control in the Caribbean to Nicaragua’s shores. So which way will the US lean? Towards the country that produces much of the cocaine or towards the one that is intercepting tons of it on its way to the US consumers?