WorldCity Business Magazine

In our own backyard

by Ken Roberts

The military’s initiative to show the world to U.S. business leaders has not yet spotlighted Central America. It should.

Thanks to an interesting Pentagon program, I am among the relatively few Americans who not only have been to the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas but have also set foot in North Korea.

Thanks to same Joint Civilian Operations Conference program, I have experienced a gravity-defying Tailhook landing aboard an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. (It’s largely a steamy-hot and claustrophobic experience, but it makes wonderful cocktail party chit-chat.)

Now, through the same JCOC program, I have been introduced to the wrenching poverty of La Ceiba, a mountainous coastal city in Honduras. There, on a picturesque hilltop reached only by a parched and gutted dirt road, U.S. military men and women are building a cinder block schoolhouse under the broiling sun.

The Defense Department is considering a JCOC mission to take a few dozen business leaders from around the country to Central America to show them what is going on in the region. It would be the first such mission to Latin America and the Caribbean.

As a dry run to that, I traveled to Central America with a group of other South Florida JCOC alums, learning more about the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command’s operations in the region. Add my vote to those who think a full-fledged mission would be a good idea.

Since its founding in 1948, the JCOC has been shepherding business and community leaders to U.S. military installations around the country and, lately, around the world, in a public relations campaign to increase awareness among the civilian population about the military’s role and efforts.

Later this year, a group of newly selected JCOC participants is headed to the Middle East, a region under the jurisdiction of the Tampa-based U.S. Central Command. It will be the first such journey to that volatile region. Other veterans of the JCOC program, which began during the Truman Administration, not long after the end of World War II, have seen European operations as well as installations in this country.

While a trip to Central America might not have quite the pizzazz of those to more exotic destinations, the region has important U.S. security interests. They include, not surprisingly, SouthCom’s efforts in the region.

At the same time, the Americas’ interconnectivity of poverty, gangs and illegal drugs also has important implications for the United States.

Before flying to Honduras’ third-largest city, our group had stopped in Key West at the Truman Annex, where we heard from not only the military but also the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration about the effort to staunch the flow of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. As proud as those units are and as hard as they are working, it wasn’t the most reassuring assessment.

Estimating the percentage of the cocaine that is intercepted is an inaccurate science at best. How can you know what you can’t know? Over the course of the trip, we heard estimates ranging from as high as 20 percent to as low as 8 percent.

The graver danger is the increasingly global appetite for cocaine, which is growing aggressively in Europe and in places like Brazil. But for now and the foreseeable future, the No. 1 consumer is the United States and the No. 1 producer is Colombia.

Cocaine is virtually unstoppable because it is fueled by the same thing that powers the U.S. economy, the desire for profit. The Fortune 500 would salivate over margins like those enjoyed by drug lords.

A poor Colombian or Central American who might work an entire year for a few thousand dollars can make up to $60,000 for one boat run to the United States.

So high are the money stakes that drugshuttling aircraft are viewed as “disposable” after the landings, we were told. And the cocaine industry is building its own “gofasts,” or boats rigged with four outboards.

It is willing to set them ablaze and sink them in the rare instances when they are detected, as we saw from footage captured by military aircraft.

In one of the ironies of the drug battle, once the evidence is destroyed, the Coast Guard must sometimes rescue the crew now adrift in the Gulf waters and return them to safety.

JCOC would do well to help more U.S. business and community leaders understand the complexity of the situation. The executives should see the footage we saw and listen to the experiences of those on the front lines of the battle.

Similarly, JCOC participants from Des Moines, Omaha, Cleveland and elsewhere would benefit from a peek at the poverty that sits in our own backyard and an understanding of what that need implies.

There is a battle over illegal immigration being played out in Washington and in street protests across the country. That immigration is driven by the same hunger that drives us all: the desire for a better life for ourselves and our families.

Out of this poverty arise the gangs that terrorize Central America and have spread to U.S. cities like Los Angeles. Once arrested in the United States, the gang members are shipped back home where their illicit activities flourish again.

U.S. citizens need to understand more about Latin America and the Caribbean. To do that, they must see it first hand rather than on the evening news or in the morning newspaper.

A JCOC mission to Latin America and the Caribbean would be an opportunity to showcase our military’s humanitarian efforts, whether constructing schools or rebuilding after devastating hurricanes or mudslides. It is also an opportunity to let them see how what happens in the region affects the United States.

Bringing four dozen or so JCOC participants to Miami and then sending them onto Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, to Colombia and to Honduras is a good idea. Asia may be a sexier trip and easier to sell to would-be participants, and Europe is equally appealing. Even a trip to the Middle East might seem more attractive.

But Latin America matters.