From July 1^st to December 31^st, 46 vessels from the United States Coast Guard will be allowed to patrol the waters of Costa Rica and dock at ports in Puntarenas, Guanacaste and Limon. According to digital newspaper El Pais, the resolution was passed by a majority of legislators at the National Assembly on Thursday, and it originated from a request by the U.S. Embassy made to the Ministry of Public Safety Mario Zamora.

The approval is in line with an existing Joint Patrol Treaty between Costa Rica and the United States, and the treaty allows the National Assembly to discuss and vote on the matter. Three legislators voted against the resolution: Jose Maria Villalta from the Broad Front Party, as well as Carmen Munoz and Claudio Monge from the Civic Action Party. Ms. Munoz explained to El Pais the reason for her disapproval:

“The results from this joint patrol are negligible. We must review this treaty because the results are vague. The U.S. government does not inform us of any concrete results, and they don’t even inform us ahead of time what their plan of action is.”

Some of the 46 American vessels that will patrol the waters of Costa Rica include the 115-meters Hamilton class cutters, at one point the largest in the U.S. Coast Guard fleet. There are nine active Hamilton class cutters in the service of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and they are armed with a 76 mm cannon, twin Mark 38 25 mm “chain guns”, a 20 mm Phalanx Close In Weapons System (an “R2-D2” gun). A cutter such as the USCGC Jarvis, based in Honolulu, can also deploy a helicopter from her aft flight deck and carry a crew of 178 personnel, including armed boarding team members and intelligence officers.

The number of U.S. Coast Guard vessels patrolling Costa Rica in the next six months will be greater than the fleet that serves the USCG Sector Miami, which extends from Palm Bay in the north to the southern tip of Florida. About 15 cutters and a dozen smaller patrol boats are assigned to that area.

The U.S. War on Drugs in Central America Faces Challenges

Although the U.S. Coast Guard serves Homeland Security and safeguards the coastal interests of the American people, its drug interdiction mission has often ventured outside of continental waters in support of the War on Drugs. One of the main objectives of the Joint Patrol Treaty between Costa Rica and the U.S. is to fight drug smuggling in the high seas.

The latest joint patrol approval by the National Assembly should come as relief to the U.S., a country that has faced difficulties in 2012 with regard to the War on Drugs in Central America. Earlier this year, The Costa Rica Star reported on the willingness of President Laura Chinchilla to discuss alternatives in Latin America to the War on Drugs. The President of Guatemala Otto Perez Molina has expressed his support for a legalization framework in order to stave off violence in the region.

Over the last two months, The New York Times has run a series of articles about one of the hottest spots in the front line of the U.S. War on Drugs: Honduras. Journalists Thom Shanker and Charlie Savage recently wrote about an incident in Ahuas, a river community in Honduras which left four people dead. According to the Mayor of Ahuas, two of the people killed were pregnant women:

“[…] a drug smuggling plane being tracked from Venezuela landed at an airstrip and its cargo was unloaded and taken to a boat. American helicopters carrying Honduran police officers and a commando-style squad of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration swooped in and seized the cocaine. Shortly thereafter, a firefight erupted in which four Hondurans in another boat were killed.”

The New York Times journalists explained that they were allowed to watch the video, which has not been officially released. Their article described ramming of boats and heavy gunfire exchanges, including fire from a door gunner in one of the helicopters. The people of Ahuas and the Mayor have decried the killings and the overwhelming force used in the river raid.

Nicaragua is the latest Central American nation at odds with the U.S. War on Drugs. After Washington announced that it was suspending its waiver of fiscal transparency for Nicaragua and thus eliminating three million dollars in aid that would have been used for military and anti-drug efforts, President Daniel Ortega threatened to shut down the American non-governmental groups in Nicaragua that receive aid from the U.S. as retaliation.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly in Costa Rica still has one debate pending with regard to the Joint Patrol Treaty: the entry of U.S. Navy ships. Although these heavily armed military vessels are not part of the Joint Patrol Treaty per se, the U.S. states that their presence is needed to support the operations of the Coast Guard.