August 14, 2011

Source: AlJazeera

It was National Armed Forces Day, a holiday in Guatemala, and I was standing on the field of the Mariscal Sabala Military Base in Guatemala City talking to a high-ranking member of the government as we watched a show of aerial skill put on by the air force and special forces commandos.  

The exhibition began with a large US made Bell UH1H military helicopter, similar to the kind used in the Vietnam War, from which a half dozen or so soldiers jumped out.

"That helicopter was confiscated from drug traffickers in Izabal, on our Caribbean coast," I was told. "The Guaremalan military only has two old helicopters of its own and only a handful of planes."

In Guatemala, the battle against local drug traffickers and their even more powerful Mexican associates is as uneven a fight as you will  find.  

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