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Colombian Drug Lords Set To Buy Honduras Election By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras November 26, 1997 - That Colombian cocaine lords are pumping lots of narco-dollars into campaign coffers in Honduras, has become one of the worst-kept secrets in this country, in the last few days before presidential elections. Voters in Honduras, the third poorest country in the Americas, elect a new leader Sunday after campaigning that analysts estimate has cost close to $13.5 million -- double what was spent in the last election in 1993. The minimum wage in Honduras is $79 a month. ``The possibility exists but I cannot speculate,'' said Congressman Carlos Sosa Coello, who is also president of Honduras's Anti-Narcotics Commission, when asked if he fearedColombian drug money was flowing into campaign accounts. ``I think it is a worry -- for society in general,'' added Fidel Omar Borjas, Honduras's chief drug prosecutor, when pressed on whether he was concerned narco-dollars might besullying the fifth civilian elections since military rule ended in 1982. While the laundering of drug money through election campaigns is nothing new in the region, the volume of cash lavished on electioneering this year has shocked observers in acountry where illiteracy and hunger run rife. With no law requiring political parties to disclose their backers or the size of political donations, Hondurans are wondering how parties have paid for months of radio jingles and television commercials that have pushed all normal advertisements off the air. On Wednesday a criminal court judge in this steamy Central American country said he was ready to probe any allegations that drug money was being used to bankroll political campaigns. Colombian traffickers have sharply stepped up their use of Central America's Caribbean coast as a transit point for narcotics destined for the United States, drug experts say. Honduras's remote Mosquito Coast, made famous in the Harrison Ford movie, has become a favorite drop-off point, while its nascent prawn industry offers effective cover. Drug investigators say privately it is almost impossible to police the movements of boats off those 186.4 miles of jungle-fringed beach that stretch all the way to Nicaragua. Earlier this year a Colombian businessman raised eyebrows here when he bought a huge tract of land in the area, which is peppered with clandestine airstrips. ``The Colombians have interests in Honduras,'' said a drug expert working in the region. --------------------------------------------- Lorenzo Dee Belveal, Author
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