a) Definitions and international views of drug trafficking as a security issue

      The World Heath Organization defines the term "drug" as any substance with the potential to enhance physical or mental welfare and any chemical agent that alters the biochemical or physiological processes of tissues or organisms.  ¹²  If we consider this definition, there would be nothing wrong with the production, transportation, and distribution of all kind of drugs in the market as well as the generation of profits from these activities. However, the core of a cornucopia of political, social and individual health problems is that the use of certain drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, is terribly harmful for an individual's health and their production, transport, sale, and consumption have been forbidden by law or limited to medical and pharmaceutical uses. ¹³  This last fact has, among other factors, led to the rise of criminal organizations that produce and transport these drugs outside legally sanctioned channels.

      Strictly speaking, it is not the drugs (i.e. heroin or cocaine) that are illicit but their production, sale or use in particular circumstances in a given jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs signed in 1961 establishes a framework for the provision of adequate supplies of drugs such as heroin and cocaine for medical and scientific purposes and of measures to prevent diversion into the illicit market. For this reason, within the scope of this dissertation, the terms "illicit drugs" and "controlled substances" will be used as synonyms.  ¹⁴ 

      The production, trade, and consumption of harmful drugs is not a new international concern; it is an old problem that began with the worldwide spread of opium consumption at the beginning of the 20^th century. Between 1912 and 1988, several worldwide treaties were signed with the goal of controlling the production of the increasing diversity and quantity of harmful drugs. ¹⁵  It was recognized in the framework of the UN that drug production and consumption had became a global health problem and a world order problem in the sense that no state could solve it by itself. In the 1960s and 1970s an international regime was set up in the framework of the UN in order to consolidate most of the earlier international agreements. In 1961, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was drafted with the goal of codifying all existing multilateral drug control treaties, including the cultivation of plants that were grown as raw material for the production of narcotic drugs. ¹⁶  The 1961 Convention also established or maintained certain monopolies for the production of drugs for medical and scientific purposes and introduced guarantees for the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts. ¹⁷ 

      The UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances was passed in 1971, following concern about the harmful effects of hallucinogens such as LSD and mescaline, stimulants such as amphetamines, and sedative-hypnotic drugs such as barbiturates. In view of the wide variety of substances and the risks arising from the abuse of these substances and their addictive properties, the necessary control measures were categorized in four separate "Schedules." These schedules were annexed to the Convention; parties to the Convention are obliged to abide by their restrictions. The World Health Organization (WHO) was designated as the agency responsible for deciding, on a medical basis, if a new substance should be included in the four schedules of illicit drugs. The criteria are:

A. "That the substance has the capacity to produce
- A state of dependence, and
- Central nervous system stimulation or depression, resulting in hallucinations or disturbances in motor function or thinking or behavior or perception or mood;
B. That there is sufficient evidence that the substance is being or is likely to be abused so as to constitute a public health and social problem warranting the placing of the substance under international control..." ¹⁸ 

      If the issue of illicit drug abuse and illicit traffic is not new, what certainly is new, as put forth in the next section of this chapter, is the incorporation of the illicit drug trade in the mid-80s in the international security agenda and as a national security problem. It is true that the increasing consumption of illicit drugs represents a global problem, but consumption must be distinguished from the production, transportation, and distribution of these drugs and the generation of profits from these activities. The 1961 and 1971 conventions deal with the control of the licit drug trade and their goal is to prevent the diversion of controlled substances into illegal markets. ¹⁹  As the production, transportation, and distribution of illicit drugs became a serious global problem during the 80s, a set of instruments was developed in the UN framework in order to control the expansion of this activity.

"By the early 1970s, then the work begun with the Shanghai conference and the 1912 convention was largely brought to its culmination. The resulting system of estimates, statistics, authorizations, and controls has made diversion from licit international shipments extremely difficult. Legitimate trade has been rather effectively safeguarded, and trafficking for the purposes of drug abuse has been forces into patently illicit channels. The drug problem has nonetheless continued to intensify. An international drug control regime based primarily on controlling the production of and regulations of legal trade in dangerous drugs has proved valuable in safeguarding medical and scientific uses. It has increased the costs and difficulties of illegal trafficking. It also provides a firm basis for further forms of international cooperation. Alone, however, it is completely inadequate to the problem-in large part because of its conceptual narrowness." ²⁰ 

      The issue of illicit drug traffic is briefly addressed in very general terms in articles 34 (Action against the illicit traffic), 36 (Penal Provisions), and 37 (Seizure and confiscation) of the 1961 Convention, and articles 21 (Action against the illicit traffic) and 22 (Penal Provisions) of the 1971 Convention. In so doing, both conventions retain only the general principles stated in the 1936 Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs, the first international treaty to specifically address the issue of drug trafficking and the first to call for the severe punishment of illicit drug traffickers.

      The main goal of the 1936 convention was to establish equally severe penalties in all countries, to determine measures for extradition of traffickers who escaped from one country to another, and to promote the adoption by the parties of central offices for the supervision and coordination of measures to suppress the illicit trade. ²¹  However, for a variety of reasons, this convention was never fully implemented--in fact, it would be possible to say that the convention was "politically dead" since the convention came into force on October 26, 1939. The outbreak of the Second World War interrupted the normal process of ratification and the application of articles concerning international cooperation. Of the forty-two governments that participated in the conference for "the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs", only twenty-six signed the convention and only twenty-two states ratified this document. ²²  As stated by an analyst,

"vingt-deux Etats seulement ont ratifié le texte à la veille de la seconde guerre mondiale et la vingt-et- unième ratification, celle de l'Espagne a été acquise le 5 juin 1970, la vignt-deuxième, celle du Chili, le 21 novembre 1972, soit avec trente-quatre ans de retard. Les Etats-Unis, l'U.R.S.S. et la Grande Bretagne ne l'ont pas ratifé. De fait la convention de 1936 s'est révélée inacceptable pour un grand nombre d'Etats et seuls ses principes généraux ont été retenus dans la convention unique de 1961.La première contient 25 articles consacrés au traffic illicite, la seconde n'en contient que trois." ²³ 

      The development of a universally accepted legal framework that specifically addresses the issue of illicit drug trafficking would have to wait fifty-two more years and the issue would be raised in fact by the upsurge of the cocaine industry in South America. Beginning in the mid 1980s, both the major drug consumer (U.S.) and the major cocaine producers (the South American states, especially the Andean States of Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia), have considered this criminal activity as a national security problem.

      In 1986, through a secret directive, President Reagan declared illicit drug traffic a national security issue and authorized the utilization of the armed forces in interdiction and eradication, and also the disruption or organized criminal activities. ²⁴  As reported by an analyst,

"The Third World also threatens American interest in ways that are not usually thought of in terms of security. As evidence by a secret presidential directive in 1986, the massive drug trafficking to the United States (most of which originates in the Third World) has become a national security threat. " ²⁵ 

      The stance was maintained under the Bush administration, which increased military involvement in drug interdiction activities, and, like its predecessor, supported and encouraged the involvement of South American Armed Forces in this type of activity. This view is evident in the following strategy statements put forth during the Bush administration:

"While most international threats are potential, the damage and violence caused by the drug trade are actual and pervasive. Drugs are a major threat to our national security." ²⁶ 

'Traffic in illicit drugs imposes exceptional costs on the economy of the United States, undermines our national values and institutions, and is directly responsible for the destruction and loss of many American lives. The international traffic in illicit drugs constitutes a major threat to our national security and to the security of other nations.' ²⁷ 

      President William Clinton's administration did not change this position. Though the bulk of the effort and budget was directed toward the control of domestic consumption, during that administration, the American government supported interdiction, militarization and eradication as the main component of supply control in South America. ²⁸ 

      Before continuing with the analysis it should be made clear that the author partially agrees with the position of Joseph Romm (who analyzes the non-military aspects of U.S. national security) on the following point: if there is a threat for the United States related to illicit drugs, this threat does not necessarily stem from the traffic of these drugs but from their consumption. ²⁹  Whereas growth in U.S. consumption of South American cocaine (and crack and, more recently, heroin) may pose a threat in the long-term to the integrity of the social fabric of that nation, it is the South American states that bear the brunt of the political, economic, social, environmental and military consequences of drug traffic. This is due to two factors. An obvious one is that drug production in all its stages is localized in South America. The second factor (and this will be fully explained in the rest of this chapter) is that the weak nature of the South American states makes them particularly susceptible to the adverse consequences of the illicit drug industry.

      It is drug consumption, which is generated by internal societal causes in the U.S., and not drug trafficking that poses a direct threat to the U.S. social fabric. Drug trafficking is, of course, part of the problem, but is not the cause of consumption in the U.S. As stated by Romm,

"Domestic drug consumption is a societal ill that is not usefully defined as a national security problem [and here is where we disagree]. International drug trafficking, insofar as it supports terrorism and threatens the stability of nations that Washington considers to be of strategic importance, does fall within the realm of traditional security problems, although is not one of the first rank such as nuclear proliferation or the stability in the Persian Gulf. Such a distinction is particularly justifiable since it appears that efforts to destroy or interdict drug supplies will not significantly affect drug use in this country (either because the efforts fail directly or because alternative supplies replace those that are squelched). Drug trafficking should not be seen as the cause of domestic drug consumption and its concomitant problems and, therefore, it should not be viewed as a significant threat to the nation's [the United States] security." ³⁰ 

      Two years before Reagan's secret directive, some South American countries declared drug trafficking a national security concern as these states were beginning to suffer an increasing political instability derived from cocaine trafficking. The governments of drug producer countries and their neighbors stated their concern in the Quito (1984)and New York (1984)declarations against illicit drug traffic. In both documents this illicit activity is defined as a threat to the state and as a crime against humanity. ³¹ 

"Whereas there is ample evidence that the traffic in narcotic drugs is closely linked to plans and activities aimed at subverting the legal order and social peace in our countries, for the furtherance of ignoble mercenary aims [...] Whereas it has been clearly demonstrated that the traffic in drugs is using means of corrupting the political and administrative structures of producer and consumer countries..." ³² 

"[s]ince it [drug trafficking] seriously affects people's lives, health and welfare, has negative impact on the economic and social system and poses a danger to the stability of democratic processes in Latin America..." ³³ 

      These declarations are significant because they were formulated without the direct influence of the United States. ³⁴  An international conference in the UN framework was also asked to deal with this problem.

"The special conference should consider declaring drug trafficking to be a crime against humanity, since it seriously affects people's lives, health and welfare, has a negative impact on the economic and social system and poses a danger to the stability of democratic processes in Latin America. " ³⁵ 

      The conference was held in Vienna in 1987. At that international meeting, illicit drug traffic was defined as threat to the stability, security, and sovereignty of the states.

"Aware of its effects on State's economic, social, political and cultural structures, and its threat to their sovereignty and security..." ³⁶ 

      The principal product of this conference was the elaboration of a Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Outline of Future Activities in Drug Abuse Control (CMO), which had a chapter (Chapter III) on policy recommendations for the suppression of drug trafficking. After that conference, the road was paved for the elaboration and signing of a convention on illicit drug traffic. In 1988 the United Nations convened a Conference of Plenipotentiaries which led to the adoption by 106 states of the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. ³⁷  As a matter of fact, the 1988 Convention attempts to give force to the recommendations of the CMO, which were formulated with the working draft of the Convention in mind. ³⁸  The 1988 Convention also refers to drug trafficking as a national security problem. As stated in its third paragraph, the parties to the Convention recognize,

"[t]he links between illicit traffic and other related organized criminal activities which undermine the legitimate economies and threaten the stability, security and sovereignty of states..." ³⁹ 

      The 1988 Convention is based on the 1961 and 1971 documents mentioned above, and "illicit traffic" is defined in the following terms:

"The production , manufacture ,extraction , preparation. offering, offering for sale, distribution, sale, delivery on any terms whatsoever, brokerage, dispatch, dispatch in transit, transport importation or exportation of any narcotic drug or any psychotropic substance contrary to the provisions of the 1961[...]or the 1971 Convention [...] the cultivation of opium poppy, coca bush or cannabis plant for the purpose of the production of narcotic drugs contrary to the provisions of the 1961 and the 1961 as amended [...]The possession or purchase of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance for the purpose of any of the activities enumerated above[...] The manufacture, transport or distribution of equipment, materials or substances [chemical essentials and precursors] knowing that they are to be used in or for the illicit cultivation, production or manufacture of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances; the organization, management or financing of any of the activities enumerated above. " ⁴⁰ 

      The conversion or transfer of property with knowledge that it is derived from any of the offenses mentioned in the preceding paragraph as well as public incitement to these activities, and aiding and abetting the commission of them are considered part of illicit drug trafficking.

      Through the 1990s in almost every UN document referring to the issue of drug trafficking, this activity is referred to as a security problem. Such is the case of the February 1990 Special Session of the General Assembly, whose main product was a Political Declaration and a Global Plan of Action. ⁴¹  This global plan of action was stated in order to coordinate both the reduction of demand in the consumer states and the decrease of illicit drug production. ⁴² 

"The session dealt with tightening legal and practical cooperation among member states. The urgency highlighted by Colombia's mortal struggle with its drug barons..." ⁴³ 

"In the spectrum of international action plans, The Global Programme of Action represents the most comprehensive statement of the action that needs to be taken by individual countries and collectively through the system of international organizations. It provides a framework and guidelines to the international community." ⁴⁴ 

      A new United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the drug problem was celebrated in New York from 8 to 10 June 1998, for the 10th anniversary of the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. ⁴⁵  This conference resulted in a Political Declaration and a Resolution to reassess, update, strengthen and follow-up the commitments and strategies adopted in 1990 and set guidelines for the multilateral efforts in the next century. As its predecessor, this political declaration also defines the "drug problem" as

"[a] grave threat to the health and well-being of all mankind, the independence of States, democracy, the stability of nations, the structure of all societies, and the dignity and hope of millions of people and their families." ⁴⁶ 

      At the same time, in resolution S-20/4 the General Assembly recommended a series of international strategies that comprise an "Action plan against illicit manufacture, trafficking and abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and their precursors," "Measures to promote judicial cooperation" "Countering money laundering," and an "Action plan on international cooperation on the eradication of illicit drug crops and on alternative development." The principle of shared responsibility on drugs was clearly reflected in the agenda of the UNGASS. The suggested strategies emphasized a balanced approach between supply and demand and the responsibility of the developed world to reduce drug use, control supplies of chemical inputs, and tackle money laundering. The organization and results of the 1998 UNGASS far exceeds the historical period covered by this dissertation and therefore they will not be analyzed here. However a critical review of some of the suggested strategies and approaches will be discussed in the last two chapters of this work, which deal with multilateral drug trafficking control policies.

      The UN conventions have been defined earlier in this chapter as part of an international drug control regime. Although this is not a dissertation on regional or global drug control regimes, for the sake of clarity in the use of terms, it is necessary to briefly define the use of the term "regime" within the context of this dissertation. As stated by Jack Donnelly, who wrote on the issue of the United Nations global drug control regime,

"An international regime exists when states and other relevant international actors, in order to avoid the costs of uncoordinated national action, agree (more or less explicitly) on normative or procedural constraints on their sovereign freedom of action in an issue area -and (at least in part) conform to these norms or procedures. Regime norms may range from binding international standards that are generally accepted to international guidelines that are commended in word but rarely heeded in deed."  ⁴⁷ 

      The strength of a regime depends, according to Donnelly, on the extent of its decision-making powers, that is, the range of activities available to relevant international institutions. In this sense regimes may range from full international decision-making bodies with the power to enforce rules, to procedures that amount to little more than international verbal encouragement of sovereign national action. ⁴⁸  Donnelly then elaborated five types of regimes according to their strength (in ascending order where promotion is the weaker and enforcement is the stronger):

" * Promotion: encouraging national implementation of international norms by such mechanisms as public information activities and the adoption of hortatory resolutions.
* Assistance: providing support for national implementation of international norms, typically through financial or technical assistance.
* Implementation: playing a direct international role in putting regime norms into practice-for example, through systems of international information exchange, policy consultation or coordination, or (unenforceable) international monitoring of national compliance with regime norms into practice -for example, through systems of international information exchange, policy consultation or coordination, or (unenforceable) international monitoring of national compliance with regime norms or recommended policies.
* Enforcement: binding an enforceable international implementation of regime norms in which the principal role of states is to give national force to supranational decisions."

      For completeness I should add a fifth type, declaratory regimes, which involve international norms but have no international decision making powers [actually from a weak to strong order this one should figure at the top of the list]." ⁴⁹ 

      Strictly speaking, whereas the 1961 and 1971 conventions can be considered a strong "implementation regime" for the regulation of only the licit trade of dangerous drugs, the 1988 Convention could be considered to be a weak "declaratory regime" for the control of illicit drug trafficking.

      In fact as stated in its article 4, the central principle of the 1961 Single Convention (and of the 1971 Convention, which is explicitly intended to be implemented in conjunction with the 1961 Convention) is the obligation "to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use, and possession of drugs." As is very well described by an analyst this regime is,

"[s]upervised by the International Narcotics Control Board [INCB, created by the 1961 Convention]. Each party is required to submit estimates of legitimate (medical and scientific) needs for narcotics in a standardized form. In addition, parties must provide standardized statistical returns on actual annual production or manufacture, consumption, imports, exports, seizures and stocks. Each party is then limited to the estimated amount in its manufacture and net import of drugs. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is given extensive supervisory powers over this system of binding estimates and statistical returns. The board may make estimates for parties or non-parties that fail to report. It may even challenge estimates provided by governments. If the INCB is not satisfied with the performance of any government- whether or not it is party to the convention- it may initiate consultations, call upon that government to adopt remedial measures, bring the problem to the attention of the international community, or even recommend that parties stop trading in drugs with the country in question. Furthermore, if statistical returns reveal that estimated needs have been exceeded, the board may require parties to the convention to halt further exports to that country." ⁵⁰ 

"Il [the INCB] peut demander des explications à un gouvernement. Il gère les mouvements licites de drogues en limitant les cultures, la production, la fabrication et l'usage des drogues aux besoins médicaux. Il peut demander des explications à un gouvernment en cas de violation de la convention et recommander aux États de cesser toute transaction commerciale de drogue avec les pays défaillants. Il ne l'a jamais fait, mais comme dans d'autres domaines, la seule menace d'une telle recommandation consiste un bon moyen de pression. Il peut également proposer une assistance technique et financière aux pays en difficulté dans l'application des conventions" ⁵¹ 

      On the other hand the 1988 Convention is only a "declaratory" regime in the sense that it involves international norms (the Convention itself) but does not establish decision-making powers. Although (as it will be shown later) the United States apparently would like to play this role de facto in the Western Hemisphere, there is not an equivalent of the INCB that can monitor the implementation of the 1988 Convention. States that ratified the 1988 Convention are bound to adopt it as part of their national legislation, however the convention does not establish an international or a supranational body capable of monitoring or enforcing its terms. As noted by Mario Bettati, the 1988 Convention was built upon strict reading of the principle of respecting the territorial integrity of the states and the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of the states.

"La convention de 1988 a pour objet de doter la communauté internatioanle de moyens répressifs efficaces. Mais il lui fallait aussi respecter l'integrité territoriale des États et le principe de non-ingérence dans les affaires intérieures de ces derniers. C'est donc sur le respect de ces principes que la convention organise la répression, aussi bien dans la phase de déclenchement des poursuites que dans celle de la sanction" ⁵² 

      The declaratory character of the UN illicit drug traffic control regime has been very accurately described by an analyst who said that,

"the norms of the regime are coherent, well developed, and widely commended by state and non-state actors alike. However, implementation of the norm that trafficking must be controlled has remained the responsibility of national and not international actors. In as much as governments are beginning co-operate in the exchange of information on trafficking, the declaratory regime may be evolving into a promotional regime." ⁵³ 

      If we stick to the definitions given above, the Political Declaration and Global Programme of Action of 1990 and the United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP) (which will be fully discussed in chapter VIII), could be defined as part of an assistance and promotional regime since they " encourage[s] the implementation of international norms by mechanisms such as public information activities," and (especially in the case of UNDCP) provide technical and financial support for the implementation of international norms (particularly the implementation of the 1988 Convention).  ⁵⁴  If we examine the 1988 Convention, the Political Declaration and Global Programme of Action, and UNDCP together, we come to the conclusion that from 1991 on (when UNDCP was created), the United Nations illicit drug traffic global control regime has evolved into an assistance regime.

      Let us return to the issue of defining drug trafficking and illicit drugs. Only the effects of illicit trafficking of cocaine will be considered in this dissertation because of the threat that it generated for the security of the South American states, mainly through the development of transnational criminal organizations. To a lesser extent this work also discusses the rise in heroin trafficking because of the slow diversification of the Colombian traffickers in the production of this drug in the last six years, due to a saturation of the North American cocaine market and an increase in the demand of heroin in the U.S. ⁵⁵  As explained by academic and law enforcement analysts,

"Moreover, in recognition of the fact that the U.S. cocaine market is approaching its saturation point, Colombian traffickers developed an alternative source of income heroin production."  ⁵⁶ 

"Over the past several decades the appeal of heroin was largely held in check. Two factors stigmatized heroin and limited its popularity. First, due to the low purity of heroin available at the retail level, the only effective method of administration was through injection, a method that most drugs users found unpalatable. Secondly, an increased awareness of the AIDS virus developed in the 1980s, many drug users chose to abuse cocaine, crack, and most recently, metamphetamine rather than risk contracting the virus through shared heroin needles. Heroin was also pushed from the spotlight of public concern by the emergence of cocaine in the late 1970s and crack cocaine in the mid-1980s. [...] Current estimates of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) place the hardcore heroin user population in the 600,000-800,000 range. The total heroin user population (including those who use heroin for "recreational" purposes) is now estimated at 2 million. Last year alone, there were 141,000 new heroin users, most of who were under the age of twenty-six. [...] Today, the rapid increase in heroin's popularity is being generated in part, by the purity of the supply. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the average purity of heroin at the retail level averaged between 2% and 7%. According to the Domestic Monitor Program, the average purity for retail heroin in 1997 was 38.4% , over 5 times higher than it was just a decade ago. In fact, it is not unusual to find 80% pure heroin in some East Coast cities. At this purity level, heroin can be administered effectively through several methods, including smoking -called 'Chasing the Dragon'- and snorting heroin like cocaine. These methods of ingestion are preferred by first time and causal users who find injecting heroin unglamorous and who want to avoid sharing dirty needles. However, as drug users gain tolerance, addicted snorters and smokers are forced to turn to injection which quickly leads to hard core addiction [....] In 1996, the annual number of heroin-related emergency room mentions increased from 34,000 in 1990 to 70, 500. The Cornell University Hospital reports the number of middle class people requesting treatment for heroin addiction has increased tenfold since 1994." ⁵⁷ 

      In South America, however, production of opium poppy (the raw material) and heroin is localized in Colombia, and has not resulted in the rise of a vertically integrated transnational industry as has happened in the case of cocaine trafficking. ⁵⁸ 

"Today, the U.S. is seeing increased heroin availability from South America and Mexico. According to the 1995 results of DEA's Heroin Signature Program (HSP). South America was, for the first time, the predominant source area for heroin seized in the United States. It accounted for 62% of the total heroin analyzed. Recently released results for 1996 show that heroin produced in Colombia represent 52% of the heroin seized and analyzed in the United States, a significant increase over the market share previously controlled by Colombian traffickers. In the 1980s, while Colombian drug syndicates focused on cocaine trafficking, Southeast Asia heroin dominated the American market. To compensate for their late entry into the heroin trade and to establish themselves in the marketplace, Colombian traffickers provided high quality heroin (80-99% pure) to a fiercely competitive U.S. market. To entice customers further, they offered their product at cut-rate prices.[....] At this time, virtually all the heroin emanating from South America is grown and manufactured in Colombia. Opium poppies are grown in the higher altitudes of the central Andean mountain ranges [...] Since 1994, the Colombian National Police has dismantled 38 heroin laboratories. The CNP has also seized 26 kilograms of heroin/morphine base and 120 kilograms of opium gum from heroin laboratories last year. U.S. estimates placed Colombia's heroin production at approximately 6 metric tons in 1997" ⁵⁹ 

      Opium poppy is mainly grown at high altitudes (between 600 and 3,000 meters) in the departments of Tolima, Huila and Cauca. ⁶⁰  Some opium cultivation has been detected in the Perijá Highlands in the border with Venezuela. ⁶¹  The whole process of production, from the extraction of the opium gum from the poppy to the refinement and transport of heroine, is controlled by criminal groups that belong to the Cali cartel, a criminal coalition based in the Cauca river valley, close to the areas of poppy production. The main heroin trafficking organization is believed to be the North of Valley Cartel, which has become more independent and powerful after the arrest of the main leaders of the Cali coalition in 1995. ⁶²  As explained by two analysts,

"At least four Cali organizations currently refine or distribute heroin. The traffickers finance the cultivation of the opium poppy , disseminate the technology for producing morphine base to the farm level, refine the base into heroin, and distribute the drug though their cocaine sales networks in the United States." ⁶³ 

      In any case, the production of cocaine remains the main activity of the so-called Colombian cartels as well as the Bolivian, Peruvian, and Brazilian traffickers who have developed consolidated markets in the U.S. and Europe. ⁶⁴  The reason this dissertation only focus on these two drugs is that, as noted by an analyst,

"[c]ocaine and heroin [...] are more harmful than marijuana and more widely used than designer drugs. Drug trafficking is a transnational phenomenon. While TDC [transnational drug cartels] are nationally based (as with the Medellín 'Cartel' in Colombia),their operations involve transactions that regularly flow across national boundaries. These include the production, processing, transportation and distribution of drugs, and the laundering of the profits derived from this activity " ⁶⁵ 

      The production of marijuana is also common across South America, but it has not resulted in the same type of criminal organization accompanied by the same corrupting and destabilizing power as the coca/cocaine complex. Moreover, it does not play the same role in shaping the pattern of inter-American relations in terms of the involvement of the United States as an extra-regional actor. As another analyst notes,

"Marijuana traffickers are the least globally organized (even though marijuana is more widely used) which coincidentally, is associated with marijuana's world-wide production geography ('anybody can grow it') and with what looks to be marijuana traffickers relatively reduced power against and threat to societies that have criminalized their work." ⁶⁶ 

      Before analyzing the effects of illicit drug trafficking on the security of the South American region, the main features of both cocaine and heroin should be defined and described. As the coca-cocaine complex is the illegal activity with the most important dimensions in terms of the security of the countries in the region, illicit drug traffic, drug trafficking, and the cocaine industry will be used as synonymous terms here. Heroin trafficking will be considered a "commercial" diversification of cocaine trafficking organizations that respond, as stated before, to a recent rise in the demand for this drug in the United States.

b) Coca and Cocaine (and Crack and Bazuco):

"...I will read a paragraph from a true representative of the national folklore, 'Cuchi' Leguizamón, this paragraph is extracted from a interview made by a Buenos Aires journal: 'We have to clarify that coca chewing is a wise [Northwestern] Argentine tradition and we have to differentiate it from cocaine consumption. Whereas coca leaf is part of the cultural and scientific patrimony of our America, cocaine is a flaw that hurts humankind and therefore must be combated with maximum rigor. [...] How can you compare [coca with cocaine] ? It makes me laugh. It is like calling 'drunk' someone that eats grapes.' " ⁶⁷ 

      Cocaine, or cocaine hydrochloride (CHCL), is a psychoactive alkaloid processed from the leaves of the coca shrub. Coca leaves have been chewed by the Andean population for centuries to help combat hunger and to overcome fatigue and exhaustion caused by the high altitude, as well as for traditional and religious practices. The use of coca is deeply embedded in the culture of the Andean countries. ⁶⁸  The practice is particularly widespread Bolivia and Peru where Indian groups comprise a far larger percentage of the total population than in Colombia. There is no evidence that coca chewing results in the development of tolerance, physiological dependence, or any acute or chronic harmful effects. As pointed out by an analyst,

"The coca leaf has played an important role in the lives of South American Indians for thousands of years. Its use as a masticatory persist today in many parts of the Andes, from northern Colombia, south to Bolivia and Argentina, and in the western part of the Amazon Basin. Coca leaf is used as a mild stimulant and as sustenance for working under harsh environmental conditions by both Indians and mestizos alike. It also serves as a universal and effective household remedy for a wide range of medical complaints. Traditionally, coca also plays a crucial symbolic and religious role in Andean society. The unifying and stabilizing effects of coca chewing on Andean culture contrast markedly with the disruptive and convoluted phenomenon of cocaine use in Western societies [....]The widespread intranasal use of cocaine hydrochloride or smoking of cocaine base produce quite different psychological and pharmacological experiences than the traditional chewing of coca leaves [....] There is no evidence that coca chewing results in tolerance or physiological dependence, or any acute or chronic deleterious effects. [...]Even though cocaine is the principal and most powerful constituent of coca leaves, the complex effects of chewing the leaves cannot be equated with the comparatively straightforward effects of cocaine. Whether in the high Andean Altiplano (high plateau region) or in the Amazonian lowlands, the principal use of coca is for work. Workers will take several breaks during the daily work schedule to rest and chew coca, not unlike the coffee break of Western society. Coca chewers maintain that coca gives them more vigor and strength and assuages feelings of hunger, thirst, cold and fatigue. Coca is chewed by rural people in all kinds of professions that require physical work, especially by farmers, herders and miners in the highlands and by farmers, fishermen and hunters in the lowlands. Coca is especially highly regarded for making long journeys on foot whether in the high Andes or Amazonian forests." ⁶⁹ 

      Leaving the physiological effects of coca aside, it is necessary to understand that in Andean societies, and particularly in Indian communities, this plant plays a cultural role similar to the one played by coffee, tea, or wine in western societies. ⁷⁰  In Andean communities coca plays a central role in marriages, funerals and baptisms. ⁷¹  Coca is also a powerful symbol of ethnic identity as stated by Alejandro Camino:

"This integration of the individual with his [her] family, his community, his [her] culture and his [her] and his [her] sacred [mystical] environment through the use of coca turns this plant into a true symbol of ethnic identity. Using coca leaves is a synonym of participating in the Andean culture [...] its use according to the established [social] rules consecrates the Andean cultural character which differentiates the Indian from the non-Indian..." ⁷² 

      In Argentina, for example, where with the exception of the northwest region (especially the provinces of Jujuy and Salta) there is not a widespread Andean Indian population and culture, coca use is a very strong symbol of local identity of that region vis-à-vis the rest of the country, especially Buenos Aires. Chewing coca is, then, symbolic of being a norteño (northerner) as opposed to the Europeanized and cosmopolitan resident of the capital city. ⁷³ 

      Coca is a perennial shrub with several subspecies. Two loosely related South American species of coca (Erythroxylum coca and Erythoxylum novogranatense) and varieties of these species are the primary sources of cocaine. Coca is cultivated in the Andean countries of South America, generally at an elevation below 2,000 meters. After planting, the bush grows 12 to 18 months before the first crop of leaves can be picked, and 3 to 4 years before full production is reached, when the bush is 3 to 5 feet high. The bush has a short flowering and fruiting period (the plant can be harvested from three to six times per year) and produces for 10 to 25 years depending on the level of care it receives. The potency of coca leaves with respect to cocaine content also depends on the variety of the plant and on the growing site. ⁷⁴  Table 1 below provides information about the main features of the species (and their varieties) of coca grown in South America.

      

Table 1. Species and varieties of coca 75
Species	Varieties	Main features
Erythroxylum coca	E.coca var. coca (Bolivian or Huanuco coca)	* Source of most of the world's cocaine. *Believed to be the ancestral taxon of all cultivated coca. *Cultivated and found in the wild. *Restricted already to narrow zone of moist tropical forest located in the foothills of the Oriental Peruvian and Bolivian Andes. * Little known outside South America.
	E.coca var. Ipadú (Amazonian coca)	* Restricted to western Amazon, and geographically isolated from other coca varieties. * Cultivated for its leaves by a few isolated Indian tribes of Brazil, Peru and Colombia. *Cultivated only, unknown in the wild. * Probably a recent derivative of E. coca var. coca; the two varieties share morphological characteristics.
Erythroxylum novogranatense	E. novogranatense var. novogranatense (Colombian coca)	* Found as a plantation crop only in Colombia, where it is cultivated in drier mountain areas by a few isolated Indian tribes that harvest the leaves for chewing. *Tolerant of diverse ecological conditions. * Figured prominently in world horticultural trades in the early 20th century, and continues to be grown in many tropical countries as an ornamental plant.
	E. novogranatense var.truxillense (Trujillo coca)	* Grows today only in the river valleys of the north coast of Peru and in the arid upper Río Marañon valley. * Leaves are highly prized by chewers for their excellent flavor. * Due to difficulties of extracting and crystallizing pure cocaine, it is a minor contributor to the illicit drug market. *Trujillo coca is used primarily in the manufacture of de-cocainized extracts for soft drink flavoring.

Source: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Alternative Coca Reduction Strategies in the Andean Region, 1993, pp.28-32

      The main active ingredient of the coca leaf is the alkaloid cocaine, which may be extracted from its leaves by a chemical process. ⁷⁶ 

"Coca leaves on average contain about 1 percent cocaine, but typical values range between 1.02 percent for E.novogranatense var. truxillense, and 0.11 to 0.41 percent for Amazonian coca (E.coca var. ipadu). Average values for E. coca. var. coca and E. novogratatense var. novogranatense are intermediary (0.23 to 0.93 percent). The potency of coca leaves with respect to cocaine content also depends on the plant's growing site. The E. coca var. coca leaves with the greatest cocaine content were found in Chinchao, in Huánuco, Peru, among the highest elevations where coca is grown. Plants grown in the montañas [high jungle region of the Andean slopes and foothills] generally are thought to produce more potent leaves than plants at lower altitudes" ⁷⁷ 

      Cocaine is a powerful central nervous system stimulant used non-medically to produce euphoria or wakefulness; the repeated use of this drug produces dependence. ⁷⁸  As explained by an analyst,

"Unlike heroin, cocaine is not physically addicting. That is, people who cease use do not suffer withdrawal symptoms such as 'the shakes, nausea, and other physical symptoms that occur in heroin addicts when the level of heroin in their bloodstream falls below a threshold level. Despite the fact that cocaine is not physically addictive, it has addictive characteristics. Higher doses of the drug will yield increased mood-altering effects, and thus, while cocaine does not produce physical dependence akin to heroin, the high the drug produces encourages pursuit of more intense intoxication, thereby producing a form of psychological addiction." ⁷⁹ 

      The drug is sold as a white, translucent, crystalline flakes or powder frequently adulterated with various sugars or local anesthetics. The powder (cocaine hydrochloride) is sniffed and produces effects within 1-3 minutes that last for about 30 minutes. Cocaine can be also be ingested orally, often with alcohol, and it is also injected intravenously. ⁸⁰  Another form of consuming cocaine is by "freebasing" it. This process refers to increasing the potency of cocaine by extracting pure cocaine alkaloid (the free base). Cocaine salt is heated together with baking soda and the vapors are inhaled through a water pipe. This form of cocaine consumption is commonly known as "smoking crack."

      Cocaine can induce euphoric excitement and hallucinatory experiences. It creates a feeling of great muscular strength, mental clarity and a sense of being "superpowerful." The effects of the drug rapidly dissipate once the drug enters the body and this usually induces a desire for repeated administration at shorter and shorter intervals, which can turn the life of a user into a constant and expensive search for cocaine. Studies have shown that laboratory animals will time after time select cocaine over their favorite food, until they eventually die of an overdose or starve. ⁸¹  As observed by an analyst,

"Cocaine's addictive potential is in part the result of its effects on the neurochemistry of the brain. Recent laboratory research has established that cocaine acts directly on the so-called reward pathways. These pathways are indirectly activated by pleasurable stimuli from other activities, including eating, drinking, and sex. So powerful is the direct stimulation provided by cocaine that sleep, safety, money, morality, loved ones, responsibility, even survival become largely irrelevant to the cocaine user. In a sense, cocaine 'short circuits' the process by which people normally achieve gratification and security" ⁸² 

      The likelihood that a person will become addicted to cocaine largely depends on the method, frequency, and duration that a person uses the cocaine. Medical studies have demonstrated that cocaine is more addictive when it is smoked.

"The effects of the drug come on very quickly; only 8 to 10 seconds pass before the user experiences the high. The peak concentration of the drug in the brain also occurs more rapidly when smoked, resulting in greater behavioral effects for a shorter period of time. Also contributing to the reinforcing and addiction potential of crack is the fact that the effects of the drug last only 8 to 10 minutes. After the high is over, the crack user feels anxious, depressed, and paranoid. Such a rapid shift between positive and negative effects of the drug make users crave another "hit" of the drug to restore the euphoria they felt just moments before" ⁸³ 

      Another form of abuse is to smoke the coca paste, which is the product of the first step in the process of extracting cocaine from coca leaves. Coca paste contains 50-90 % sulfate and toxic impurities such as kerosene and sulfuric acid. The consumption of coca paste is widespread in South America where it is smoked with tobacco, marijuana or alone. The mix of coca paste and marijuana and/or tobacco is known as bazuco. ⁸⁴ 

      Bazuco is a highly toxic mix that generates a very strong dependency. According to a study of the World Health Organization, most of the coca paste abusers end up being compulsive abusers of the drug. ⁸⁵  As pointed out by an analyst, bazuco abusers,

"[l]ose interest in work, friendships, recreation, sports, sex, family and conjugal relationships. At this point their overriding concern becomes the smoking of coca paste as frequently and intensively as possible." ⁸⁶ 

      The following table describes the sought-after effects and the short and long-term effects of cocaine consumption:

      

Table 2. Pharmacological effects of cocaine abuse
Sought-after effects	* feelings of physical and mental well being, exhilaration, euphoria * increased alertness and energy * postponement of hunger and fatigue
Short-term effects	* loss of appetite * faster breathing, increased heart rate and blood pressure, increased body temperature, sweating * dilation of pupils * bizarre, erratic, sometimes violent behavior * with larger doses: hallucinations, talkativeness, sense of power and superiority, restlessness, hyperirritability, irritability which can lead to panic and paranoid psychosis (disappears if discontinued) * excessive doses may lead to convulsions, seizures, stroke, cerebral hemorrhage or heart failure
Long-term effects	* destruction of tissues in nose if sniffed * respiratory problems if smoked * infectious diseases, abscesses, if injected * disorientation, apathy, confused exhaustion due to lack of sleep * development of tolerance (*) * strong psychological dependence [there is no scientific evidence of physical dependence] (**) * the use of the drug during pregnancy may provoke malformations in the fetus and health problems in the newborn child * with continued use a state similar to paranoid psychosis may develop * after stopping, there usually follows a long period of sleep and then depression; during the crash, death from respiratory failure may occur

Source: United Nations International Drug Control Programme, Terminology and Information on Drugs [on-line], available internet, http://www.undcp.org/adhoc/terminology_and_information_on_drugs/coca-3.htm; E. Paroli, Clinical effects associated with cocaine use, in Bruno Francesco (ed.) Cocaine Today: Its effects on the Individual and Society, Rome, UNICRI, 1991, pp. 73-75 y Gold, M.S. Cocaine (and Crack), in Bruno, op.cit., pp.79-85

      Since the late 1970s, by far the highest consumption in the cocaine/crack market is in the United States. Nevertheless, the number of cocaine users appears to be declining in the United States (which is still, however, cocaine's principal market). ⁸⁷  This decrease may be due to a natural saturation and oversupply of the American market, which was reflected in a decrease in the quality (purity degree) of cocaine. ⁸⁸  To a lesser extent, interdiction measures (interception of shipments, antidrug laws, seizures) may also have contributed to a decrease in the level of consumption.

      As reported by the National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee (NNICC),

"The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse for 1992, the latest survey, showed that the number of past-year and past month users of cocaine has decreased significantly since the peak year of 1985. During 1992, nearly 5 million Americans ( 12 years of age and older were reported to have used cocaine in the past year compared to 12.2 million in 1985. Nevertheless frequent or more intense use of cocaine has not shown a statistically significant change during the past several years. Among the 5 million people who used cocaine in the past year, 642.000 used it once a week or more in 1992 compared to 625.000 in 1991 and in 1990..." ⁸⁹ 

"Results for 1995 show that, while cocaine use has declined over the past decade, the rate of use has stabilized at high levels. These rates are driven largely by 'crack' cocaine use, which has reached the saturation point in large urban areas throughout the country" ⁹⁰ 

c) Heroin ⁹¹ 

      Opium, the raw material from the elaboration of heroin, is extracted from the poppy plant (Papaver somniferum) with origins in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The poppy plant can be grown in altitudes ranging from 500 to 2,000 and is very adaptable to temperature changes (frosts). The plant is not indigenous to the South American region, nor does it have any traditional or cultural use there. Colombian drug traffickers imported seeds of the poppy plant in the early 1990s from Southeast Asia. The traffickers distributed the seeds (along with money) to the peasant communities of the Colombian western Andes, who started growing the plant with the sole purpose of extracting opium for heroin production. ⁹²  In that sense, the Colombian traffickers are competing with the ethnic Chinese organized crime, which in the 1980s controlled the traffic of heroin from Southeast Asia towards the United States. ⁹³ 

      The main active ingredient of opium is morphine. This alkaloid can be extracted either from opium or directly from poppy straw. Morphine produces a physical dependence that develops quickly and increases in intensity with increased dosage. When the body's supply of morphine is withheld, withdrawal symptoms occur within a few hours. Moreover, the drug produces a rapid tolerance level, a desensitization that requires increasing dosages to achieve the desired effect. Increased dosages produce a greater physical and psychological dependence, resulting in addiction. Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is obtained from morphine by a simple chemical process. ⁹⁴  Heroin produces a very strong dependency.

      The table below summarizes the main short and long term effects of opioid drugs (opium, morphine and heroin - the latter is up to 10 times more potent than morphine):

      

Table 3. Pharmacological effects of heroin abuse
Sought after effects	* sense of well being by reducing tension, anxiety and depression; euphoria, in large doses
Short-term effects	*sometimes nausea and vomiting * constricted pupils * drowsiness, inability to concentrate, apathy, lessened physical activity * acute overdose can result in death due to respiratory depression
Long-term effects	* rapid development of tolerance and physical and psychological dependence * constipation * menstrual irregularity *infectious diseases, abscesses if injected *damage of structures in nose if sniffed/snorted * respiratory problems, if smoked * decreased appetite leading to malnutrition, weight loss * chronic sedation, apathy leading to self-neglect *abrupt withdrawal results in moderate to severe withdrawal syndrome which is generally comparable to a bout of influenza (with cramps, diarrhea, running nose, tremors, panic, chills, and sweating, etc.)

Source: United Nations International Drug Control Programme, Terminology and Information on Drugs [on-line], available internet, http://www.undcp.org/adhoc/terminology_and_information_on_drugs

      According to a report prepared by ECOSOC´s Commission on Narcotic Drugs, global illicit drug use clearly increased in the 1980s and 1990s, and this upward trend is likely to continue for some time yet. ⁹⁵  This kind of conclusion is based on the observation of various indicators such as emergency room visits, substance abuse related mortality cases, arrests of drug abusers and number of countries reporting rising consumption levels. ⁹⁶  These trends are illustrated by Graphic 1 and table 4 below.

      

Graphic 1. Global development of substance-abuse-related mortality in the early 1990s (officially reported *)

Source: E/CN.7/1995/3, Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking: An Interim Report p.30 and UNDCP, the World Drug Report, p.31

      (*)Because of the lack of adequate reporting in a large number of countries, there is bias towards under representation in those figures. The World Health Organization estimates is 200,000 deaths a year in the drug injecting population (heroin and other opiates are commonly injected and cocaine can also be abused intravenously).

      The United Nations Drug Control Program estimates that heroin is the leading drug responsible for substance abuse related mortality and emergency room episodes.

      

Table 4. Estimated number of drug abusers (annual prevalence)* in the 1990s-WORLD
Drug	Estimated total (million people)	in % of total population
Heroin and other opiate-type substances***	8.0	0.14%
Cocaine **	13.3	0.23%
Cannabis**	141.2	2.45%
Hallucinogens***	25.5	0.44%
Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS)***	30.2	0.52%
Sedative-type substances***	227.4	3.92%
*Annual prevalence means that consumption has taken place at least once within the last twelve months before a survey. **Conservative estimates; results obtained through information from UNDCP's annual reports questionnaires; UNDCP mission reports; UNDCP annual field reports; UNDCP Country Programme Frameworks; data compiled in UNDCP's country profiles; data compiled by WHO; data compiled by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and the United States Department of State, complemented by UNDCP estimates. ***Estimates obtained through extrapolation of average prevalence rates obtained from a sample of countries (replies to UNDCP's annual reports questionnaire) representing, respectively, 21% (ATS; sedative type substances) and 11% (hallucinogens) of the world population. The application of the same methodology to cannabis (sample of countries representing 27% of global population) and cocaine (sample representing 21% of the world population) would increase the total estimate of cannabis users to 180 million and of cocaine users to 30 million. Such high numbers of cannabis consumers -given a frequent bias towards underreporting- is possible; given strong regional differences in the levels of abuse of cocaine, particularly the very low levels in Asia, the estimated total number of cocaine abusers resulting from simple extrapolation, however, is likely to be too high. While estimates for hallucinogens and ATS are reasonable, the extrapolated estimate for sedative-type substances (given the sample of countries providing figures) is likely to be on the high side.

Source: UNDCP, The World Drug Report, p.32

      The largest single consumer in the world is the United States with some 12.8 million-drug abusers (those who have consumed drugs at least once in the last month) out of a total population of 260 million. ⁹⁷  Europe follows in second place. ⁹⁸  Even the reported rise in heroin consumption in the United States since 1992/93 will not change this distribution substantially. The abuse of cocaine (and crack) in the United States is much more common than in Europe, it is the most widely abused illicit plant-based drug after cannabis. ⁹⁹  Heroin abuse seems to be marginally higher in Europe than in the United States. ¹⁰⁰  Since the late 80's cocaine consumption in Europe has grown steadily. ¹⁰¹  This was pointed out by the Declaration of the World Ministerial Summit to Reduce the Demand for Drugs and to Combat the Cocaine Threat, held in London form 9 to 11 April 1990 which noted that:

"[t]he sharply rising trend in seizures of cocaine by law enforcement authorities, not only in Western European Countries but in may other countries also, which suggest that determined efforts are being made by ruthless criminal organizations to develop new markets for cocaine to add to the continuing problem of heroin and other drugs." ¹⁰² 

      The spread of social consumption of illicit drugs is directly related to a rise in criminal activity in big cities, either because of gang wars for the control areas of distribution or just because drug users literally will do anything to obtain enough drugs to satisfy a habit. In the United States, for example, almost 60 per cent of all federal prisoners in 1992 were drug offenders. Another study found that almost 50 per cent of the total value of theft in 1993 in England and Wales was drug-related.  ¹⁰³ 

      The next session will provide a definition of national security and will explain why and how can drug trafficking became a national security problem.

a) National Security

      The illicit drug trade is part of a market. The core of the problem is that production and trade of the product, as well as the industry behind its supply, is illegal. Therefore, this economic activity is driven by criminal organizations. ¹⁰⁶  In the period under study the industry was vertically integrated and composed of firms, labor, raw materials, and intermediate goods. As it is an illegal market, the firms were transnational criminal organizations such as the so-called Medellín and Cali "cartels," mainly based in Colombia, although from the early and mid 1990s on the Bolivian and Peruvian organizations have managed their own production of cocaine without being subordinated to the Colombian organizations. ¹⁰⁷  At the same time, there are also independent groups in Brazil that receive managerial support and advice from Colombian traffickers. These organizations buy raw material (coca leaf) from the coca growing peasants, hire labor (the Peruvian and Bolivian peasants, chemist, pilots, bodyguards etc.) who participate in the different stages of the cocaine refinement, and provide transportation and security. The criminal organizations also purchase intermediate goods (chemical inputs: acetone, ether, sulfuric and chloride acid, kerosene) used in the production of cocaine clorhydrate (CHCL). There were also intermediary firms (the Bolivian trafficking organizations) who either buy or process the coca paste and base (PCB). The final step was the distribution of cocaine in the big consumer markets (mainly the U.S.), by the Colombian organizations and by local organized crime.

      This industry economics had (and currently has) lethal results for the political stability of the South American democracies and even more so (to a different extent for each particular case) to the survival of the state. As an illegal activity, drug trafficking implies the application of enforcement policies, which in turn generate violence and corruption as the criminal organizations struggle to protect their territories (Colombia), and as the peasants organize themselves against the state in order to protect their source of labor (Bolivia, Peru). Moreover, both workers (Peru) and "entrepreneurs" (Colombia) accept the aid of guerrilla groups or even foreign or national mercenaries (Colombia). The situation is made worse when there is foreign pressure or even military intervention, and when support (the U.S.) is given to the governments of the source countries to enhance interdiction and eradication. As will be shown later, this increases the level of "reactive" violence and contributes to the spread and overlap of the problem to neighboring countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Venezuela).

      In light of these considerations, why can this criminal activity be defined as a matter of national security, particularly in the case South America? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to clarify the meaning ascribed to the concept "national security."

      National security will be defined as the situation of freedom from harmful threats to a given state.This includes freedom from military attack or coercion, from internal subversion, and freedom from the erosion of the political, economic and social values, which are essential to the quality of life. ¹⁰⁸  In the context of this dissertation the terms "state" and "nation-state" will be used as synonyms. In that sense the concept used here goes beyond the Weberian concept of state, in which the state is defined in politico- institutional terms as a "central government." ¹⁰⁹  Instead of considering the state and society as two separate phenomena,the state is defined here as a complex socio-political sovereign entity that includes a territory, governing institutions, and a population. ¹¹⁰  This conception of state draws on Buzan's definition of states:

"[t]erritorialy defined socio-political entities. They represent human collectivities in which governing institutions and societies are interwoven within a bounded territory [...] this nexus of territory, government and society is what constitutes the state." ¹¹¹ 

      In that sense the definition of state used here resembles the classic legal definition stated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States. That is: a permanent population, a defined territory with a government capable of maintaining effective control over its territory and of concluding international relations with other states. ¹¹²  The term "national security" refers then to the security of the state, and more specifically, to the absence of threats to the main attributes of the a state, namely: ¹¹³ 

• The "idea of the state" or the degree of recognition and identification of the population with their state. ¹¹⁴ 
• The physical base of the state (the population and the territory).
• The institutional expression of the state. That is the government and the political regime of a state or, as stated by Barry Buzan,

"the entire machinery of government, including its executive, legislative, administrative and judicial, and the laws, procedures and norms by which they operate ...." ¹¹⁵ 

• Sovereignty in terms of

"self-government [and] denial of any higher political authority, and the claiming by the state of supreme decision-making authority both within its territory and over its citizens..." ¹¹⁶ 

      A matter of national security implies then a threat to any of these state attributes. These elements can be discussed as objects of security in their own right (they can be threatened individually), and at the same time the interaction between them determines the national security problematique. If one of them is harmed the other three will become more susceptible to threats. A government is necessary in order to grant the security of the population against internal or external threats. If the capacity of the institutional component of the state is constrained by either limited internal or external threats or, even worse, if the institutions of the state collapse because of internal or external threats, the integrity of the population, the territory, and sovereignty of the state will be more susceptible to threat. At the same time, a healthy and productive population as well as a productive territory are necessary in order to grant the economic viability of a state as a whole and to assure that the state will be able to extract resources for the implementation of policies. The interaction between the attributes of the state is represented in Figure 2. ¹¹⁷ 

      

Figure 1. Attributes of the state

      As represented in Figure 3 below, the national security problematique of a state is determined by the interplay between three factors, namely: the security environment of a state, the nature of the state (how vulnerable it is to internal and external threats?), and the existence of latent or manifest internal or external threats.

      

Figure 2. Components of the National Security problematique

      The security environment refers to the pattern of interaction of nation states within an anarchical framework (characterized by the absence of a centralized form of political structure), with special emphasis on their interaction with dominant or hegemonic powers (in terms of their military capabilities and their degree of political influence in the region). For the purposes of this dissertation, the definition also encompasses the interaction of the state with non-state actors across national boundaries. The issue of the security environment can be characterized by the following questions: Which states are your state's neighbors? Are they militarily powerful? Are they politically and socially cohesive? Are they developed? Does your state have any pending conflict with them? Which transnational players operate within and between the borders of your neighbors? Are they also operating within your state? Could they spill over into your country? What kinds of problems have your neighbors that could spill over into the territory of your state? Which national, transnational, and international players can strongly influence the policies adopted by your neighbors and the way transnational actors behave? ¹¹⁸  The issues of the nature of the state and the meaning of threat have to be defined before answering the question of why drug trafficking is a national security problem in South America. These issues will be addressed in the following sections of this chapter.

b) Threat

"There is fright in everything. This means being frightened by the unexpected." ¹¹⁹ 

      Threat is defined as a danger to the attributes of the state; this potential or actual danger means that there exists "an indication of something undesirable coming..." because of an actor or a process that is a "likely cause of harm...." ¹²⁰  This threat can be overt in the sense that real harm is being done, or latent if harm has not yet manifested. Threats can be specific or diffuse depending on what is posing them. Specific threats "have a clear focus and source," that is they are posed by a particular state or non-state actor, object, or policy. ¹²¹  For example: the Medellín Cartel is an identifiable non-state actor as are the Shining Path or the ELN or the FARC guerrilla movements in Peru and Colombia. "Cocaine" or "heroin" or "drugs" are objects that can pose a threat. Militarized enforcement is a policy that can pose a threat to neighboring countries because of its spillover consequences, and illicit drug production as a policy by a corrupt government is also a threat. More clear examples of specific threats are: Germany in the case of France during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. and Soviet arsenals during the Cold War for one another (and for the all the other states of the world). Diffuse threats arise from processes, rather than from a particular actor, object, or policy. ¹²²  As argued by Barry Buzan,

"Thus the spread of communism (or capitalism), nuclear proliferation (both weapons and civil power technology), terrorism, economic depressions and the green house effect are all examples of broad processes which are frequently identified as threats." ¹²³ 

      Drug trafficking, then, is an economic process that can threaten the state to varying degrees, and can reach the proportions of a national security issue. A threat becomes a national security issue depending on the intensity with which the threat operates in relation to the particular vulnerabilities of a given state and also (but not necessarily) according to the beliefs of the policy makers of a state over a given time period. This means that, as will be shown in my case studies (Argentina and Venezuela), the fact that policy makers are not assessing a threat does not necessarily mean that the threat does not exist. Assessment by policy makers is a sufficient--but not necessary--condition for a threat to exist within the framework of this dissertation. The intensity of a threat can be higher or lower depending on several factors: ¹²⁴ 

• its nearness in space;
• its nearness in time;
• the probability that a given latent threat could become an overt threat;
• the weight of its consequences;
• and whether or not the threats are amplified by historical dimensions or circumstances.

      Depending on each particular case, the more intense a threat the more likely it will be defined as a national security issue. According to their intensity, threats can then be typified as low intensity threats, high intensity threats and lethal threats (when they put into question the existence of one or all of the attributes of the state). These attributes are displayed in Table 5 below.

      

Table 5. Typology of threats according to their intensity
	LOW INTENSITY THREATS	HIGH INTENSITY THREATS	LETHAL THREATS
Range (space) (*)	Very Distant	Distant	Close
Range (time) (**)	Distant	Close	Current
Consequences	Low	High	Suppressive
Probability (**)	Low	High	Sure
Historical precedents	Historically neutral	Historically amplified	Historically amplified
(*) Very Distant = located in a country in a non-neighboring country that belongs to the same region; Distant = located in a neighboring country but in an area far away from the border; Close = located in an area near the national border. (**) Depends on the assessment of policy makers when the threats have not taken place yet.

      The three types above are an adaptation and modification of the classification of threat intensity given by Barry Buzan in his book "People, States and Fear" ¹²⁵ . Buzan constructed only two types (Low Intensity and High Intensity) based on the variables listed above (diffuse/specific, distant/close in time or space, low/high probability, low/high consequences, historically neutral/amplified). There are two main differences from the original idea that served as an inspiration for this classification. First: in this dissertation the specificity of the threat (diffuse/specific threats) is not taken as a variable that determines the intensity of a threat. True, an object or an actor or a policy are always more concrete dangers; however, as this dissertation will show, "diffuse" processes such as drug trafficking (that is, an industry conformed by several players and objects) are not only believed to be a national security issue, but also (with different degrees of intensity) a clear and present national security problem for some of the states in the region. Paradoxically, some of the policies adopted to cope with the threat increase the intensity of it even more.

      Threats can also be typified according to their nature depending on their intensity and their latent or overt status. These dimensions tell us if the threat is or is not already taking place and to what degree or intensity. Six types result from the combination of intensity and status (the order of appearance presupposes an ascending order in terms of their relevance to national security): Remote, Significant, Clear, Clear and Present, Alarming, and Crucial. The way in which these types are obtained is summarized in Table 6 below.

      

Table 6. Type of threats according to their intensity and open/latent status
		STATUS
		OVERT	LATENT
INTENSITY	LOW	Significant	Remote
	HIGH	Clear and present	Clear
	LETHAL	Crucial	Alarming

      For the scope of this dissertation only the four latter types of threat (that is "clear and present," "clear," "crucial," and "alarming") will be considered as national security problems. Drug trafficking has military, political, economic, societal and ecological implications that with different intensity may threaten the South American states. Threats to the state stemming from drug trafficking can be classified then in the following way: military threats, political threats, societal threats, economic threats and ecological threats. ¹²⁶  At the same time each class of threat can be "measured" or "typified" according to the typologies elaborated above. This "typification" of threats stemming from drug trafficking will be made in the chapters concerning the two neighboring-transshipment case studies (Argentina and Venezuela).

      An example of a typification of a threat could be expressed in the following terms:

"The rise in cocaine consumption stemming from the drop in the prices of the drug caused by the rise of cocaine trafficking through the national territory of Argentina is a clear and present societal threat to that country."

      or for example,

"A further loss of the legitimacy of Venezuela's political institutions caused by drug trafficking related corruption is a clear political threat to that country."

      Concrete examples of military, political, economic, societal, and ecological threats will be given in the rest of the dissertation. By now, this chapter provides the reader a descriptive definition of each kind of threat.

      Military threats: Military threats mean the use (or the threat of use) of armed force by another state. They imply an attack or coercion of a state (or group of states) against another state(s). They can also mean the attack or coercion by a state (or a group of states) against non-state actors operating in the territory of another state without the consent of the government of the latter. As stated by Barry Buzan this kind of threat,

"[o]ccupy the traditional heart of national security concerns. Military action can, and usually does, threaten, all the components of the state" ¹²⁷ 

      The illicit drug industry is a non-military problem of security in the sense that it does not involve per se the "use or threat of physical force in inter-state relations...."  ¹²⁸  However the cross border activities of non-state groups involved in drug trafficking activities may catalyze pre-existent territorial disputes into armed conflict between two neighboring states. Also, U.S. attempts to curb drug trafficking overseas through the use of military force might pose a threat to some South American states.

      Some examples of military threats that might be either catalyzed by drug trafficking or by attempts to suppress it are: ¹²⁹ 

• Military intervention by extra-regional powers (especially the U.S.);
• Invasion of territory by foreign military forces;
  • Occupation of territory by foreign military forces;
  • Full scale air, naval, or land battles;
  • Intermittent shelling or clashes;
  • Small scale interception or sinking of ships;
  • Mining of territorial water;
  • Limited air, sea or border skirmishes;
  • Border police acts;
• Imposing blockades;
  • Breaking diplomatic relations;
  • Increasing troop mobilization;
  • Closing borders and blocking free communications;
• Recalling ambassadors for emergency consultations;
  • Warning retaliation for acts;
  • Condemning strongly specific actions or policies (with the threat of the use of military force).

      In the analysis of case studies (chapters V, VII and VIII), the reader will notice that in fact some of these events happened between drug producer countries and their neighboring countries as well as between the United States and drug producer countries. The reader will also notice that some events were provoked or worsened by the drug trafficking activities going on in bordering areas or as an attempt by United States to curtail the flow of drugs towards its territory by the use of military force.

      Political Threats: Political threats are aimed at the organizational stability of the state. ¹³⁰  This includes all activities that can weaken the effective control of a government over its territory and its citizens as well as the stability and legitimacy of the political regime of a country. Some examples of political threats stemming from drug trafficking are:

• Use of the national territory as a safe-heaven by guerrilla groups that finance their operation through their interaction with drug traffickers and coca-growing peasants.
• Control of the national territory by criminal organizations (based abroad or within the national territory).
• Lack of subordination of the armed forces to the political power caused by drug trafficking related corruption.
• Armed strikes by coca-growing peasants.

      Societal Threats: These kinds of threats are aimed at the integrity of the human resources of a country as well as at the "idea of the state" or the national identity of a country. This concept has been adapted from the definition given by Barry Buzan who refers to societal threats as threats against the national identity and the national culture of a country. ¹³¹  In Buzan's view these kinds of threats are caused above all by massive migration from one geographical/cultural zone to another. ¹³²  For the scope of this work the concept of societal threats will be enlarged to threats to the social fabric of the nation caused by a massive and widespread consumption of harmful illicit drugs. In the case of drug producer, transshipment and neighboring transshipment countries the threat is caused by a sudden availability of the drug stemming from production and increasing transit across their national territories. These are some examples of societal threats that may be caused by drug trafficking:

• Rise of illicit drug consumption and dependency.
• Spread of AIDS and infectious diseases due to intravenous drug use (IDU).
• Rise of drug related violence due to increasing trafficking across the national territory.
• Threat to national identity because of the increase of illegal immigrants and refugees across the border due to drug trafficking-related violence in their countries of origin. A huge inflow of illegal immigrants or refugees could also overwhelm the capacity of the recipient state to provide basic services to its own citizens thus reducing the quality of life of the population.

      Economic Threats: These kinds of threats curtail access to the market that is necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power. ¹³³  In this case the list is not long. In terms of economic threats, the basic problem of the South American countries, particularly the Andean countries, is that a large sector of their economy is absorbed by an illegal activity which is basically export-oriented and based on the transformation of an agricultural product: coca. On one hand, this reproduces an already existing pattern of dependency on a single product export. Eventually, a synthetic form of cocaine might be discovered in the U.S. or Europe and an economic collapse might occur. As a matter of fact, this dissertation will show that the "coca-boom" in Bolivia was in part provoked by the collapse of the export oriented mining sector after the international drop of tin prices in the 1980s. On the other hand, the activity is illegal and strongly dependent countries such as Bolivia are subject to strong economic pressures that, following the definition above, may seriously curtail access to markets for legal products. The problem of large sectors of the work force involved in the illicit drug industry is also growing in transshipment countries. The consequences of this economic "cocaine dependency" of countries or areas of a country will be analyzed in further detail later in this work.

      Another threat caused by drug trafficking is the utilization of some South American countries as money laundering centers. The purchase of land at inflated prices has suddenly proliferated in the last ten years. Also the foreign investment in the services sectors of countries such as Chile and Argentina has mushroomed since the early 1990s. This was favored and attracted by the policies of structural adjustment implemented in these countries that have granted economic stability and relatively strong currencies. However, the legal origin of all these investments is not always clear. Lax banking laws in these countries worsened the situation. This phenomenon may be considered a blessing in the short term but can certainly be a curse in the long term. The purchase of real estate at inflated prices (a typical way of laundering money) can generate an unwanted inflationary spiral in the real estate sector. At the same time the uncontrolled influx of foreign currency may generate an undesired devaluation of the local currency, thus threatening the success of anti-inflationary policies due to a sudden abundance of liquid assets. Also, if national banking institutions are suspected of involvement in money laundering operations, the reputation of the country could be damaged, causing legal investment to head to other countries. There is also a relation with political threats due to the corrupting effect of money laundering activities, which may reduce the legitimacy of the recently inaugurated democracies.

      Ecological threats: Ecological threats harm the biosphere, which is the essential support system on which all human enterprises depend. ¹³⁴  Ecological threats stemming from drug trafficking damage the physical base of the state. The production of cocaine involves the use of industrial quantities of chemical inputs such as kerosene, acetone, lime, and sulfuric acid and the waste generated by the process of cocaine distillation is diverted into nearby rivers. This poses a threat to the local ecosystem and, in the long term, to human survival due to the pollution of potable water sources. Also, the extensive and persistent use of land for coca production produces large-scale soil erosion that renders this land unusable for the production of legal crops, not to mention the deforestation of tropical forests, cleared for coca cultivation by coca-growing settlers. The same can be said about the recent phenomenon of opium poppy growing in the high mountain forest regions of Colombia.

      The harmful effect of these different kinds of threats is mutually reinforced. For example, environmental threats may worsen the effect of economic threats, which in turn may worsen the effect of political threats, which at the same time may reduce the capacity of the state to cope with the traditional / military dimension of drug trafficking. The intensity of these threats will grow of course depending on the security environment of each state and on the weakness or strength of their nature.

      How does this classification apply to the case of South America? The cocaine industry does not imply a direct military threat to the state, but in South America as well as in other drug producer regions of the Third World (such as South Asia in the case of heroin industry), it can be a catalyst of latent inter-state conflicts. At the same time the threat of foreign military intervention is always present (the case of Panama--even if it is outside of the region under analysis--is an example).

      South American states are particularly vulnerable to political threats because of their recent history of political instability and military intervention in politics, and because their democracies are in the process of consolidation. ¹³⁵ 

      The ways in which illicit drug traffic affects security in South America varies from country to country. Political threats go from the loss of effective control of part of the national territory (which comes under control of the traffickers) to the corruption of the executive, legislative, and judiciary powers or the violent resistance of the peasant trade unions against the coca-eradication measures. In the case of societal threats, the increase of illicit drug production can lead to a rise in drug consumption in producer and transit countries as prices drop. Another aspect is that enforcement against the drug industry and the violence generated by this illegal activity are likely to generate a wave of refugees and illegal immigrants to neighboring countries, increasing the probability of societal conflict.

      As for economic threats, some South American producer countries (Peru and Bolivia in particular) have a low level of diversification of their economies. The cocaine industry certainly means a threat to their economic security since a big part of the national product depends on an illegal activity. This fact not only prevents further development in other areas (coca and coca paste production is five or six times more profitable for peasants than other crops) but also generates international pressure from developed countries.

      The ecological dimension is not in the short and medium term the most important, but it is worth mentioning because both coca and cocaine production cause a process of deforestation and erosion of the soil and rivers in the producer countries. This phenomenon is worsened by the use of herbicides to eradicate coca fields.

      As this dissertation will show, the South American states have, or in the recent past have had, at least one of the following problems,making them particularly vulnerable to the action of actors involved in the cocaine industry:

• Weak or non-existent presence of the government in large parts of the national territory.
• Already existing high levels of political violence stemming from deep social differences and ethnic divisions or the existence of a closed and restrictive political regime.
• Strong guerrilla movements.
• Major recent changes in the structure of political institutions.
• Major political conflict over what ideology will be used to organize the state.
• Danger of U.S. intervention in their internal affairs.
• Dependent and underdeveloped economies without adequate access to the international market.
• Indebted governments tied to austerity plans for the payment of debt services and incapable of extracting economic resources for the modification of the socioeconomic structure.

      As a result of this particular set of characteristics, threats to the political stability and sovereignty (military and political dimensions) are at the core of the security concerns of the South American states. Nevertheless, the societal, economic, and ecological dimensions will also be analyzed in this dissertation work.

      The issue of the weak/strong nature of the state will be conceptually defined and discussed in the following section.

c) The nature of the state

      As argued by Edward Azar and Chung-In Moon, it is possible to say that the national security problematique has a "hardware" and a "software" side: ¹³⁶ 

      The "hardware" side comprises traditional security concerns, such as the security dilemma of the military balance of power and the economic capabilities of the states to build and keep a military structure.It concerns military readiness, or what a state needs to confront military threats posed by another state. It also concerns economic power, which is necessary to maintain that military readiness. It refers, then, to military power. ¹³⁷  The "software" side in the context of this dissertation refers to the nature of the state in terms of the following characteristics: sociopolitical cohesion (legitimacy and integration), the policy capacity of the institutional part of the state, the degree of socioeconomic development, and the functional and territorial penetration of the state in the whole of the national territory or "Territorial centralization." ¹³⁸  All these are variables that indicate the weak or strong nature of the state and will determine in the end how threats can affect a state. While the hardware side refers to the military and economic capabilities of the state as a power in an anarchic context, the software side refers to the weak/strong nature of the state in dealing with domestic matters and non-state actors. This thesis will concentrate almost exclusively on the soft side of security because it analyzes how an illicit activity such as drug trafficking can threaten the South American states.

      The definition of the characteristics of the software side of security will be given now in abstract terms. Concrete examples for the case of South America will be given in detail in the following chapter.

      Sociopolitical cohesion will be defined by two dimensions: ¹³⁹ 

• The legitimacy of the "idea of the state" in terms of the identification of the population with its nation state and the acceptance of its central government, as well as the legitimacy of the institutional base of the state (political regime). ¹⁴⁰ 
• Integration in terms of the fragmented/unified character of the society along ethnic, social, or political cleavages.

"[d]omestic class structure, particularly the extent and intensity of disaffection between élites and masses, is an obvious factor in assessing the strength or weakness of a state. When added to the nationality factor [and ethnic one], class divisions suggest the kind of political, threats whether domestically or externally mounted, to which specified states will be particularly sensitive." ¹⁴¹ 

      For the purposes of this dissertation it is important to notice that the vacuum left by the absence of broadly accepted and respected institutions could promote the replacement of the state by codes and practices of criminal groups or insurgent organizations. In that sense the population could follow and obey para-state authorities and legal systems imposed by non-state actors that challenge the state in terms of the use of armed force and the control of territory and population. Also the absence of legitimate and representative institutions could favor and even justify the emergence of insurgent groups that may attempt to change the political system. This could be certainly reinforced under a situation of massive social exclusion and deep social differences. Also a fragmented society along ethnic divisions can be in the absence of strong and unifying political institutions, a cause for civil war and state disintegration.

      Policy Capacity refers to the effective capability of the government of a state to implement policies and extract resources from society (i.e. taxation) with this goal in mind. Capacity in the context of this dissertation will be equated with what Michael Mann calls the "infrastructural power of the state" (as an institution) as opposed to the "dominative or coercive" power of the state. As he argues,

"Infrastructural power [is] the capacity of the [institutional base] of the state to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistically political decisions throughout the realm." ¹⁴² 

      A strong state, then, is a state that has the capability to extract, penetrate, regulate, and appropriate resources from society. ¹⁴³  This variable is of course strongly linked to the degree of legitimacy held by the state and the obedience of the population to the established government. A state with a weak policy capacity will be less able to implement policies to assure the security of the population and the territory. It will be also less able to reduce weaknesses in all other variables mentioned here.

      It is worth noting that a high degree of corruption will be considered as an indicator of a low policy capacity. ¹⁴⁴  As explained by an analyst, a situation of widespread political corruption weakens the state in the sense that it hinders its capacity to raise taxes (extract resources) and enforce the law. Moreover, corruption hinders the socioeconomic development of a country, leading to a misallocation of resources from government to private hands. ¹⁴⁵ 

      Socioeconomic development is defined in terms of the living standards of the population, the capacity of insertion of the economy in the international market, as well as the characteristics of the productive sectors of the country. A weak socioeconomic development will be associated with both the concepts of underdevelopment and of dependence. Underdevelopment refers to a type of economic system with a predominant primary sector, a high concentration of income, little diversification in its production system, and an external market that far outweighs the internal one. ¹⁴⁶  Dependency refers to a situation in which the accumulation and expansion of capital cannot find its essential dynamic inside the system. ¹⁴⁷ 

      Weak socioeconomic development will strongly condition the policy capacity of a state in terms of the range of choices it has to solve problems that may cause strong social divisions and political violence. Robert Rothstein for example affirms that,

"The political process is thus heavily influenced by basic resource constraints that narrow the range of choice, no matter what the intention or the ideology." ¹⁴⁸ 

      Barry Buzan also affirms that,

"[w]eak states may find themselves trapped by historical patterns of economic development and political power which leave them underdeveloped and politically penetrated, and therefore unable to muster the economic and political resources necessary to build a stronger state" ¹⁴⁹ 

      Territorial Centrality refers to the degree of monopoly of the armed forces by the government of a state over the whole national territory, as well as its territorial and functional presence and control over the entire territory and population without being matched by non-state groups. As defined by Michael Mann,

"Centrality, in the sense that political relations radiate outwards from a center to cover a territorially demarcated area, over which it exercises a monopoly of authoritative binding rule- making, backed up by a monopoly of the means of physical violence." ¹⁵⁰ 

      Areas of territory out of the direct control of the government could, of course, favor the rise and establishment of groups that could challenge the authority of the state.

      Finally, we can bring all these elements together: a weak state will be defined in terms of a low sociopolitical cohesion, a low policy capacity, a low territorial centralization and a low socioeconomic development. For instance, states that are weak in the four variables will be weaker than states that have only a low economic development but a high territorial centralization and a high level of sociopolitical cohesion. At the same time there are several ways in which these variables can be combined. For example, a state can be fragmented along ethnic or social lines. Sometimes these two factors coincide. The poorest and more oppressed sectors of society are also part of a separated and dominated ethnic group. In that sense a state divided along both ethnic and social lines will be weaker than a state divided by strong social differences, or one without strong social fragmentation and so on. In a weak state, deficiencies in the software component of security are mutually reinforced (a dependent and underdeveloped state will have, for example, fewer choices in terms of policy capacity). The vulnerability of the state increases and also the variety and number of internal and external threats to the state. Strong powers that are simultaneously strong states will care less about non-military threats than weak states. The latter will have a far more complicated security dilemma in dealing with traditional and non-traditional threats at the same time. In that sense, as Barry Buzan correctly states, several powers that are strong in the hardware side of security can at the same time be weak states in terms of the software side of security. As pointed out by Buzan,

"[w]eak or strong states will refer to the degree of sociopolitical cohesion; weak or strong powers will refer to the traditional distinction among states in respect of their military and economic capability in relation to each other [...] Strength as a state neither depends on , nor correlates with, power. Weak powers, like Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and Singapore, are all strong states, while quite substantial powers, like Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan are all rather weak as states." ¹⁵¹ 

      It is not necessary to look only at the developing world to corroborate this fact; take for instance the case of Russia or Italy, with their fragmented societies in ethnic and/or social terms, and the presence of strong organized groups and armed bands in their territories.

      While the term "power" (weak or strong) will refer to the military and economic capabilities relevant for a military buildup, the term "state" (weak or strong) will be used in terms of the social, political and economic cohesion of the state as well as the degree of efficiency of state institutions.

      Of course , an accurate measurement of the indicators of the variables listed above is very difficult, if not impossible. This dissertation will combine several indicators in order to elaborate two polar types (the weak state and the strong state). States can be closer to one or another pole depending on the number of indicators they accumulate. Table 5 below shows the two polar strong and weak state types. The South American states could be placed on a continuum that ranges from strong to weak states. The indicators listed below could be used as a cumulative index. The more conditions of weakness a state accumulates, the closer it will be to the "weak state" pole. This continuum would not be static; states can move along it depending on the increase or decrease of the variables listed in Table 5. States that are closer to the "weak" pole are more vulnerable to military, economic, political, societal, and ecological threats. As this dissertation will show, the emergence of threats is facilitated by the vulnerability of a given state and, at the same time, these threats can contribute to deepen or even perpetuate the weak nature of a state.

      

Table 7. Nature of the State: Polar Types
	WEAK STATE	STRONG STATE
SOCIOPOLITICAL COHESION	LOW	HIGH
	A-Fragile Political Legitimacy: * Incomplete Nation Building * "Weblike societies" (autonomous communal groups) (*) * Strong loyalties to communal, ethnic and religious groups. * High levels of political violence * Major recent changes in the structure of political institutions * Conspicuous use of force by the state in domestic political life * Conspicuous role of political police in everyday lives of citizens * Major political conflict over what ideology will be used to organize the state * High degree of control over the media B- Fragmented Societies: * Presence of contending national identities within the state * Coexistence of several ethnic, religious and linguistic groups within a state * Highly unequal distribution of wealth	A-Strong Political Legitimacy: * Complete Nation Building * Pyramidal societies (recognized central authority) * Common shared loyalty to the nation-state. * Low levels of political violence * Stable and long lasting political institutions * Rare or non existent use of force by the state in domestic political life * Rare or non existent role of political police in everyday life of citizens * Absence of ideological polarization and major political conflict * No control over the media B- Unified Societies: * Coherent national identity and absence of contending national identities within the state * Absence substantial, ethnic, religious and linguistic differences within a state. * Even distribution of wealth
POLICY CAPACITY	LOW	HIGH
	* Rigid Policy Capacity * Inefficient state apparatus * High level of political corruption	* Flexible Policy Capacity * Efficient state apparatus * Low of political corruption
SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT	LOW	HIGH
	* Low level of industrialization * Low level of per capita income * Low level of productivity * No access to major markets * Dependence on foreign capital flows * Dependence on export earnings * Unequal distribution of incomes	* High level of industrialization * High level of per capita income * High level of productivity *Access to major markets * Local conditions for the reproduction of capital * Large domestic markets * Equality in the distribution of incomes
TERRITORIAL CENTRALITY	LOW	HIGH
	* Weak presence of the state in frontier zones and areas outside the major cities. * Strong non-state organized armed groups	* Strong presence of the state in frontier and areas outside major cities. * Absence of strong non-state organized armed groups
(*) The concept "Weblike societies" is used here to refer to countries where there are autonomous communal groups and authorities which compete with the authority of the state in the sense that there is parallel network of institutions whose legitimacy is stronger than the legitimacy of the state's institutions and symbols. The concept draws on Joel Migdal who describes this kind of situation in the following terms: "The ineffectiveness of state leaders who have faced impenetrable barriers to state predominance has stemmed from the nature of the societies they have confronted -from the resistance posed by chiefs, landlords, bosses, rich peasants, clan leaders, za'im, effendis, aghas, caciques, kulaks (for convenience, 'strongmen') through their various social organizations"and also " Weblike societies host a mélange of fairly autonomous social organizations." The term "Weak Societies" is used here as opposed to "Pyramidal Societies" understood as societies in which the central authority of the state is recognized and is not in competition with any other form of authority. 152

      This typology differs substantially from the one elaborated by Michael Handel in his book "Weak States in the International System." ¹⁵³  Handel elaborated two polar types (Weak and Strong) following traditional military and economic variables. What Handel calls "strong" and "weak" states are, in the framework of this dissertation, strong and weak powers. Handel´s typology is then a typology of strong and military powers in the traditional sense.

      Another important comment on the typology is that the closest conceptual image to the "weak state" polar type could be identified with what has been recently denominated as "failed states" or "collapsed states ":

"[a] disturbing new phenomenon is emerging: the failed nation-state, utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community. Civil strife, government breakdown, and economic privation are creating modern debellatios." ¹⁵⁴ 

"State collapse is a deeper phenomenon than mere rebellion, coup or riot. It refers to a situation where the structure, authority (legitimate power), law and political order have fallen apart and must be reconstituted in some form old or new." ¹⁵⁵ 

"[c]ollapse means that the basic functions of the state are no longer performed, as analyzed in various theories of the state [...] as the decision making center of government, the state is paralyzed and inoperative: laws are not made, order is not performed and societal cohesion is not enhanced. As a symbol of identity, it has lost its power of conferring a name on its people and a meaning to their social action. As a territory, it is no longer assured security and provisionment by a central sovereign organization. As the authoritative political institution, it has lost its right to command and conduct public affairs. As a system of socioeconomic organization, its functional balance of inputs and outputs is destroyed,; it no longer receives support from nor exercises control over its people, and it no longer is even the target of demands, because its people know that it is incapable of providing supplies. No longer functioning, with neither traditional nor charismatic nor institutional sources of legitimacy it has lost the right to rule." ¹⁵⁶ 

      It should be stated neither however that neither was the "weak state" polar type inspired by the two concepts quoted above nor were they used as part of the definition. The images of the "failed" and "collapsed state" seem to the author to be fairly illustrative of a state placed at the weak extreme of the weak/strong continuum.

d) What poses the threat?

" [d]rug trafficking appears to involve: 1) innumerable actors organized into private and public economic networks or systems; 2) a rather well defined division of labor on a multinational basis; 3) a complex set of attitudes , values, and behavioral norms; 4) avenues for laundering the flow of large cash profits; 5) often a high level of violence; 6) a complex set of relationships with governments of various nations that, in one way or another, find themselves related to , and sometimes profiting from , the traffic in drugs. " ¹⁵⁷ 

      In the case of illicit drug traffic, non-state actors and non-governmental processes and organizations threaten the state. ¹⁵⁸  The threat is not posed by the drug cartels, coca-growing peasants, or the guerrillas as isolated actors but by the whole coca/cocaine complex. The threat stems from a transnational illegal activity that involves political as well as economic dimensions and is driven by powerful non-state actors.

      It is important to understand that the threat to security exists because of several particular vulnerabilities of the nations of South America. Illicit drug traffic stems from several factors: the lack of economic development in the Andean region, the fall in the prices of the exports of these countries, the traditional utilization of coca-leaves in some of these countries, and the vulnerabilities of the countries (Bolivia, Peru and Colombia), which are in the periphery of the main producer countries. As Max Manwaring points out,

"Nonetheless, as important as instability might be in a national or transnational threat environment, it is only a symptom-not the threat itself. Rather, the threat stems from a lack of understanding and/or failure to alleviate the various manifestations of political, economic, and social injustices that are at the root causes of instability. A related threat stems from a lack of understanding and/or failure to deal properly with the conflicts that are the consequences of instability. " ¹⁵⁹ 

      It is possible to argue that, in the case of drug trafficking in South America, the threat to the state stems from a complex non-state actor, the cocaine industry. This criminal activity has several political dimensions. In first place, the "firms" of this industry have control over the entire production of cocaine with the exception of the growth of coca and the retail of the product (United States/Europe/Japan). Further, they have developed a capacity to bribe governmental officials, control areas of national territory, establish sporadic alliances with guerrilla groups, and maintain their own private para-military groups (the paradigmatic example of these characteristics is Colombia).

      At the other extreme of the industry are the coca growers--the peasants--who are organized into strong trade unions (federaciones) and have a high capacity for resistance against governmental attempts to eradicate illegal crops. Another dimension is U.S. pressure over the main producer countries; this contributes to enhancing the enforcement against the traffickers, eradicating illegal crops, and to causing a rising spiral of violence and instability. At the same time, enforcement in one country only provokes the spillover of the problem into neighboring countries in terms of production, transit, or legitimization of illegal profits.

      As this dissertation will demonstrate, approaching the problems with military means only worsens already existing security problems in producer countries and provokes a spillover of some of these problems to neighboring countries. Augusto Varas, a Chilean security analyst warned about the possibility of a worsening security problems because of the utilization of military means for drug trafficking control. Varas stated that,

"The United States perceives narco-traffic and terrorism as the most important issues in the territorial field. From a Latin American perspective, these issues should be handled by police institutions instead of military ones. In order not to repeat errors of previous decades, it should be necessary to emphasize the fact that these problems do not have a military nature [these problems] are produced by local social and economic conditions as well as by the absence of domestic political compromises. To deal with them form a military perspective could be counterproductive, activating the problem instead of providing effective solutions " ¹⁶⁰ 

      Military power is not always fungible from one issue area to another, above all when this issue area is a market and there still exist a strong demand for the product, and an economic incentive for the production of the goods. As correctly stated by Georges Lamazière, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil,

"The fact is , however, that non-military threats by their very nature are more amenable to non-military responses.[...] The so-called 'new global problems' require a cooperative and multilateral approach more than a 'realist', power politics one. As Joseph S. Nye wrote in a recent book, ' if military power could be transferred freely across economic and ecological issues, then different structures would not matter, and the overall hierarchy determined by military strength would accurately predict outcomes in world politics [...]' This complexity and subtlety of the more serious non-military threats to security make them intractable through the use of traditional power resources." ¹⁶¹ 

      Cocaine trafficking became a source of serious concern at the beginning of the 1980s because of a curious coincidence of two factors. On one side, the debt crisis in the South American states led to a fall in the prices of the main export products of the Andean countries such as tin in Bolivia and coffee in Colombia. On the other side, a sudden rise in cocaine consumption occurred in the United Sates (the major peak was 12 million consumers in 1985). This resulted in a "coca/cocaine boom" in the Andean countries. Bolivia and Peru-- where the coca leaves were already produced for traditional consumption--generated an illicit parallel economy based on the production of raw material for cocaine. In certain regions of Colombia, such as Antioquia, where other types of illicit trade and smuggling already existed, the final manufacture and shipping of cocaine developed.

      In the case of Peru and Colombia, this activity, linked with parallel developments such as the emergence of guerrilla movements originated what an analyst has described as a.

"'[f]eudalization' process that imperils the very concept of a centralized nation-state. A number of self-sufficient sectors have emerged, including guerrillas, drug traffickers, corrupt police forces, bandits, the business/elite sector, and the peasantry each of whom manages its own parallel economy of survival as well as its own parallel security. They have all learned to survive if not to thrive in the chaos." ¹⁶² 

      In the case of Bolivia, the problem derives from the involvement of a large part of its peasantry in the production of coca and coca paste. As a matter of fact, this illegal activity contributed to a major component of this country's GNP. This induced growing social instability because the resistance of the highly organized peasants to the eradication of coca fields and to strong international pressure (the U.S.), enhanced social tensions that could degenerate either in the rise of guerrilla movements or civil strife.

      In the rest of South America, illicit drug traffic means a threat because of three factors:

      First, because of the transnational nature of this activity, the groups involved in drug trafficking activities link up with the counterparts abroad. The prospect of a spillover of drug trafficking activities would aggravate already existing political, economic, and social problems in countries that are struggling to consolidate their democracies. ¹⁶³  As the second chapter of this work will explain, since the mid-1980s the clear division of labor delineated above began to disappear. All South American countries, in one way or another, became involved in the cocaine industry and began to suffer different kinds of threats to their national security.

      Second, the routes of transit and production centers shift abroad as enforcement increases in producer countries and transit areas. It is becoming more and more difficult to identify an "Andean Core center" and an immediate periphery. As pointed by Virginia Gamba,

"Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay must cope with alarming situations in neighboring countries that threaten to spill over into their territories. " ¹⁶⁴ 

      Finally, during the Reagan and Bush administrations, the United States (an extra-regional actor) defined drug trafficking as a matter of national security, holding that the rise in cocaine consumption constitutes a threat to that country's social fabric. ¹⁶⁵  As will be demonstrated in this dissertation, the U.S. military approach to the problem worsened the situation in South America, where the illegal drug traffic effects the sovereignty of these states and the effective political control over their own territories.

a) Traditional geopolitical delimitation of South America

      Traditionally South America has been divided into two main groups of states: the Andean countries and the Southern Cone. The first group is formed by Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. These countries share similar geography, a high percentage of Indian population (in the case of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia), and a particular configuration of historical rivalries and territorial disputes between them (e.g. Ecuador and Peru over their Amazon border and Venezuela and Colombia over their territorial waters in the Caribbean sea). With the exception of Bolivia and Venezuela, they all share a coastline in the Pacific Ocean. The more important indicator of their common identity is that this group demonstrated their joint economic and political will through the signing of the Andean Pact in 1960.

      Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay form the Southern Cone. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay have in common a high degree of European immigration as well as a strong middle class and long democratic experiences (albeit with military interruptions). Argentina and Chile have traditionally had geopolitical ambitions over the same areas (the Patagonian Channels and the access to Antarctica). Argentina and Brazil have been traditional rivals since the last century; nevertheless, a process of economic integration and political cooperation has been in progress since the early 1980s, a process that is being accelerated by the consolidation of their democracies. Moreover in 1991, after an Argentine-Brazilian process of integration initiated in 1985, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil agreed to form a Common Market (for the moment the process of integration has resulted in a customs union -MERCOSUR).

      In a previous work I did not include Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana as part of the region because these countries and overseas dominions (in the case of French Guyana) are generally considered part of the Caribbean from both a classical geopolitical point of view and from their role in drug trafficking. ¹⁸⁵  Moreover, neither are these countries are particularly relevant for the region from a traditional regional security perspective nor do they play an important role in drug trafficking activities. ¹⁸⁶ 

      This dissertation will assume the risk of defying existent literature and consider Guyana and Suriname (French Guyana will only be considered for the analysis of its interaction as part of France with Suriname in security terms. I will not go in depth here about the French security concerns in terms of the interest of this state in French Guyana) as an overlapping sub-complex within South America. ¹⁸⁷ 

      Traditionally Guyana and Suriname have been considered as part of the Caribbean because they are geographically isolated from the rest of South America by the Amazon rain forest at the Rondônia mountain chain. In addition, they share a common colonial past with the rest of the Caribbean islands and are culturally attached to the Dutch and British ex-colonies of the Caribbean. Both states perceive themselves as Caribbean countries and participate in the political, economic and security arrangements of the region such as the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). ¹⁸⁸  At the same time, the United States considers Guyana and Suriname as part of a broad concept of the Caribbean Area. ¹⁸⁹  On the other side there exists a pattern of territorial disputes and security concerns between Guyana and Suriname and other South American states and between Suriname and France (because of the D.O.M of French Guyana).

      Venezuela and Guyana have a territorial dispute over the territory of Essequibo (almost half of Guyana), which Venezuela claims as a province. The situation escalated in 1982 when political pressure from Venezuela increased; there were fears in the region of a possible military solution to the problem following the example of the Argentine landing in the Malvinas/Falklands Islands the same year. ¹⁹⁰  Suriname and Guyana have an old territorial dispute over 9,000 square miles of land in the remote and uninhabited interior area of the "New River Triangle" formed by the Corentyne - Kutari Rivers and the New River. French Guyana and Suriname have a territorial dispute over a remote and uninhabited area of the border, but the most important and serious problem between France and Suriname occurred between 1986 to 1992. During these years the government of Suriname was facing the challenge of two ethnic guerrillas groups (which, at the same time, were fighting one another): the Surinamese Liberation Army (SLA) or Jungle Commando (made up boschnegers, a Dutch term that refers to the descendants of fugitive slaves who inhabit the interior jungle) and the Tucayana guerrillas (Amazon Amerindians who had originally been armed by the government to fight the Jungle Commando). ¹⁹¹  The brutal repression against the boschnegers caused a major influx of refugees into French Guyana and the Jungle Commandos started to use refugee camps in French Guyana as logistical bases and sanctuaries. These cross-border activities of armed groups were seen as a threat to a spatial launching base in Kourou. They were also seen as a threat to the internal political stability in the dominion because of the danger of ethnic conflicts and violent reactions against the influx of refugees (the economy of the dominion is extremely weak and the refugees were perceived as a cause of unemployment by the local population). ¹⁹²  The insurgency finished in 1992 under an agreement signed with the boshnegers, the Tucayana, and the new democratic government (after elections in 1991). The former rebels recognized the government's authority over the entire territory while the government committed to guaranteeing the territorial autonomy of the Tucayanas and boschnegers (and their security from the incursions of the other group). The former guerrillas were also granted the right to serve in the army, to participate in public administration, and to engage in forestry and gold prospecting. ¹⁹³ 

      Because of its evident military and political importance in the region, Brazil has attempted to play the role of mediator in the conflicts between Guyana and Venezuela and Guyana and Suriname. As pointed out by an analyst,

"Brazil, the one country that shares a border with all of these nations (Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname) and yet has disputes with none of them, has watched these various conflictual strains with considerable interest [...] One theme in Brazil's geopolitical writing is that, as the United States begins its inevitable decline as a Caribbean power, Brazil must be prepared to fill part of the power vacuum that the United States will leave behind. With typical Brazilian discretion, Brazil's actions with regard to several of these states have begun to fill some of this perceived power vacuum. Thus, Brazil has offered military assistance and arms to both Guyana and Suriname [...] Brazilian military sources have also expressed concern that, if Venezuela does make any military move against Guyana, such a move could involve Venezuelan military incursions into Brazilian territory. For all these reasons, the creation of a Brazilian 'rapid deployment force' and the strengthening of Brazilian garrisons along the northern borders have been interpreted as manifestations of increasing concern." ¹⁹⁴ 

      During the Cold War period there were also Brazilian concerns when the military regime of Desi Bouterse in Suriname allied itself with Cuba and Libya. Brazil saw the possible "cubanization" of Suriname as a clear political threat at that time. ¹⁹⁵ 

      Guyana and Suriname are party to the Amazon Pact and participate actively in the consultation mechanisms established by the pact. ¹⁹⁶  Together with representatives from Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia, members of the governments of Guyana and Suriname participated in 1989 in two ministerial summits (held in Manaus and Quito) that attempted to revitalize the Pact. At the meetings, representatives also attempted to adopt a common position against some international moves to denominate the Amazon rain forest as "common heritage of humankind." All these governments agreed to cooperate to keep the ecological integrity in the region and restate their sovereign rights over the Amazon portion of national territory. In this way, Guyana and Suriname are linked to the other South American states by institutional arrangements and common shared concerns.

      South America is clearly differentiated from Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean as a security complex. South America has a different conflict-cooperation dynamic among members of the region and, more importantly, has a different type of interaction with the United States as the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere. ¹⁹⁷  Mexico, for example, shares its northern border with the superpower and stands apart in the Western Hemisphere because of the special structure of bilateral relations it shares with the United States, in addition to its inter-American and other international relations. Also as noted by G. Pope Atkins,

"Mexico has always been of significant interest to one or another or the world's great powers, but the United States has long been the principal foreign presence in Mexico (and the foreign menace, in the eyes of many Mexicans). As a consequence, the Mexican-U.S. relationship is largely divorced from the greater inter-American arena. Many of the issues are 'North American' in content and closely associated with the domestic concerns in each country; the relationship has been determined primarily by territorial proximity and increasingly integrated economic and social structures." ¹⁹⁸ 

      This differentiated pattern of interaction has become more evident since the recent process of economic integration between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico (the NAFTA agreement).

      Central America and the Caribbean, on the other hand, have been in the U.S. sphere of influence increasingly since the end of the 19th century. The United States is seen as the international policeman in the area. Also, most of the area is part of a U.S. bilateral trading system. Whereas U.S. military intervention in South America is a potential danger, in Central America and the Caribbean it is a current and common historical fact. As explained by a group of analysts,

"Toute la zone composée du Mexique, de l'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes présente une forte spécificité, par la proximité des Etats Unis, le caractère des conflits qui s'y déroulent, la présence d'un pays appartenant au bloc soviétique [Cuba during the Cold War] , le phénomène d'atomisation surtout propre aux Caraïbes et même l'importance de la couverture médiatique qui lui est accordée. Cette spécificité est encore renforcée par l'évolution récente qui lie de plus en plus l'économie du Méxique a celle du reste de l'Amérique du Nord...." ¹⁹⁹ 

      Since the beginning of the century, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean are a first security perimeter of the United States, particularly because of the Panama Canal and the geographical proximity to its territory. Moreover, the Caribbean and Central America still coexist with an "old" aspect of the regional security agenda because of the Cuban regime.  ²⁰⁰  The invasion of Panama in 1989 in the final phase of the Cold War and U.S. efforts to internationally isolate Cuba show that U.S. interventionism in Central America and the Caribbean seem to be a persistent historical trend.

b) Drug trafficking geopolitical delimitation: a deadly international division of labor

      From the point of view of the role of the region in drug production (as well as the pattern of conflict and cooperation between state and non-state actors stemming from this activity), South America is the main cocaine producing area in the world. ²⁰¹ The industry principally comprises three Andean countries: Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. ²⁰²  The first two have a large Indian population, which has grown the coca leaf for traditional uses for centuries. Local traffickers purchase coca paste (the first stage in cocaine production) from the peasants, transform it into coca base (the second stage), and sell it to Colombian organizations who finish the production process and manage transportation as well as the first steps to sell the product in consumption centers (U.S. and Western Europe). All of these groups have a big quota of political power and have a pattern of conflict and cooperation with other non-state actors such as the leftist guerrillas (although this is not the case in Bolivia). Venezuela, Ecuador, the Southern Cone countries, Guyana and Suriname form the periphery of this producer core. All of these states--with the exception of Uruguay, Guyana and Suriname--share long, porous, badly controlled borders, whose conditions can vary from tropical forests to desert, with the main producer countries. Brazil shares its entire Amazonian border with Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Argentina shares a long and porous border with Bolivia and Paraguay. Ecuador is virtually surrounded by Colombia and Peru. Chile shares its northern borders with Peru and Bolivia, and Venezuela shares its western and southern borders with Colombia and Brazilian Amazonia.

      The process of refining coca into cocaine can be divided into three stages. An analyst describes this process in the following way:

"The first [stage] takes place near the fields. Growers gather their crop and place it in maceration pits; large containers made out of plastic sheeting, The dried leaves are mixed with kerosene and potassium carbonate, which separate the alkaloid from the organic matter. After the waste material is removed, the product is mixed with sulfuric acid. This gooey paste is dried into balls [...]: cocaine paste or cocaine sulfate. This initial processing reduces the bulk, cutting down the volume by a factor of 10, and making the product easy to store or transport. The next stage makes cocaine base, a purer cocaine alkaloid without other alkaloids. This process requires more equipment (filters, dryers, centrifuges) and chemicals (alcohol, kerosene, sulfuric acid and potassium permanganate). Traffickers set up their labs or "kitchens" in the middle of the rainforest, with portable diesel power generators, plastic sheeting and elaborate logistical support for supplying the chemicals. Finally, trained chemists turn the cocaine base into cocaine hydrochloride (HCL). This stage requires more sophisticated laboratory techniques and industrial volumes of ether or acetone so the semi-processed material can become the crystalline salt necessary for inhaling...." ²⁰³ 

      The division of labor required to transform the raw material (coca) into massive amounts of the final product (cocaine) gave way to a sophisticated and vertically integrated transnational industry. Different stages of cocaine production take place in different countries and the process of production implies the interaction of criminal groups that operate across national boundaries. In this thesis South America will be divided into five types of countries depending on the role they play in the coca-cocaine complex. Each one of these types presents a different security problem. The five types can be labeled as follows: "upstream producer" countries, "downstream producer" countries, "full cycle" countries, transshipment countries, and neighboring transshipment countries. ²⁰⁴ 

      The terms used to define these types of countries are non-standard in the existing literature and in the framework of international organizations that deal with drug trafficking control. Different agencies (national and international) use different types of scales to measure the amount of coca and cocaine produced in each country, and anyway the amounts of production are merely estimates, since completely reliable registers for the production of illicit crops and drugs cannot, by virtue of their illegality, exist. ²⁰⁵  Another important factor is that countries can shift from one type to the other over different periods of time as consumption patterns change and as production relocates as a result of the repression of coca-cocaine production. The same phenomenon is happening in the case of the recent development of a poppy heroin industry in Colombia.

      In defining of these four types of countries three variables are used:

• the estimated production of coca leaves, coca paste, cocaine base and CHCL (cocaine) and the percentage in the GNP of the country;
• the estimated number of workers employed in the coca-cocaine production and the their percentage of the EAP (Economic Active Population); ²⁰⁶  and
• the presence of criminal organizations specialized in the production and traffic of coca paste, cocaine base and CHCL in the national territories of these countries.

      This thesis does not develop an accurate set of indicators to measure each one of these variables, ²⁰⁷  but rather typifies South American countries according to the information given in the existing literature on the subject and the statistics provided by the national and international research and enforcement agencies. ²⁰⁸ 

      Drug trafficking, like any other industry, involves several steps from production to retail. This thesis focuses on the breakdown of this process among different countries, including determining the location of firms (criminal organizations specialized in cocaine traffic), workers (peasants), and where production of raw material (coca bush) occurs. It also examines which part of the conversion process is carried out in each of the countries under study as a variable for distribution between types.

      Upstream producer countries:

      These are the countries where the bulk of the coca leaf production is located. Up to the mid 1990s Peru was the first coca leaf producer followed by Bolivia. In these countries a high percentage of the peasant labor force is engaged in coca production and harvest (growers), transport of leaves to the maceration pits (zepes, or ants in Aymara language) and production of coca paste (stompers). The territories are used then for the production of the first two stages of cocaine production. In general terms, Bolivians and Peruvians manage the production of cocaine base and sell it to the Colombians. This distinction became fuzzy, however, in the late 1980s. First, the increase in the enforcement policies against the traffickers in Colombia during the Betancur and Barco administrations led to a relocation of CHCL laboratories in Bolivia. At the same time, the Bolivian traffickers began to manage their own CHCL production as the Medellín coalition was weakened by enforcement measures taken after the assassination in August 1989 of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán by members of the Medellín "cartel." ²⁰⁹  Second, Europe started to grow in importance as a consumption market. ²¹⁰  Since the mid-1980s there was an increase in cocaine consumption and crack in Western Europe. ²¹¹  At the same time, because of the saturation of the U.S. market for cocaine, the drug trafficking organizations based in South America started to increasingly look to Europe to sell their product. ²¹²  The traffickers were attracted the general prosperity of western Europe, by higher retail prices and by the decision of the European Community to progressively lower internal customs controls. ²¹³  While the Colombian traffickers started to expand to the new market and maintain control over the U.S. market, the Bolivian traffickers concentrated their activities in export operations to Europe . ²¹⁴  Moreover Ecuador and Venezuela became coca producers at the end of the 1980s as the coca eradication campaigns were intensified in Peru and Colombia and as the economic situation in these countries deteriorated with a decrease in oil prices (Venezuela's main export and Ecuador's second export). ²¹⁵  However, these two countries do not produce the same amount of coca leaves as do Bolivia and Peru, nor do they employ as high a percentage of the peasantry. ²¹⁶  In the context of this thesis, these countries will be considered as in the process of shifting from transshipment countries to upstream producer countries.

      Downstream producer countries:

      The paradigm case is Colombia. In this type of country the management of the final stage in the production of cocaine is located with the coca base imported from Bolivia and Peru. Colombia is the largest cocaine producer in the world. As the production of CHCL is capital-intensive the percentage of labor engaged in the coca-cocaine complex is lower than in Peru and Bolivia; moreover coca chewing is not a millenary tradition among the Colombian peasants and Indian tribes. Because of this the production of coca bush is not as widespread as in Bolivia and Peru. As explained in the last chapter, the major criminal organizations, which deal with the final processing and retailing of the product, are located in Colombian territory. Table 8 below illustrates the importance of the coca-cocaine industry in the Andean countries in the early 1990s. It is possible to see that the percentage of workers employed in the coca-cocaine industry in Colombia as compared to the total active economic population is significantly smaller than in the cases of Peru and Bolivia.

      

Table 1. The Coca-Cocaine Economies in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia
	Bolivia	Peru	Colombia
Hectares under cultivation (1990)	50,300	121,300	40,100
Production of coca (1990 metric tons)	116,000	138,000	32,000
Total value added (US $ millions)	659-911	498-1,219	1,127
Value added as percentage of GDP	15.6-20.5	1.5-3.7	2.9
Income remaining in the country (US $ Millions)	179-216	382-942	645
Income as percentage of legal exports	19.4-23.5	14.3-35.4	16.8
Workers employed in coca-cocaine	207,000	165,000-279,000	40,000
Workers as percentage of EAP	6.7-12.0	2.7-4.5	0.4

Source: Painter, James, Bolivia and Coca: A study in dependency, Boulder, Lynne Rienner,1994, p.51

      Transit countries and neighboring transshipment countries:

      Of the four types, the transit countries are the least difficult to define. In fact, this kind of country is defined in Article 1 of the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances:

"'Transit State' means a State through the territory of which illicit narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and substances in Table I and Table II are being moved, which is neither the place of origin nor the place of ultimate destination thereof. " ²¹⁷ 

      Transit countries function as "pit stops" for traders. A particular state may serve as a base for operations to set up a deal, for aircraft or ship refueling, and for recruitment of personnel required for such activities and protection. Some of these countries also play a major role as financial havens for the legitimization of "drug money" through the banking system, for purchases or investments in commercial and industrial activities, or as suppliers of the chemical inputs required in the production of cocaine. Argentina and Chile play this last role. Suriname is the main South American conduit for the cocaine that penetrates into Europe via the Netherlands. ²¹⁸  Even if there is no evidence of cocaine production in Surinamese territory, because of its geography and the weak presence of the state it could be used as a base for Brazilian or Colombian traffickers operating in the Brazilian Amazon.

      "Neighboring transshipment" countries are those countries that share all the characteristics mentioned above but also share borders with the producer countries. Therefore, these countries have a particular problematique concerning the possibility of spillover of drug trafficking activities to their territories and, consequently, the spillover effects of enforcement against the actors involved in drug trafficking activities in the producer countries.

      Full cycle countries:

      Only Brazil fulfills this type. Full cycle countries refer to those countries where the raw material is produced and completely processed. Another requirement is that these countries have local or foreign criminal organizations that manage all the stages of production (alone or through cooperation among them) and retail of the product. These countries do not depend on the importation of chemicals inputs (Brazil is a major producer of acetone and ether in South America). They also have their own channels for money laundering and their own big centers for the distribution, retail, and consumption of the final product (cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo).Brazil also became the major route of traffic going to Europe. ²¹⁹ 

      As enforcement grew in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia in the early 1980s, traffickers in these three countries moved part of their refinement laboratories to the Brazilian Amazon. ²²⁰  In the case of Colombia the traffickers moved their operations to Brazil also to be out of range of areas controlled by the guerrillas. The Bolivian traffickers started to use Brazil as an alternative route and as a zone for refinement far from the influence of the Colombian traffickers. The Peruvian peasants at the same time moved the growing areas towards the frontier with the Brazilian Amazon to escape from the eradication programs. And the traffickers started to encourage the Amazonian Indians to grow the ipadu (a native variant of the coca bush, which contains a lesser degree of alkaloids and is less productive than the Andean species). Manaus, located in the heart of the Amazon, became a center for the exit of cocaine and the traffic of cocaine paste towards the laboratories in the jungle. ²²¹ 

      Table 2 maps the position of each South American country in relation to the cocaine industry. Table 3 indicates which transshipment (including neighboring) countries play a significant role in the supply of chemical products used in the manufacture of cocaine and those which play a significant role in the legitimization of illegal capitals generated by drug trafficking (money laundering).

      

Table 2. Role of the South American countries in the cocaine industry
Country	Arg	Bol (4)	Bra	Col (2)	Chi	Ec	Gu	Par (1)	Per	Sur	Urg	Ven (3)
Upstream producer		X							X
Downstream producer				X
Full Cycle			X
Neighboring Transshipment	X				X	X		X
Transshipment							X			X	X	X
(1) Paraguay is the major South American producer of marijuana. (2) Colombia is increasingly becoming a producer of opium poppy and heroin. Some experimental small opium plantations have been detected in Ecuador and Peru. (3) Rapidly turning into an upstream producer since the late 1980s. (4) In fact since 1989 can be considered the second world producer of CHCL. Abbreviations: Arg., Argentina; Bol., Bolivia; Bra., Brazil; Col., Colombia; Chi.; Chile; Ec., Ecuador; Gu. Guyana; Par., Paraguay; Per., Peru; Sur., Suriname; Urg., Uruguay; Ve., Venezuela.

      

Table 3. Transit and Neighboring Transshipment Countries. Division of Labor
Country	Argentina	Chile	Ecuador	Guyana	Paraguay	Suriname	Venezuela	Uruguay
Production of chemical inputs	X	X					X
Money Laundering	X	X			X		X	X

      It is worth clarifying that none of these types are static. The role of countries may change depending on changes in the patterns of enforcement and changes in the market like drug consumption patterns. ²²²  Many changes occurred while this dissertation was being written; to explain each in great detail exceeds the timeframe of this work. However it is worth noticing that since the mid-1990s, it is increasingly difficult to talk about pure "downstream," "upstream," "transit," "neighboring transit," or full cycle states. As a result of enforcement in the Andean countries roles are constantly changing. As an example, since 1991 the Peruvian Air Force has been participating in the interception of illegal flights from the Upper Huallaga Valley in the Peruvian Amazon forest to Colombia. This "air bridge" denial strategy provoked a rise in local coca production in Colombia. Since the Colombian traffickers were confronted with rising costs of coca paste from Peru, they started to demand coca and coca paste from the local market. As stated in a recent report,

"The severing of the air link with Colombia is undeniable. But Colombian traffickers have found two solutions. They have greatly increased the production of coca leaves in their own country; and they have forced Peruvian growers to return to river transport (directly to Colombia), or by sea and by land (via Ecuador)." ²²³ 

      The settlers of the Amazon departments of Guaviare, Caquetá, Vaupés, Meta, and Vichada increased the production of coca and coca paste attracted by higher prices. In Caquetá and Guaviare coca and coca paste is produced under the protection of the FARC, which (under coercion) taxes the production. ²²⁴ 

      From 1995 onwards it is possible to say that Colombia occupies the second place in coca production after Peru, followed by Bolivia.

"With 60,000 to 70,000 hectares dedicated to illicit crops, Colombia has become the world's second coca leaf producer over the past two or three years-a ranking previously occupied by Bolivia." ²²⁵ 

      At the same time, and as a consequence of the disruption of the Medellín "cartel" in the early 1990's and the disruption of the Cali cartel in 1995, the local production of cocaine has reportedly been increasing steadily in Bolivia and Peru. ²²⁶ 

      In that sense the difference between upstream and downstream producer countries has become blurred. From 1995 on, for example, Colombia started to suffer some drug trafficking-related violence similar to that in Peru: regions controlled by guerrilla groups that protect coca-growing peasants from eradication teams. ²²⁷  Strictly speaking, if the Brazilian criminal organizations become major players in cocaine production, the distinction between transit and neighboring transit countries would also become blurred because nearly all the South American States share borders with Brazil.

      The security environment in terms the illicit traffic of cocaine is highly hostile in the South American states, because enforcement in one country implies a geographical shift in production across borders as well as a shift of traffic routes. This is quite disturbing considering that the cocaine traffickers develop their own paramilitary forces and their own intelligence networks, have a high corrupting power, and can control a part of the national territory where the state presence is weak. The threat originated in the security environment and stemming from the cocaine industry is enhanced, for both the core producer countries and their periphery, by another phenomenon: the weak nature of their states.

a) Sociopolitical cohesion (Legitimacy and Integration)

      States such as Peru and Bolivia never finished the process of consolidation as nation-states. Peru can be separated into three regions: the coast, the mountains (la sierra) and the jungle (Amazon). In the two last regions, the presence of the central government is almost non-existent and the communal and tribal identities among the Indian population lead to a sometimes-stronger loyalty towards non-state actors such as the mining and coca-grower trade unions. In both countries, ethnic differences in the case of the Indian population are a clear indication of social class. Indians are assimilated into the poorest sector of society. ²²⁹ 

      Ecuador shares similar characteristics in terms of a large and highly organized Indian population but does not share the problematique of being a coca/cocaine producer country. The analysis in this case would be based on speculations of what would happen if the conditions for Ecuador to become a coca-cocaine producer country appear. The country did not suffer the phenomenon of colonization and migration to potential coca producing areas as did Peru and Bolivia, and it is not a coca dependent country like Bolivia. ²³⁰ 

      As stated previously, this problematique is shared and enhanced in Suriname because of the recent process of nation-building and because the state is more deeply divided along religious and ethnic lines. These divisions are evident in the rise of ethnic guerrilla groups such as the Jungle Commando and the Tucayana discussed earlier in this chapter.

      There is one country where the fragmentation of society does not run along ethnic or cultural lines but stems from radical social differences in income and property distribution: Brazil. ²³¹  The idea of nation is strong among the population and there are no strong communal identities (with the exception of a minority of the Amazon Indian communities). However, the lack of access to land and the extreme poverty of the majority of the population are a permanent source of potential and spontaneous societal violence. Moreover, the difference between the black and white populations is not relevant for problems stemming from poverty and disparities, though it is true that the black population suffers from an even greater degree of social exclusion. As explained in the previous chapter, such an absence of ethnic or cultural divisions can be considered less fragmentary than situations in countries that have multiethnic and pluricultural non-integrated societies. Venezuela, and to a lesser extent Argentina, suffer from the same kind of social fragmentation. The relevant problem caused by this fragmentation is the phenomenon of formation of labor hand in the big cities for criminal organizations (not necessarily specialized in drug trafficking activities) that have established linkages with their counterparts in neighboring countries. This is the clear case of the favelas (shantytowns) of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and the shantytowns (barrios) of Caracas. This point will be stressed in the next sections of this chapter.

      Nine countries are in the process of consolidating their democratic regimes after long periods of military dictatorship: Argentina (1983>), Bolivia (1982>), Brazil (1985>), Chile (1989>), Ecuador (1979>), Uruguay (1985>), Peru (1981>), Paraguay (1989>), and Suriname (1991>). For some, such as Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Suriname, a high degree of institutional power and the participation of the armed forces in internal political affairs pose a serious threat for their democracies, as the authoritarian self-coup de main (autogolpe) of President Fujimori in Peru (1992) clearly illustrates.

      The cases of Suriname and Paraguay are explicit in the sense that factions of the armed forces directly involved in drug trafficking activities could easily overthrow a government and change the type of regime if there were attempts to prosecute or dismiss their leaders by the political power.

      A common characteristic of all the South American countries is that their democratic institutions are not fully developed. The only strong and fully legitimate institution is the figure of the elected president. They all share the same pattern of democratic institutionalization known as ' Delegative Democracies," defined by Guillermo O'Donnell as a regime in which

'The president is taken to be the embodiment of the nation and the main custodian and definer of its interests. The policies of his government need bear no resemblance to the promises of his campaign [...] In this view, other institutions-courts and legislatures, for instance are nuisances that come attached to the domestic and international advantages of being democratically elected president'  ²³² 

      For these reasons, grave cases of corruption caused by illicit drug traffic matters could cause a lack of legitimacy of the political establishment and of the democratic regime. This last fact is particularly disturbing because of the almost endemic problem of corruption in South American societies and political and military elites.  ²³³ 

      Colombia and Peru are the only two South American countries where strong guerrilla movements are still in existence. Both states are facing guerrilla organizations that propose a radical change in the type of society and state or the kind of political regime. This contributes to the worsening of the problems posed by cocaine trafficking.

b) Policy capacity

      In terms of policy capacity it is possible to make a generalization not only for all the South American states but also for the rest of Latin America. No matter what differences exist in the capacity to extract resources from society and apply policies, since 1982 the policy capacity of these states has been strongly affected by the foreign debt crisis. In countries as such Bolivia and Peru, the debt crisis did two things. It accelerated a coca/cocaine boom in response to the increase in consumption in the U.S. by the end of the 1970s. It also reduced even further the capacity of these states to implement economic development and law enforcement policies aimed at arresting traffickers and supporting the legal economy in the face of a rising illegal industry.

      

Table 4. Total Disbursed External Debt (balance by years in millions of dollars)
Country	1980	1985	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996
Argentina	27162	49326	58473	63 314	62 233	58 413	59123	70600	79455	89719	99701
Bolivia	2340	3294	4043	3492	3768	3582	3784	3777	4216	4523	4366
Brazil	64 000	105 126	113 469	115 096	123 439	123 910	135 949	145 726	148295	159256	178131
Chile	11207	20403	18960	17520	18576	17319	18964	19665	21768	21736	23049
Colombia	6805	14063	17935	17586	17993	17335	17277	18942	21954	25050	28497
Ecuador	4167	8111	10669	11533	12222	12802	12795	13631	14589	13934	14586
Guyana	449	1308	1778	1801	1812	1873	2054	2062	2004	2058	1499
Paraguay	861	1772	2002	2027	1695	1666	1279	1254	1272	1361	1372
Peru	9595	13721	16493	18356	19996	20787	21409	26370	30214	33443	33643
Suriname	Nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	Nd	nd	nd	nd	nd
Uruguay	1165	3551	4239	4313	4472	4141	4136	4293	4959	5193	5367
Venezuela	26963	31238	35876	33812	35528	36000	38447	40836	41160	38460	35277

Source : United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Statistical Yearbook, various years.

      Between 1982 and 1985, net capital income had exceeded net payment of profits and interest giving rise to a real transfer of resources from the rest of the world to Latin America, of around US $ 15 billion per annum. From the second half of 1982 onward, these flows changed to real transfers from Latin America to the rest of the world, amounting to US $ 30 billion per annum in the four-year period that followed, remaining between US $ 20 and 30 billion per annum during the 1990s. ²³⁴  As explained by an analyst,

"Between 1982 and 1985, the real transfer of resources from Latin America abroad was made possible through an adjustment, by reducing domestic demand, which for the brief period of time in which it had to be made , widely exceeded the extent of the transfer itself [...]The adverse trends caused by the external debt could not but have negative social consequences too. First, the per capita product contracted 85% between 1980 and 1989, with very significant drops of over 20% in Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela [...]On the other hand, very high unemployment rates up to 20% of the working population reappeared, and in some cases appeared for the first time. For Latin America as a whole, unemployment rates increased by 30% between 1980 and 1984. The financial problems of the State led to cutbacks in social spending, which had been disproportionately affected owing to the reduction in tax revenues and to greater interest payments by the State. Thus there was a reduction in the satisfaction of basic education, health care , social security and housing needs..." ²³⁵ 

      This economic crisis acted at once as a cure and a disease. In some ways it contributed to reducing the legitimacy of military governments that were unable to cope with the control of recession and hyperinflation as in Argentina, Brazil and Peru. On the other hand it created a real crisis of governabiltiy in the sense that the new democratic regimes were unable to cope with the increasing demands of their populations nor even provide the most basic social services. ²³⁶  The extreme cases were countries such as Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia where the capacity and even the infrastructure of the state were almost already non-existent in some areas. The following tables give some economic indicators that illustrate some of the effects of the foreign debt crisis suffered by the South American states in the early 1980s.

      

Table 5. Growths of per capita gross domestic product, at constant market prices
Country	1980-1985	1985-1990	1980-1990	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996
Argentina	-2.9	-1.4	-2.1	-1.9	8.5	8.1	4.3	6.1	-6.2	2.2
Bolivia	-3.8	0.1	-1.9	2.3	2.8	-0.8	1.8	2.1	1.3	1.5
Brazil	-1.2	-0.1	-0.7	-6.3	-1.5	-2.6	3.0	4.3	2.5	1.8
Chile	-1.8	4.5	1.3	1.6	5.4	8.7	4.2	2.5	6.5	5.6
Colombia	0.5	2.7	1.6	1.8	-0.4	2.0	3.8	4.1	4.0	0.5
Ecuador	-0.9	-0.8	-0.9	0.8	3.0	1.4	0.3	2.5	0.5	-0.1
Paraguay	-0.7	0.7	0.0	0.0	-0.5	-1.1	1.3	0.2	1.8	-1.6
Peru	-2.8	-3.8	-3.3	-7.1	0.9	-2.6	4.0	11.9	6.0	0.7
Suriname	Nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd	nd
Uruguay	-4.1	3.1	-0.6	0.1	2.6	7.2	2.7	5.8	-2.9	4.2
Venezuela	-6.4	0.0	-3.2	4.4	7.1	3.6	-1.6	-4.8	1.3	-3.5
Guyana	-4.0	-2.8	-3.4	-5.2	7.3	10.2	7.4	8.4	3.6	2.0

Source: United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Statistical Yearbook, various years.

      

Table 6. Per capita gross domestic product at constant market prices (Dollars at 1990 prices)
Country	1980	1985	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996
Argentina	7363.2	2908.8	4345.7	4713.4	5093.4	5312.4	5636.4	5287.5	5401.9
Bolivia	936.3	1105.3	795.7	818.1	811.7	825.9	843.3	854.6	867.4
Brazil	1950.7	1562.5	3145.9	2675.9	2606.4	2684.1	2799.7	2870.7	2921.3
Chile	2030.5	1857.8	2319.6	2443.9	2656.0	2767.8	2836.1	3021.2	3190.4
Colombia	1052.2	1081.4	1235.6	1230.8	1255.5	1303.3	1356.7	1411.4	1417.8
Ecuador	1275.6	1218.0	1041.0	1119.2	1178.3	1302.6	1479.9	1565.4	1627.5
Paraguay	1428.6	1259.4	1247.9	1439.9	1445.3	1500.9	1664.2	1860.3	1936.6
Peru	1192.7	925.1	1675.3	1941.0	1873.3	1769.5	2147.4	2503.5	2524.3
Suriname	2515.7	2602.6	4428.3	5214.2	7082.0	15223.8	1176.5	1265.7	1816.7
Uruguay	3477.6	1568.9	2690.4	3211.2	3765.4	4360.8	5095.2	5607.4	5899.5
Venezuela	3923.7	3615.8	2492.0	2676.8	2955.9	2871.8	2732.7	3542.7	3161.7

Source: United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Statistical Yearbook, various years.

      

Table 7. Public Sector balance sheet at current prices (as a percentage of the Gross National product)*

Source: Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), América Latina y el Caribe Quince Años Después: De la década perdida a la transformación económica,1980-1985, Santiago de Chile, Fondo de Cultura Económica,1996, p.49

      NNFPS= national non-financial public sector; NFPS: non-financial public sector; HS: without computing the accumulated income generated by privatization (hypothetical situation); CPS: consolidated public sector.

      Moreover, the policies recommended by international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the Club of Paris ended the hyper inflationary crisis but did not increase the capacity of the state since they were based on radical cuts in public expenditure. At the same time the extractive capacity of the state (taxes) in all these countries is very weak. As explained by an analyst,

"La crise de l'endettement et les "recommendations" du FMI ont eu pour effet, à des rythmes divers selon le pays, de mettre partout en oeuvre le même type de recettes pour vaincre l'inflation qui rongeait ces pays: diminuton drastique des déficit budgétaires, privatisation des entreprises publiques, abandon de soutiens publics à certaines productions on a donc assisté a un abandon spectaculaire par l'etat des tâches qu'il remplissait traditonellement..." ²³⁷ 

      Colombia stands as a case apart in the fact that it is the only country in the region that did not have a debt crisis. ²³⁸  In fact the country profited from an export boom in both legal and illegal agricultural exports. On the legal side Colombia benefited from a rise in coffee prices in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However the country also benefited from the rise of marijuana trafficking during the 1970s and from the beginning of the cocaine boom that started to take place in the late 1970s. ²³⁹ 

      According to an analyst, the weakness in the policy capacity of the Colombian state stems from the historical lack of legitimacy of its close, restrictive, and clientelistic political regime. This fact has led people to a lack of respect for the legal system, of the national institutions and also to resort to violence as a way for satisfying social demands. As noted by an analyst,

"Colombia's economic development has a dark side reflected in the country's deep and continuous socioeconomic problems. Indeed, Colombia has experienced a growing institutional crisis in which old political and legal frameworks have become increasingly unable to cope with social conflicts and economic change, and the political regime has suffered an erosion of its legitimacy....The growing erosion of the Colombian regime's legitimacy has caused a growing gap between the legal norms of social, political, and economic behavior, and socially accepted behavior; that is, a gap between the de jure and de facto social norms. This deep institutional crisis has symptomatically manifested itself in several ways such as an extremely high levels of violence, the growth of a large informal economy, widespread rent-seeking and predatory economic behavior and an increasingly weaker and more ineffective state." ²⁴⁰ 

      Colombia, then, presents a paradoxical case. In the rest of South America the debt crisis precipitated in a sense the fall of authoritarian political regimes but also reduced the capacity of the state and made the transition to new democratic regimes difficult. On the other hand, Colombia as an "island" unaffected by the debt crisis could not however transform its economic wealth into development due to the lack of capacity of the state stemming basically from the fact that its type of democratic regime lacked legitimacy. ²⁴¹  As explained by the Colombian economist Francisco Thoumi,

"The growing complexity and size of the state increased in the incentives and payoffs of clientelistic and other rent-seeking behavior in Colombia. Economic policies, laws, and regulations with redistributive implications promoted the growth of rent-seeking organizations that succeeded in getting the government to formulate policies that clearly benefited narrowly defined economic interests. Since many of these policies are perceived by a large proportion of the population as benefiting small groups rather than society at large, breaking the rules and regulations [like paying taxes for example] imposed by the government is considered by most Colombians as a legitimate action, greatly contributing to weakening the state." ²⁴² 

      This lack of state capacity, as cynically (but accurately) analyzed by Thoumi, was not only one of the conditions that allowed the cocaine industry to rise in Colombia, but also restricted the government's ability to effectively deal with the problem.

"[t]he government cannot really try to eliminate the industry through repressive measures or confiscate assets accumulated by those involved in the business, because the state is too weak, the level of violence required is too high, and so much of the industry's capital is invested outside Colombia. Moreover, the large amount of 'clean' hidden capital in Colombia cannot possibly be separated from the 'dirty' capital that the government might like to confiscate." ²⁴³ 

c) Territorial centrality

      In all South American states (with the exception of Chile and Uruguay) there is a weak territorial and functional presence of the state. The governments of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia have never exercised full control over their national territories. Vast sections of eastern and southeastern Peru, and southern Colombia have always been a political no-man's land. The same can be said of the Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon regions and practically all the territory of Suriname and Guyana.

      All these states dealt with guerrilla movements during the 1960s and 1970s. ²⁴⁴  Two countries still coexist with insurgent groups: ²⁴⁵  Peru since the early 1980's and Colombia since the 1960's. In Chile and Ecuador, too, there still exist weak leftist urban guerrilla organizations: respectively, the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, formed during Pinochet's military dictatorship, and the Alfaro Vive Carajo! Movement, which arose during the mid 1980s. ²⁴⁶  Especially in Peru, Colombia, and Chile (during the military dictatorship), the formation of rightist paramilitary organizations (Colombia) and high levels of state repression and human rights violations characterize the repression of these guerrilla movements. ²⁴⁷ 

      In all of the Southern Cone--but in Argentina in particular the early 1980's--military dictatorships were characterized by massive human rights violations and high levels of repression even if, as in the case of Argentina, the existent guerrilla movements had been crushed by the late 1970's. ²⁴⁸ 

      The strength of guerrilla movements is measured in terms of the nature of the territorial centrality of the state. In this way a guerrilla movement will be considered strong or not depending on the amount of people and territory under its control. The larger this control, the lower the monopoly of authoritative binding rule making, backed by a monopoly on the means of physical violence. This means that in the areas controlled by guerrilla movements, this monopoly will be either disputed by the state or it will be fully exercised by the guerrilla group.

      Bearing these definitions in mind, only the Colombian insurgent movements and Shining Path in Peru will be considered as relevant and strong guerrilla groups. These groups posed a serious threat to the continuity of the political regime in each of the countries mentioned and controlled considerable areas of the Peruvian (Huallaga Valley, Puno, Ayacucho, Apurimac departments, shantytowns of Lima) and Colombian, (the south of the country and the border with Venezuela) territory and population.

      Minor groups which appeared in the early 1980's and were easily crushed by the government--such as Bandera Roja (Venezuela), Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (Chile), Ejército Guerrillero Tupac Katari (Bolivia), Movimiento Todos Por la Patria (Argentina), and Alfaro Vive Carajo (Ecuador)--will not be considered in this thesis as relevant for analysis. ²⁴⁹ 

d) Socioeconomic development

      If we consider the second part of the definition of socioeconomic development given in the first chapter, ²⁵⁰  it is possible to affirm that the South American states are still, to different extents, dependent countries since none of them has fully developed the capacity to generate the complete cycle of accumulation and expansion of capital within their economic systems. Even though countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia have developed diversified economies, large domestic markets, and local industries, they still confront the problem of being in a situation where they do not have the local capacity to enlarge the scale of capital. They are dependent in terms of the creation of new technologies and financial support. As explained by Cristóbal Kay,

"Despite the increasing presence of transnational corporations (TNCs) in Latin America there has been little technological diffusion, which has confirmed dependency theory's critique of TNCs. Government policy has failed to develop an indigenous technological capacity in Latin America and could have acted more decisively to ensure that TNCs made a contribution to this process. Nevertheless Brazil and to some extent Mexico have acquired some competitive technological capacity largely as a consequence of a purposeful industrial policy. But with the new electronics and communications technological revolution the more advanced economies have gained a further competitive advantage over the less developed countries (LDCs). This has further increased the technological dependence of most LDCs." ²⁵¹ 

      Other countries including Suriname, Ecuador, and Bolivia face a more serious problematique since their economies are still based on the production or extraction of a single product subject to international price fluctuations (bauxite in the case of Suriname, bananas and oil for Ecuador and tin and natural gas in the case of Bolivia). This, combined with cultural, climatic, and social factors was, as it will be illustrated later, a determinant fact in the rise of coca/cocaine production in Bolivia to the level of a parallel national illegal economy.

      As far as the first part of the definition of socioeconomic development as "underdevelopment" is concerned, this aspect will be measured using the indicators used by the United Nations Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Conference for trade and Development. ²⁵²  In order to measure the level of development of a country, the tables included in the annexes to this work will enable the reader to compare the relative "underdevelopment" of the South American states.These "basic indicators of development" are divided into economic indicators and social indicators as the table below shows. In the absence of a commonly accepted division between economic and social indicators this has been done arbitrarily by the author. ²⁵³  These indicators include at the same time those given in Table 6 of the same chapter. The data for each country is included in a separate annex.

      

Table 8. Basic indicators of development
Economic:	Social:
Population Area Density Total and per capita GDP Annual average growth rates of total and per capita real gross domestic product at market prices GDP by type of expenditure GDP by kind of economic activity Transport Labor Force ( percentage in agriculture, industry and Services) Transport (Merchant Fleet in tons, Commercial vehicles in use, length of railway network, length of road network )	Population Vital statistics ( Urban Population as a percentage of total population, Crude birth rate, Crude death rate, Infant mortality rate per 1000 live births, Life expectancy at birth) Health (Proportion of infants immunized-measles and poliomyelitis- , Percentage of the Population with access to water-rural and urban-, Population per physician) Education and Culture (Illiteracy rate, Enrollment ratios-combined primary and secondary and Third level, Educational expenditure as a percentage of GNP, Number of radio receivers in use)

      The following tables provide a general map of the variables that measure the nature of the South American States (except for socioeconomic development represented in the annex). For the variable "sociopolitical cohesion" only the years immediately preceding the 1980s are considered and not the whole political history of each country.

      

Table 9. Sociopolitical cohesion of South American states
	Ar.	Bol.	Bra.	Col.	Chi.	Ec.	Gu	Par.	Peru	Sur.	Urg.	Ven.
Fragile Political Legitimacy	x	x	X	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Fragmented Societies along income disparities and land access	x	x	X	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Incomplete Nation Building		x	x			x	x		x	x
"Weblike Societies" 254		x				x	x		x	x
Strong loyalties to communal ethnic and religious groups		x				x	x		x	x
High levels of political violence
Conspicuous use of force by the state in domestic political life	1976 1983	x	1967 1985	x	x	x		x	x	x	19731985
Conspicuous role of political police in every day lives of citizens	19761983	1979 1981	19671985		19731989	up to 1979		1954 1989	x	1978 1988 1990 1991	19731985
Major political conflict over what ideology will be used to organize the state	19701983	1964 1970	1968 1972	x	1970 1989				x	1986 1991	1966 1973	1964 1969
Contending national identities within the state		x	X		x	x			x	x
High degree of control over the media	1976 1983	?			1973 1989	up to 1979		up to 1999	x	1979 1988	1973 1985

      

Table 10. Policy Capacity
	Ar.	Bol.	Bra.	Col.	Chi.	Ec.	Gu.	Par.	Per.	Sur.	Urg.	Ven.
Rigid policy capacity	x	x	X	x		x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Inefficient state apparatus	x	x	X	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
High levels of political corruption	x	x	X	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

      

Table 11. Territorial Centrality
	Ar.	Bol.	Bra.	Col.	Chi.	Ec.	Gu.	Par.	Per.	Sur.	Urg.	Ven.
Weak presence of the state in frontier zones and areas outside the major cities	x	x	X	x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x
Strong non-state organized armed groups other than guerrillas and including them	1970 1983	x	X	x					x	x	1966 1972	1964 1965
Abbreviations and brief description: Ar. Argentina; Bol. Bolivia; Bra. Brazil; Col. Colombia; Chi. Chile; Ec. Ecuador; Gu. Guyana; Par. Paraguay; Per. Peru; Sur. Suriname; Urg. Uruguay; Ven. Venezuela An "x" is used to indicate that a problem is present in a country. Bigger "x"s are used for the more representative cases where the problem poses serious threats against the state. Periods of time indicate the years in which certain vulnerabilities have been present when the vulnerability is not current.

      Because of their security environment and because of the nature of their states, no country in South American can be considered a strong state. As stated in Chapter I using the indicators displayed above, the South American states could be typified on a continuum ranging from strong states to weak states. The indicators could be used as a cumulative index. The more conditions of weakness a state accumulates, the closer it will be to the weak. This continuum is not static; states can move along it depending on the changes in their security environment or increases or decreases in their vulnerabilities.

      A country such as Argentina, for example, evolved from a situation of high levels of political violence characterized by the coexistence of leftist guerrillas and far right paramilitary groups in the 70's and a highly repressive military dictatorship in the late 70's and early 80's (and a military defeat by Great Britain in 1982) to a situation of decreasing levels of political violence, the absence of active guerrilla groups, and a process of democratic consolidation following the transition to democracy in 1983. Venezuela, on the other hand, evolved from a situation of long-lasting economic prosperity and a stable (although restrictive) democratic regime in the 1960s to a situation of political instability and economic crisis in the late 1980s. These aspects will be deeply analyzed in the chapters concerning the country cases. Subsequent sections will illustrate that the Andean states suffered a special combination of political and economic factors at the end of the seventies that led them to be particularly affected by the rise of the cocaine industry in their national territories.

      Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru could be placed close to the 'weak state' pole. The vulnerability of the state fostered the rise of the drug industry, which became a threat to the state. Drug trafficking also deepened the vulnerability of the state intensifying the threat dimensions posed by this illegal industry.

      Peru and Bolivia are both examples of states with a very low sociopolitical cohesion because of their almost permanent political instability and the fact that the Indian population is not fully identified with the state. Neither country has had a stable legitimate regime during their history, whether democratic or authoritarian, until the early 1980's (1980 for Peru and 1981 for Bolivia). To use a strong example, Bolivia has seen more "coups d'état" than years of independent political history.

      Colombia moved from a period of civil war between the two main parties, Liberal and Conservative, (La Violencia 1948-1958) to a restrictive regime characterized by an agreed automatic alternance of both parties and an agreed distribution of all important political positions. This assured the continuity of the political regime from 1958 but created the conditions for the rise of guerrilla groups such as the M-19 that opted for an armed solution since Conservatives and Liberals monopolized the peaceful competition. ²⁵⁵ 

      As stated previously, the problem of political violence has to be added in the case of Peru to the other present indicators of weakness. Groups like Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) , who exploited the historical oppression and exclusion of the Indian masses as a mobilizing factor, were successful in their efforts to further weaken state control.

      In the extreme case of Bolivia, the deep underdevelopment and dependency of the state accentuates even more the inability of the state to cope with simple matters like the payment of public officials' salaries, a problem that is shared with Peru. This factor will also condition the way in which these states are able to determine in an autonomous way the kind of policies to be adopted to control illegal coca and cocaine production, as well as the way in which these policies can be applied. Another important factor is that as these states are fully indebted and have dependent economies, they can easily be influenced by drug control policies of the United States, which traditionally pursues the solution of the internal drug consumption by attempting to eliminate the supply abroad. As it will be explained in the next chapters, the enforcement measures encouraged or even demanded by the United States only worsen the problem.

a) Drug trafficking organizations

      In the period under study, the best-organized and stronger criminal organizations of traffickers in South America were the Colombian and the Bolivian traffickers. Peruvian organizations were fully subordinated to the Colombian traffickers. The Brazilian traffickers supported the Peruvian, Bolivian, and Colombian groups who shifted their operations to the Brazilian Amazon by acting as intermediaries. Their drug activities are generally limited to transportation and retail. Such is the case of the Commando Vermelho (Red Command) in Rio de Janeiro, which transports to supply the Brazilian megalopolis and is also involved in prostitution and illegal gambling. ²⁸⁹ 

      In the case of Colombia, the traffickers were organized in two loosely articulated coalitions of criminal groups centered in the cities of Medellín and Cali. They accounted for 70 to 80 % of Colombian cocaine production. The remaining 20 to 30 % lay mostly in the hands of independent trafficking groups based in Pereira, Bogota and the north coast of Colombia. ²⁹⁰ An informal division of labor existed between the leaders of each organization. In the case of the Medellín coalition, for example,

"Pablo Escobar specialized in security for the organization, Jorge Luis Ochoa and his brothers took responsibility for the distribution networks in Florida and California and Carlos Lehder assumed responsibility for air transportation into the United States."  ²⁹¹ 

      Colombia's cocaine establishment is not monolithic.In the early 1980s a sense of cooperation existed among the major cocaine bosses, but significant disputes began emerging in the middle and latter parts of the decade. These disputes centered on issues such as ideology, economic competition (turf wars), and differences in operating philosophy. A radical-conservative split occurred between Carlos Lehder (violently anti-establishment trafficker) and his colleagues of the Medellín coalition. A more important dispute between the Medellín and Cali coalitions arose largely from economic factors but also reflected differences in tactics. For example, the most significant division involved those who advocated violence (the Rodríguez Gacha-Escobar wing of the Medellín coalition) and traffickers (including some Medellín bosses) who favored a more conciliatory approach toward the authorities. ²⁹²  These coalitions were relatively decentralized and amorphous. These are not bureaucracies in the Weberian sense, but rather coalitions or confederations with fluid boundaries. The coalitions are organized through a complicated system of contracts and subcontracts or "joint ventures" between different organizations. There were differences in the structure of authority of the Medellín and Cali coalitions. As stated by Rensselaer Lee III and Patrick Clawson,

"In Medellín a single kingpin-Pablo Escobar- exercised a vast sway over trafficking operations that, Escobar's mantle of leadership, his access to the means of violence, and his rightness domination of smaller exporters held the coalition together and established its identity. The Cali coalition, by contrast, is a relatively loose association of exporters; no single head or heart drives it." ²⁹³ 

      Because of the absence of a hierarchical and vertical structure within the coalitions, the capture or death of one of its leaders may weaken them but is not enough to disrupt cocaine production and traffic. Moreover, it multiplies the number of players and increases the market share of competing coalitions (as it happened with the Cali coalition after the arrest or death of most of the leaders of the Medellín coalition). As again pointed out by Clawson and Lee III in reference to the death of Pablo Escobar in 1993,

"Part of the old coalition [....] continued to export cocaine as of 1995, but Medellín's overall market share has diminished drastically -to as little as 10 to 20 percent compared to 70 to 80 percent in the late 1980s. Also according to numerous reports, the new leaders have set about mending relations with the Cali cartel. Some organizations crossover from the fractured Medellín group to Cali" might have occurred in the post-Escobar period." ²⁹⁴ 

      Also according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report that refers to the major blow against the Cali "cartel" in 1995,

"The death of Jose Santacruz-Londono[sic] and the arrest or surrender of such major traffickers as Victor Patino[sic], Jose Castrillon Henao and Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia[sic] (aka 'Chupeta') have disrupted some Cali drug mafia drug trafficking operations. The Cali drug mafia per se, however, has not been dismantled in that Cali drug lord Helmer 'Pacho' Herrera remains at large and the Rodriguez-Orejuela [sic] brothers continue to manage aspects of their trafficking organizations from prison. DEA reporting suggests, however, that a new generation of relatively young North Coast, Northern Valle del Cauca, and Cali traffickers will attempt to exploit any 'power vacuum' created by the arrests of the Cali drug lords. The Henao Montoya brothers, for example, appear to be seeking to increase their power and influence relative to the Cali 'old guard.' One important result of this heightened competition between rival Colombian trafficking groups has been an increase in drug-related violence." ²⁹⁵ 

      As pointed out in the previous chapter, the weakening of the Colombian based coalitions led to a decentralization of the industry and to a proliferation of important players in the sense that Bolivian and, to a lesser extent, Peruvian organizations started producing their own cocaine and establishing their own transport and distribution networks.

      In Bolivia, the illicit drug traffic is not managed by coalitions of criminal organizations but by 20 to 30 organizations (often referred to as "families" due to the fact that most of the businesses are managed by landowner families) with serious conflicts and grievances between them. ²⁹⁶ 

      The common factor between the Colombian and Bolivian criminal organizations is that in both cases the traffickers constitute private fiefs or para-welfare states and para-military organizations. They occupy the political space left by the weak (Colombian and Bolivian) states and win support and legitimacy among the populations by developing infrastructures (roads, electric power, houses, etc.) Government officials are easily bought and, in this way, they are able to secure broad control over much of the national territory. The following quoted statements both give examples of the para-state capabilities of the drug traffickers in terms of welfare policies and firepower:

"The narcos dispensed largesse in villages squires, installing street lighting, erecting clinics and even building a Casa de Cultura with 5,000 books. Rivero, who was a sociable type, gave sumptuous parties and was well liked. In 1989 he was the target of a major night-time assault on Santa Ana by joint DEA and Bolivian police forces, but the whole town, including Rivero's bodyguards rose in armed resistance, prompting a shootout in which four people were killed." ²⁹⁷ 

"Roberto Suarez paved streets and restored churches in Santa Ana and supplied electric generators and water pumps to other small communities in the Beni. He developed a system for supplying medical services by air to villages living in the remotest parts of the region. He reportedly provided scholarships to young Beni residents for technical or college education abroad. Finally, according to a foreign coca expert who regularly visits Bolivia, Roberto Suarez and other traffickers virtually reconstructed a town in northwestern Bolivia (San Buenaventura, in La Paz department), providing roads, a police [!!!] station, a post office and a school, as well as a hotel and a restaurant." ²⁹⁸ 

"Perhaps the archetype of mafia civic leaders is Pablo Escobar [...] Escobar's showpiece project 'Medellín Without Slums', was launched in 1982 to build 2,000 new housing units for poor families in that city. 'Medellín Without Slums', said Medellín Cívico [Escobar´s financed newspaper], would provide a new 'live of noble dignity' for families that had been living in a 'pestilential inferno of garbage'. The project was later scaled back to 1,000 units and only 450 dwellings were actually completed. Escobar's troubles with the law- especially his implication in the death of Lara Bonilla- prevented the full realization of his ambitious plan. [...] Escobar also seemed to have a special interest in sports facilities for the poor. He built, outfitted, and illuminated 80 sport arenas in Medellín and surrounding communities in Antioquía. In another famous project, Escobar and some relatives reportedly built an immense zoological park at 'Napoles -a family estate located near Puerto Triunfo, 180 km from Medellín. The zoo is [was] open to the public, and entry is free of charge." ²⁹⁹ 

"With a gross income of more than $8 billion a year, traffickers can easily afford to stockpile large arsenals of automatic weapons - such as AK 47, Uzis, AR-15 and Galil rifles, and M-16 guns), grenades, rocket launchers, and ground-to-ground rifles. They also may have purchased ground-to -air missiles, but there is no evidence that those missiles have been deployed [ ....] the Medellín Mafia, at least until recently, ran several training schools for paramilitary operatives. Former Israeli Army and British Strategic Air Services (SAS) personnel were hired as instructors..." ³⁰⁰ 

"Traffickers also need transport; they buy Cessna 206s from Santa Cruz or Miami for about $60,000 a piece, removing identity plates to make it more difficult for police to trace them. Others steal planes from remote ranches in Brazil, Peru or Bolivia, confident that owners will not risk their lives by reporting the incident. Weapons, used by bodyguards to defend the labs, are imported through Colombia from the U.S. or Europe. The most common are Israeli made Uzis, Belgian FALs and Russian AK-47s, but U.S.-made assault rifles have also been found. Security is backed up by a complex intelligence network made up of scores of radio operators and looks-outs posted in the jungle and in cities like Santa Cruz and Cochabamba." ³⁰¹ 

      In both cases the traffickers constitute a strong destabilizing political force, not because their goal is to assume the political control of the state or to radically change the political regime or the type of society, but because of the means of coercive violence and corruption that they develop to protect their illegal business from the control of the state. As such, they constitute a major political threat to the state. ³⁰² 

      In Colombia, the pattern of violence in the period under study was by far higher than in Bolivia, where enforcement activities are centered on coca eradication instead of the disruption of criminal organizations. Moreover, as in Peru, in Colombia there is a pattern of interaction between drug trafficking activities and guerrilla movements.

      The important point is that these organizations are transnational and therefore add a transnational dimension to the problem, involving all the countries in the region. The Colombian traffickers establish alliances with their counterparts in Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil; use legal institutions to expand their criminal activities; are involved in corruption activities concerning political officials in other South American; and involve private and national banks in money laundering activities. These organizations purchase land in neighboring countries for use as a base for their traffic operations or simply as an investment to legitimize their illicit profits. They also establish alliances with or directly buy-off authoritarian leaders in order to use their countries as transit and money laundering centers. The case of Paraguay during the Stroessner dictatorship is a paradigm is in this sense. Also, although Panama escapes the regional scope analyzed in this work, the dictatorship of General Noriega can also be taken as an example.

b) The myths of the "narco-guerrilla" connection

      In Peru and Colombia, the security problem caused by the illicit drug traffic is worsened by the existence of guerrilla organizations. Both countries exhibit different patterns of interaction between the guerrillas, the traffickers, and the coca-grower peasants. Before explaining these patterns it is worth clarifying the meaning of the terms 'narco-guerrillas' and 'narco -terrorism'.

      Both terms were used by the Reagan and Bush administrations to refer to an "unholy" alliance between drug traffickers and guerrillas against western interests and South American democracies. However, such an alliance never existed. The relationship between both groups is conflictive and violent, and they only establish sporadic "marriages of convenience" if their interests overlap or when they operate in the same geographic zones.

      The interests of both groups do not coincide: the traffickers pursue only the survival (and expansion) of their business and not the destruction of political institutions (it is a better tactic to corrupt them), while the guerrillas seek a change of political regime and a change in the mode of production of their societies.  ³⁰³  As stated by one analyst,

"[m]ost narcotics traffickers are not natural revolutionaries. They seek to buy into, to manipulate, and sometimes to coerce the political system, but not to change it in a fundamental way. Some of the Mafia's actions -for example, the murders of prominent antidrug crusaders in Colombia- are destabilizing. However, the aim of Mafia violence is creating a secure environment for business operations, not upsetting the political status quo. Given their limited objectives, drug traffickers do not typically engage in terrorism; the do not, for example, target public buildings, military bases, industrial property, or the civilian population at large [...] In general, the stronger and more developed the trafficking organization, the less likely it is to collaborate with guerrillas [...] In Colombia, conflict has been intensified by the cocaine Mafia's purchase of large estates in areas where guerrilla strongholds." ³⁰⁴ 

      The term "guerrilla" is used here to refer to a type of warfare driven by an irregular army or revolutionary group against a regular one. The objective of this combat is not military but political: to destroy the existing institutions by provoking radical social and political changes. "Terrorism" is the use of violence for political ends, driven by political groups. This includes any use of violence for the purpose of causing fear in the general public or in any particular sector. The drug trafficking organizations can participate in bombings, assassinations, armed assaults, and kidnappings to influence the political choices of the government, but these actions are not part of a clear political program. These activities can be defined as narcoterrorism, but the traffickers are not a group with clear and coherent political ends, as are guerrilla organizations. Nevertheless, the fact that they interact and operate in the same zones renders both problems more difficult to solve.

      From an etymological point of view, narcoterrorism (terrorist actions committed by the traffickers against the government) and narcoguerrilla, (a term used to refer to a non-existent alliance between the guerrillas and the traffickers), are terms which refer to two different phenomena.

      In Colombia, the relations between the ten Colombian guerrilla organizations--and more particularly between the two larger ones, FARC and M-19 ³⁰⁵ --and the drug trafficking organizations are very conflictive. This is because the traffickers could be considered a "new rising bourgeoisie." ³⁰⁶  As their economic wealth grew, they came to purchase and manage large extensions of land and cattle and became targets for Colombian guerrillas. In 1981, all the major traffickers agreed to form a paramilitary group named MAS (death to the kidnappers) in order to retaliate against the aggression of guerrilla groups. They received the help of the landowners and the implicit support of the army.

      FARC and M-19, as well as the Army of National Liberation (ELN), finance the purchase of their weapons by taxing traffickers and coca growing peasants with a "revolutionary tax." The revolutionary tax is a mechanism of racketeering, which is broadly used in the zones controlled by the guerrilla groups. But it is only effective against small independent organizations. The big criminal organizations do not need the protection of the guerrillas. They can afford large private armies to effectively retaliate against the extortion of the guerrilla groups.

      This pattern of extortion is used also against the landowners or multinational oil companies. From this point of view, one may speak of "cattle-guerrillas" and "oil-guerrillas." If there are cases of cooperation, they are sporadic and are based on pragmatic calculations. The trafficker Carlos Lehder was suspected to have collaborated with the M-19 group in the capture of the Colombian Supreme Court building in 1985. The army stormed the building, killing not only the guerrilleros but also half of the Supreme Court judges (who were investigating drug trafficking affairs), and started a fire that burned files concerning the extradition of the major drug bosses. But this was an isolated case. With the exception of Lehder, all the kingpins shared a common cause against the guerrillas.

      In Peru, the pattern of interaction is much more complicated. Peru is the leading coca leaf producer in the world, and thousands of Peruvian peasants in the Alto and Bajo Huallaga valleys in the northeast Peruvian Andes are involved in the activity. The latter region and the Peruvian Amazon is virtually divided into red zones (controlled by Sendero Luminoso) and white zones (controlled by the Peruvian traffickers). Sendero Luminoso, a Maoist group, bases its revolutionary strategy on the mobilization of the peasant masses. The coca industry is an invaluable political tool for this revolutionary movement. The pattern of interaction can be summarized in the following way:

1. U.S. pressures the Peruvian government,
2. the Peruvian government uses special units of the police (UMOPAR) and the army to eradicate coca plantations,
3. Sendero intervenes to protect the peasants against the police-army forces,
4. Sendero wins popular support,
5. Sendero members purchase their weapons by taxing the peasants with a "revolutionary fifth" in coca paste (which is in turn sold to the traffickers) or in money,
6. Sendero extorts the traffickers by taxing them and demanding better prices for the peasants.

      As the Peruvian traffickers are weakly organized, most of the time they are compelled to pay the revolutionary taxes and in some cases they cooperate with the guerrillas by sharing information about the police position and movements. But the most important pattern of interaction here is the 'Robin Hood' role played by the guerrillas between the traffickers and the peasants. ³⁰⁷ 

      The Peruvian dilemma is that the cheapest way (as well as the method imposed and financed by the United States) to eliminate the coca production is to eradicate the plantations (manually or with the utilization of herbicides). By doing this, the government enhances the power and popularity of Sendero. The Peruvian army opted to avoid involvement in eradication activities and concentrated their activities on anti-guerrilla operations. Without stronger support from the U.S., unilaterally or through the UNDCP, to develop alternative crops and alternative economic activities for the Peruvian peasants, this dilemma will not be resolved. Since the mid-1980s, enforcement in Peru has become a problem for Brazil because the traffickers switched their activities to the Brazilian Amazon and started to pay the Indians in cash or equipment for the production of the Amazonian variation of coca or ipadu.

c) The peasants

      If there is a country where a real narco-guerrilla could exist, this country is Bolivia. Bolivia has a historical tradition of strong and highly organized trade unions of peasants and miners. Since the beginning of the "coca boom," the coca growing peasants were organized into coca-federations supported by the COB (Trade Union Central Organization).

      The structure of the Chapare coca peasants' trade unions is as such:

      Around 40,000 peasant families are grouped in 600 base organizations (colonias or sindicatos). ³⁰⁸  The sindicatos organize the settlers' activities, including the distribution of land, the maintenance of roads, and the resolution of conflicts between families. 25 to 200 peasant families form these base organizations. ³⁰⁹  These sindicatos are grouped into Trade Union Centrals (Centrales Sindicales). Each Central is composed of a group of 10 to 50 sindicatos. Each Trade Union Central takes care of matters concerning the administration of the land, communal conflicts, roads, education, and sports; women are also represented as a separate group of interest. ³¹⁰  There are 60 centrales that form part of one of the five federations (federaciones) That is, the centrales of different provinces or regions within the Chapare (formed by the provinces of Chapare, Tiraque and Carrasco) are grouped within the federations. The five peasant federations of the Chapare are: The Special Federation of Peasants from the Tropic of Cochabamba (FETCTC); the Special Federation of Colonizers of the Tropical Carrasco (FCCT), The Special Federation of Colonizers of Chimoré (FECCh), the Single Federation of United Centrals (FUCU), and the Special Federation of the Yungas of Chapare (FEYCh). ³¹¹  The FETCTC (23,000 members) and the FCCT (8,300 members) are the two more important in terms of the number of their members. These two federations are also more actively opposed to the eradication of coca without the development of an alternative economy. ³¹²  The FETCTC and the FCCT are members of the National Peasant Confederation (CSTUCB) and the Trade Union Central Organization (COB, Confederación Obrera Boliviana). ³¹³  A coordination committee coordinates the five federations. ³¹⁴  The chart below represents the typical structure of a Chapare peasant federation:

      

Figure 1. Structure of a Chapare peasant trade union federation

Source: Tarqui Jamira and Condo Riveros, op.cit. p.64 (Colony is a synonym of sindicato).

      Most of these peasants do not know the final destination of the coca leaves that are processed into cocaine. What is relevant for them is that coca growing and coca paste production secures a source of revenue higher than any other crop. Moreover, the regions where coca is grown (Yungas and Chapare) lack the infrastructure to channel legal products into the external market. As long as the demand for cocaine still exists the Bolivian peasant will continue to grow coca. This tendency is reinforced by the low degree of diversification within the Bolivian economy. The trade unions provide the essential services for peasants (health, electricity, roads, and housing), thus assuring a high degree of loyalty towards these organizations. A civil war could occur if the government really tried to enforce the eradication of coca plantations. As explained by an analyst,

"Politically, attempts at eradication are explosive in Bolivia. The coca growers are well organized into trade unions affiliated to the COB national labor federation, willing to take on the government if it tries to wipe out their source of livelihood. In 1988 at least 10 people died in union protest against the use of herbicides. Although guerrilla organizations have not sprung up in Bolivia as elsewhere in Latin America, Bolivia is a notoriously unstable political country, and a group such as Sendero Luminoso could well emerge if the Government went to far against the cocaine economy." ³¹⁵ 

      The non-state actors who participate in the cocaine industry and threaten the security of South American producer states are now clearly identified. The next section will show how the intervention and policy of the United States as an extra-regional state actor contributed to worsening the situation and spreading the problem to peripheral countries. This can be defined as a provoked and reinforced "domino effect."

a) Military/Traditional threats

      This type of threat refers to the use of armed force by a state. A military attack can threaten all components of the state. Drug trafficking activities can, in some cases, be the catalyst of military conflicts between states and can also provoke the military intervention of tier states with the goal of combating transnational criminal organizations or insurgent groups linked to drug trafficking activities.

      Military intervention by extra-regional powers (U.S. ):

      There are two countries that can be considered paradigmatic in reference to the threat of foreign intervention by the U.S. in order to reduce the production and supply of cocaine. These countries are Bolivia and Colombia.

      Bolivia set a precedent of intervention by North American troops. This intervention was very unpopular with the Bolivian public and Congress, which declared the action anti-constitutional and asked for the withdrawal of the troops. In 1986, President Paz Estrenssoro asked for the support of U.S. troops for the disruption of laboratories and trafficking organizations (without the authorization of Congress) and thus began an eight-month operation called "Blast Furnace." In July 1986, one hundred and seventy US Army personnel and six Blackhawk helicopters were dispatched to aid the Bolivian police raid laboratories and clandestine airstrips in the Beni and Santa Cruz regions. While the strategy was to wipe out the market for coca leaves, this effect lasted only for some months. The presence of U.S. troops dropped the Paz Estenssoro´s government into political trouble, provoking bitter opposition in Bolivia, not only from the coca grower unions but from the political elite as well. The Congress declared the matter a violation of "national security." ³⁵¹ 

      Potential American military intervention in Colombia was perceived as an overt threat after operation "Just Cause" in December 1989, when the U.S. military intervened in Panama in order to capture its president, General Manuel Noriega, who had been indicted in 1988 under drug trafficking charges by a U.S. court.  ³⁵²  This perception existed because just after the intervention in Panama, the U.S. government deployed a flotilla along the 200-mile Colombian maritime border. The Colombian government denounced this action as a blockade and the U.S. ordered the withdrawal of its ships. ³⁵³  As reported,

"In trying to tone down the impact of an over-enthusiastic description of the USS John F Kennedy's role as a "blockade" Bush officials are now explaining that its intended role was that of plotting patterns of air traffic..." ³⁵⁴ 

      There are also fears of an American invasion of the Colombian island of San Andrés in the Caribbean. ³⁵⁵ 

      Drug trafficking as a catalyst for pre-existing international territorial/border conflicts:

      There is an example that clearly illustrates this type of threat. Colombia and Venezuela have a long-lasting border dispute over the Maracaibo Lake and the Gulf of Venezuela. Drug trafficking has played a role in magnifying the threat of military conflict over this issue. As stated by John Martz,

"With the spread of the narcotics industry, frontier problems shifted from precise demarcations and submarine mineral deposits to issues of guerrilla insurgency, threats to public security and the potential for serious armed conflict." ³⁵⁶ 

      In June 1987, paramilitary (patrulleros) forces at the service of Colombian traffickers attacked a unit of the Venezuela National Guard that was developing eradication operations for coca fields in Sierra de Perijá on the Venezuelan-Colombian border. ³⁵⁷  The border tension produced by these skirmishes helped magnifying a military escalation caused in August 1987 by of the intrusion of a Colombian warship in the disputed sea zone. Both incidents caused Colombia and Venezuela to increment their military presence along the border. ³⁵⁸ 

      Though a war was stopped in 1987 by the diplomatic intervention of the OAS Secretary General and the Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín, these type of clashes have become more frequent since Venezuela became a coca producing country, exacerbating tensions between the two countries. ³⁵⁹ 

b) Political threats

      Political threats harm the capacity of a state to exercise the monopoly of force over the whole national territory. These kinds of threats also include all kinds of activities that may harm the legitimacy of the political regime of a state.

      Control of the national territory by transnational criminal organizations (Gray zones):

      Non-state actors coming from a neighboring state are challenging the sovereign control of the national territory. This case is well represented by Brazil.

      The Brazilian Amazônia has a surface of 1,572,000 square kilometers, covers seven federal states and has a common border of 16,000 kilometers with Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Police surveillance is almost non-existent and the area is scarcely populated (only 8,000,000 inhabitants). Moreover, the Amazon forest has the biggest river system in the world. Coca production (and zones for operation for Colombian and Bolivian traffickers) is located in two main areas: the northeast (Amazonas, Roraima and Pará states) where ipadú is produced and many laboratories are located, and the central region (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul), where ipadú is also grown and where there is intense activity by Bolivian traffickers. ³⁶⁰  Even if the Brazilian military does not engage in drug interdiction activities, they consider the Amazon as a first geopolitical priority. Since 1985, they have been developing a project of occupation and fortification (the Calha Norte project) of the northern Amazon border, and stopping the incursions of drug traffickers is among the objectives of this project. ³⁶¹  The Brazilian strategic plans also include covering all the Amazon with a radar system in order to monitor and track all air traffic in the area. As explained by a UNDCP field report,

"The Secretary of Strategic Matters, under the Presidency of the Republic, decided to install a surveillance system of the Amazon, in cooperation with the Airforce Ministry, covering the entire Brazilian Amazon region. The vigilance system of 20 linked radar stations, a network of mobile and fixed radio intercepting units and a network of distant satellite censoring. The vigilance system will allow the Brazilian authorities to enhance aviation security in the region, improve the control of national airspace and enforce control of illicit trafficking of drugs and minerals." ³⁶² 

      Parts of the state under the control of locally based criminal organizations (Gray Zones):

      Even if this phenomenon is also present in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, Colombia is the country where the traffickers have developed the highest capacity for political control over the territory through a pattern of paramilitary violence and bribery. Although this issue will be fully explained in the next chapter, it is worth remarking that the case of Colombia can be differentiated from the other three countries because of the level of violence it provoked. This violence had three origins: the fight between organizations, the fight between the traffickers, and the guerrilla and terrorist actions against the government in response to enforcement measures. In part, this violence began during the Betancur administration (1982-1986), when the government started to enforce the treaty of extradition of traffickers in response to U.S. pressure.

      As noted previously, because the traffickers have control of provincial governors and city mayors, they enjoy popular support and have paramilitary power. Thus, in the Andean countries, traffickers constitute a "state within the state" and pose an overt threat to the capacity of the state to exercise effective political control. ³⁶³ 

      Drug trafficking-related corruption:

"There is infection in everything. Even sleepiness can be infection, and yawning can be infectious. There is even the infection of a time." ³⁶⁴ 

      This threat can be interpreted in two ways. The first can be illustrated by the case of Bolivia. In 1980, traffickers had the power to literally buy a sector of the armed forces and supported a coup d'etat against President Lidia Gueiler Tejada (1979-1980). This coup led to a regime that allowed the traffickers to freely pursue their illegal activities. Moreover, both the president, General Luis García Meza, and his minister of the interior, Col. Luis Arce Gomez, participated overtly in the illicit drug traffic . As explained by one analyst,

"There is also strong evidence to suggest [drug trafficker] Suárez Gómez helped to finance the coup of Gen. Luis García Meza [...] in July 1980, which is widely known as 'the cocaine coup'. One version of events maintains that Suárez Gómez offered García Meza U.S. $1.3 million to launch the coup as traffickers felt more protected by military governments than by elected civilian leaders. His condition was apparently that Colonel Luis Arce Gómez, a relation of Suárez Gómez well known for his connections with the drug business, should be made minister of the interior responsible for antidrug operations."  ³⁶⁵ 

      Also, on June 30 1984, members of the elite Bolivian police antinarcotics unit (UMOPAR) joined army personnel to stage Bolivia's 251^st armed coup, a coup lead by three high-ranking UMOPAR officers who were allegedly involved in drug trafficking. The coup failed due to army opposition (in Bolivia there is a strong rivalry between the police and the army). ³⁶⁶ 

      The case of Bolivia clearly illustrates the worst case of influence and the corrupting power the traffickers possess. Another example of this type of drug trafficking-related corruption is Paraguay, where a large number of political actors and members of the armed forces and security forces are involved not only in drug trafficking but also in all types of smuggling activities. This creates a threat to civilian control over the armed forces and generates rivalries among the different security forces, which can lead to a situation of political instability. In fact, in October 1994 the chief of the Paraguayan Anti-Narcotics Service, General Ramón Rosa Rodríguez, was assassinated by his own aide-de camp. At the moment of his assassination, Rosa Rodríguez was on his way to an official meeting where he was going to present evidence about drug trafficking activities in his country. ³⁶⁷ 

      This may be also the case in Suriname, where former military ruler Lt. Colonel Desi Bouterse still the "strong man" behind the scenes, is reportedly involved in cocaine traffic to The Netherlands and has the capacity to overthrow civilian governments at his will.  ³⁶⁸ 

      The other way this threat can be interpreted is that the financial crises (hyperinflation and austerity programs) faced by all these new democracies led to a decrease in the general wealth of the population and combined with corruption scandals in the executive branch. This could lead to a serious crisis of governability and an institutional crisis that could be used to justify a military revolt. This was the case in Venezuela in 1992. The nationalistic military that attempted a military coup against President Andrés Perez used the involvement of the president in drug trafficking activities as a cause for the revolt (in fact, it was an excuse; the coup was provoked by the popular unrest in the middle of a serious economic crisis, and by the lack of legitimacy of the bipartisan-restrictive Venezuelan system). As reported,

"Ulslar Pietri's [one of the most respected writers in Venezuela] December coup warnings had been dismissed by politicians a all parties as unnecessarily alarmist. This despite the fact that there was evidence of considerable unease among the military over a spate of scandals that revealed links between high ranking officers and the drugs traffic and, and suggested corruption in procurement contracts" ³⁶⁹ 

      Although the coup failed, President Perez was charged with corruption and obliged to resign.

      Linkage between the illicit drug traffic and the guerrilla groups:

      The political impact of fighting the U.S. drug war was further complicated in Peru by the Sendero Luminoso insurgency. The coca-rich Sendero Luminoso of Peru effectively controlled Upper Huallaga Valley. The guerrillas portrayed themselves as protectors of the peasant growers, often serving as intermediaries on their behalf with the traffickers. Aggressive narcotics control efforts focused on coca eradication increased the threat posed by the guerrillas by driving peasants into their ranks. Drug trafficking adds to the general decline of internal order, because its interaction with insurgent groups diminishes the ability of government, police, and armed forces to control the Upper Huallaga Valley. Peru illustrates very well the dilemma of incompatibility between the impulse of the United States to utilize the armed forces in counternarcotic operations and the immediate security concerns of drug producer countries. If the military is used to support coca eradication, the peasants side with the insurgents. Also, the use of the armed forces in enforcement operations against drug traffickers generated an almost irreversible corruption within the military ranks. ³⁷⁰ 

      On the other hand, we have the case of Colombia, where the FARC guerrillas control coca and coca paste producing areas such as the Guaviare. As was the case in Peru over the course of a decade, the FARC are able to finance their operations through the "revolutionary tax" over coca growing and coca paste production in the territories they control. In this way the FARC are able to affirm their territorial control and wage their war against the state. ³⁷¹ 

      Risk of military intervention in politics:

      This is a threat faced by all South American democracies if the military are fully employed in counternarcotic activities. The inclusion of the armed forces in counternarcotics operations contributed to the enlargement of their power and prerogatives to worsen a preexistent situation of human rights violations in the Andean countries. As an example, in Peru and Colombia, entire regions like the Upper Huallaga Valley (Peru) have been placed under military control and rule. The indexes of human rights violations by the Colombian and Peruvian Armed Forces are the worst in the hemisphere. For example, the U.S. State Department report on the human rights situation for 1990 determined that some units of the Colombian Army and police had participated in numerous and grave violations of human rights, including summary executions, torture and massacres against leftist politicians, human rights defenders, trade union leaders, and peasants. ³⁷²  The human rights situation in Bolivia was worsened in the last months of 1990. In the Annual Report on Human Rights the US Department of State documented cases of torture and cruelty by units of the police and intelligence service of the army. Some members of the Bolivian government, for example, fear that the corruption of the army due to its participation in the antinarcotics war could became a threat for the democratic stability of the country. ³⁷³  As a high ranking Bolivian official declared:

"When you have a corrupted Police Chief you dismiss him; when you have a corrupted military chief he dismisses you..."  ³⁷⁴ .

      Also as stated by two analysts,

"Involving Latin American armed forces in the drug war threatens traditional concepts of military professionalism in the region. It pushes military men to involve themselves in activities that advocates of democracy prefer to reserve for civilians. Within the rubric of military subordination to civilian authority, the dangers of the drug war as a military mission are obvious. As with military counterinsurgency activities in the 1960s, direct Latin American military involvement in the drug war would involve the military in police tasks that are technically within the civilian domain; it would also blur the line between appropriate and inappropriate domains for military professional actions; it would expand the managerial roles played by the military in society; and it would increase the role military men play in national politics and political decision making..." ³⁷⁵ 

      The threat of an expanded military role to a stable and institutionalized democratic regime is a very important factor if we consider that the stability of the democratic institutions was considered as a core value and part of the "integral security" of South American nations. The concept of "integral security," which includes the political and economic vulnerabilities of these nations, was defined and reaffirmed by the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela at the Acapulco Meeting of the Permanent Mechanism for Consultation and Concerted Political action (Rio Group) in 1987 and at the Third Meeting of that group organized in Ica, Peru in 1989. ³⁷⁶ 

      Risk of civil war:

      Bolivia is another example of how potential threats are exacerbated by pressure from the United States for the eradication of coca fields, considered the cheapest way to reduce supply. Politically, attempts at eradication are explosive in Bolivia. The coca growers are well-organized into trade unions affiliated to the COB national labor federation, and are willing to take on the government if it tries to wipe out their source of income. In 1988, at least 10 people died in union protests against the use of herbicides. Although guerrilla organizations have not appeared in Bolivia as elsewhere in Latin America, Bolivia is a notoriously unstable political country, and a group such as Sendero Luminoso could well emerge if the government were to go too far against the cocaine economy.

c) Economic threats

      Economic threats negatively affect the state's ability to access international markets and to achieve acceptable levels of wealth, development, and power. The Andean countries face the dilemma of having a large underground sector that represents a considerable fraction of their gross national product. This basically turns these countries into "cocaine-dependent" countries, perpetuating a situation of international pressure and obstructing the development of legal economic activities. This problem is particularly serious in the cases of Bolivia and Peru.

      According to some estimates, in 1992 the cocaine industry in Peru generated 1.5 billion dollars. This figure represented 3.4 % of Peru's GNP and 53% of this country's exports. It was also estimated in 1995 that about 10% of the Peruvian labor employed in the agrarian sector and 4% of the total economically active population of Peru worked in drug trafficking activities. ³⁷⁷ 

      According to USAID (United States Agency for International Development) estimates, in 1994 the cocaine industry represented 4% of Bolivia's GNP and was equivalent to 23% of Bolivia's exports. Also, according to the local consulting firm Müller & Associates, about 207.225 people (over a total national population of 8 million) were employed in the different stages of cocaine production and transportation taking place in Bolivia. ³⁷⁸  Under these conditions, a swift and effective blow to the coca economy would have a devastating economic and political impact. The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of citizens can trigger massive social unrest, thus reinforcing the intensity of political threats stemming from drug trafficking.

      Another economic threat caused by drug trafficking is the utilization of some South American countries as money laundering centers. This is the case of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. These countries were able to stabilize their economies thanks to the application of structural adjustment programs. The economic stability reached by these countries in the 1990s made them attractive to foreign investment. The origin of these incoming funds, however, is not always clear. The situation is seriously aggravated by permissive and lax banking legislation or political and judiciary corruption.

      For countries with weak economies, money laundering can be considered a blessing in the short term. However, this blessing turns into a curse in the long run: the overrating of real estate (a method typically used to integrate illegal money into the legal circuit of the economy) can generate an inflationary spiral in that sector of the economy. At the same time, an unregulated influx of foreign currency (which is the case of the integration of "dirty money" into the economy) can cause a devaluating effect, thus harming the success of anti-inflationary policies.

      Also, the reputation of a country can be seriously harmed if its financial institutions are suspected of being used for money laundering activities. Therefore, legal investments could flow towards foreign financial markets. Of course the corrupting effects of money laundering activities must be considered as far as they concern the impact that widespread corruption can have on the legitimacy of the political institutions of weak states.

d) Societal threats

      For the scope of this dissertation, the concept of "societal threat" refers to the decrease of the quality of the human resources and the integrity of the social fabric of a nation.

      Destruction of the human potential of a nation:

      In all of South America the consumption of cocaine grew as a consequence of the rise in cocaine production and transit. In producer countries, the consumption of "bazuco," a highly toxic mixture of coca pastes, spread among the poor population (a sort of crack for the developing world); at the same time, a decrease in prices due to the constant influx of cocaine through the transit countries provoked a switch from marijuana and inhalants (solvents) to the utilization of adulterated cocaine in their territories. ³⁷⁹  This issue will be further illustrated in the case studies in chapters V and VII.

e) Environmental threats

      Environmental threats jeopardize the integrity of the natural resources of a state and thus the quality of life for its population. Environmental threats also reinforce the effects of economic threats because environmental degradation may decrease the productive viability of the territory of a state.

      Utilization of Herbicides for the eradication of coca fields:

      This is not a threat that stems directly from drug production but from attempts to eliminate illicit crops through the use of herbicides that can harm the environment and the people living in coca producing areas. In Bolivia, for example, the use of herbicides was ruled out by law in 1988 under the argument that the chemical control of coca could seriously harm the environment. In Peru, the use of herbicides was stopped because the company that produced the herbicide (Spike) decided to stop the sale of this product for eradication purposes. The director of the company considered that it could affect the health of the population and contaminate the rivers, thus eliminating not only the coca fields but also legal crops. As stated by Rensselaer Lee III,

"The Bolivian Government more or less has ruled out the spraying option [in was effectively ruled out by law in 1988]. In June 1988, the country's Foreign Minister, Guillermo Bedregal, said, ' Bolivia will not be the guinea pig for experimentation with herbicides that may have adverse effects on other vegetation and to damage to the inhabitants' [...] In Peru, the García administration was at one time receptive to the idea of using herbicides against coca. [...] However, Peru's spraying program suffered a possibly fatal setback in May 1988, when Eli Lilly announced that it would no longer supply tebuthirion (Spike) for the program. [...] A company representative quoted by the Lima daily El Comercio said that Spike 'could cause irreversible harm to flora and fauna and even affect human beings if it is not applied with extreme caution" the Peruvian press reprinted sections of a brochure that Lilly distributed with Spike: the folder warned that the compound could destroy the roots of trees, shrubs and other vegetables and cause vomiting and pulmonary and heart damage in humans [...] Dr. Peter Kurtz of the California Food and Agriculture Department Warned, ' The major danger of tebuthirion is that it eradicates vegetation completely, that is, creates deserts where it is used in sufficient quantity, and that it is very persistent' in soils. Dr. Richard Wiles of the National Academy of Sciences warned of "ecological devastation" form the application of Spike..." ³⁸⁰ 

      Lee also argues that,

"Spraying, however, is not a panacea, even where it does 'work'. The highly touted anti-marijuana program in Colombia, for example, reduced cultivation on traditional growing areas in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serrania de Perija, but cultivation simply moved elsewhere. The coca bush, more likely a small tree in parts of the Chapare and the Upper Huallaga Valley, is extremely difficult to kill. A herbicide sufficiently toxic to destroy coca form the air might also damage other corps, harm farm animals or wildlife, and pollute the waterways. No effective and environmentally safe herbicide for use against coca has yet been found...." ³⁸¹ 

      On this particular issue, and in reference to the case of Bolivia, another analyst argues that,

"Coca fields are found very close to the houses where farmers live, thus making it very difficult to use herbicides or defoliants without damaging people and other crops." ³⁸² 

      In Bolivia and Peru the use of herbicides is also a cause of political instability. In Bolivia it could lead to a direct armed confrontation between the growers and the government, and in Peru it is used by Sendero as a political rallying flag. Again, Rensselaer Lee III explains this in the following terms,

"At the end of June [1988], there was a serious incident in Villa Tunari in the Chapare. A mob of several thousand peasants broke into the offices of DIRECO [Coca Reduction Agency][...] Narco-traffickers apparently had circulated reports that DIRECO and DEA were testing herbicides against coca plantations in the Chapare. The peasants said that they where looking for evidence -documents, equipment, chemicals and so on- that would support the rumors [...] The police counterattacked, and in the ensuing battle, as many as 16 people may have lost their lives...." ³⁸³ 

"In Peru and Colombia, concerns about eradication are linked to the government's struggles against left wing guerrilla movements and leftist subversion. Many Peruvian military and political leaders see eradication as generating anti-government feeling in rural areas and playing into the hands of radical leftist groups such as Sendero Luminoso. In the Upper Huallaga Valley, such programs reportedly provoked coca farmers and other disaffected Valley residents into joining or supporting local Sendero forces. A high Justice Ministry official interviewed in April 1986 said that the spraying of Colombia's main coca fields, located in the Llanos and the Amazon Basin, would create serious economic and social problems in these regions . Possible consequences, said the official, would be an increase in violent crime and an expansion of local guerrilla activity..." ³⁸⁴ 

"The spraying approach probably will not be politically acceptable in South America. Governments fear ecological damage form the use of toxic chemicals, and current U.S. debates on the environmental consequences of spraying, which are widely reported in the South American press, have done much to inflame these concerns. However, governments are even more concerned with the social effects- the prospects of massive rural unemployment and (in Colombia and Peru) the aggravation of a festering insurgency problem..." ³⁸⁵ 

      Pollution of potable water sources and the soil:

      The erosion of soil and the contamination of rivers produced by the culture of coca fields and production of coca paste is a threat to the economic viability of Bolivia. The expansion of the coca culture implies geometric deforestation of the Bolivian Amazon; at the same time, the continuous utilization of the slopes of the tropical Andes causes a high erosion of the soil that render this land unusable for legal crops such as coffee or citrus. After the eradication campaigns are over, the peasants leave the fields and migrate to new growth areas, re-starting the cycle of deforestation-erosion. At the same time, the production of coca paste requires the utilization of tons of chemicals that are then dropped into the rivers, and this contaminates the scarce sources of potable water in the region.

      As explained by an analyst,

"[In Peru] deforestation related directly or indirectly to cultivation of the coca leaf has reached a total of 700,000 hectares in the high jungle. This has preceded at a dizzying rate from the time of the coca boom in the mid-1970s. When land is to be used for the cultivation of the coca shrub, the area must be cleared, weeded, and burned for each harvest (two or four times a year), leaving the soil prone to erosion. The fragile ecosystem, heavy rainfall, sandy-clay soils, sloping terrain, deforestation, defoliation and so on are leading to dramatic results: at the rate that the high jungle soils are being destroyed, it will be practically a desert in few decades [...] The chemicals used in the preparation of basic cocaine paste in the so-called pozas (pits) are dumped into the rivers. It is estimated that in 1986 the rivers near the pits received discharges of 57 million liters of kerosene; 32 million liters of sulfuric acid; 16 metric tons of unlaked lime; 3,200 metric tons of carbides; 16.000 metric tons of toilet tissue; 6.400 liters of acetone; and a similar quantity of toluene. These products have caused the extinction of fish crustacean, amphibian, and river bank plants..." ³⁸⁶ 

      A similar situation can be observed in Bolivia where 30,000 metric tons of toxic chemicals are being discharged each year in the rivers of the Chapare and Beni regions. ³⁸⁷  Also as explained by James Painter,

"Before the arrival of the colonists and timber extractors, the Chapare was believed to contain some of Bolivia's tallest, densest, and most diverse forest with more that 1,000 species of trees. These primary forests are apparently still intact on the steep upper slopes, but much of the rest of the lowland Chapare has been converted into secondary forest. Such has been the volume of new migrants to the area that some of the lower part of the upper slopes are now being cultivated, which is bound to cause greater soil erosion." ³⁸⁸ 

a) Assessing the problem: types of drug trafficking-related violence in Colombia

      Colombia has traditionally been a violent country. The willingness of the two traditional parties (Conservative and Liberal) to resort to violence as a means of political competition came to an end, after the ten-year civil war period known as La Violencia (1948-1958), with the National Front pact. ³⁹⁷  The result was a closed, restrictive democracy with excluded groups turning to the use of violence as a means of participating in politics. The violence of groups such as the M-19 demanding an opening of the system was complemented by the violence provoked by leftist guerrilla groups such as the FARC and the ELN, who proposed a radical change of the type of society, economy, and political regime. Another problem that contributed to guerrilla organization support in rural areas was the lack of successful agrarian reform policy. According to official estimates, 1.3% of landowners (many of whom are actually drug traffickers who acquired land with the profits generated by the cocaine industry) control 48% of the best lands, whereas 68% of the of landowners (peasants) control only 5.3 % of the most productive land. ³⁹⁸ . This situation, in addition to the rural violence that prevailed in the country during the last 20 years, has displaced a large part of the peasant population to vacant isolated lands. In these areas coca and poppy are the only crops that produce an income level sufficient to sustain the settlements. ³⁹⁹  The violence provoked by the 'green wars' for the control and exploitation of the emerald mines in the central or Boyacá region in the 1960's and early 1970s is also an important factor. ⁴⁰⁰ 

      The development of the cocaine industry in Colombia since the mid-1970s has added new dimensions of violence to the country. Because of the power accumulated by drug trafficking organizations and inter-group alliances created as part of the business, the violence unleashed by the cocaine industry and by enforcement policies against it would surpass the other 'violences." It is possible to talk about several types of violence stemming from the illicit drug industry in Colombia depending on where the violence takes place and on the target of the violence. To begin with, the more the industry grows, the more opponents and external competitors it faces. In order to eliminate the opposition and competitors, drug trafficking organizations makes use of violence. Violence is the result of two factors:

      First, the business is illegal and because of this traffickers have developed their own defense mechanisms against law enforcement agencies and competitors. Second, Colombia is a weak state. The government does not control extensive areas of the country such as the Boyacá, Meta, Guaviare and Magdalena Medio regions. In these areas, landowners, drug traffickers, colonizing peasants (mostly coca-growing peasants), and guerrillas co-exist and state institutions are not fully recognized. Local leadership based on clientelistic relations is stronger and a recognized source of authority. The government does not have a monopoly on violence over the whole territory. There has been a privatization of security in which landowners have developed paramilitary groups against the guerrillas. Emerald traffickers did the same thing to fight the competition and the guerrillas. Drug traffickers have also developed their own defense groups against their rivals in the business, the state, and the guerrillas. ⁴⁰¹ 

      Several authors agree that there exist different stages of drug trafficking-related violence in Colombia. ⁴⁰²  Since the early 1980s, with the consolidation of big coalitions of drug trafficking organizations, it is possible to identify several types of drug trafficking-related violence in Colombia, in terms of the protagonists of these violent clashes, their goals, and their victims.  ⁴⁰³ 

      The first type of violence started in 1980 when the drug traffickers began to invest their profits in purchasing large tracts of land in regions such as Meta, Guaviare, Boyacá, Arauca and Guaviare. As a new rising bourgeoisie, they became targets for guerrillas operating in these areas. A clear example of this was the creation of the group "Death to Kidnappers" (Muerte a los secuestradores-MAS-) in 1981 between the Cali and Medellín coalitions in an effort to defend themselves and retaliate against M-19 kidnappings. ⁴⁰⁴ 

      The guerrillas also became an obstacle and even a competitor when the traffickers became powerful enough to have their own defense groups. They no longer relied on the protection of the FARC, who had become their competitors for control of coca fields and coca prices. After the legalization of the M-19 and sectors of the FARC in 1987, the legal political left (Union Patriótica, UP) became an obstacle to the traffickers since it supported a program of agrarian reform. Traffickers and landowners became allies in a campaign against the guerrillas and the political left with the tacit or express support of the army. As reported this type of rural violence continued in the late 1990s. ⁴⁰⁵ 

      A second type of violence refers to the massacres against the colonizing peasants in rural regions. Drug traffickers wage this strategy of terror in alliance with the paramilitary groups of the emerald prospectors, the landowners, and the army to prevent the peasants from supporting or joining the guerrillas and voting for UP candidates. This type of violence increased after the creation of the UP in 1987. ⁴⁰⁶ 

      A third type of violence is internal to the business and is related to turf wars between drug trafficking organizations. A 'war of cartels' started in the mid-1980s after the Medellín coalition attempted to take over the distribution of cocaine in New York, traditionally a Cali controlled port of entry. ⁴⁰⁷  As stated earlier in this dissertation, differences also arose over the overt use of violence against the state, which was not a preferred tool in the case of the Cali coalition.

      A fourth type is the violence against the government as a response to the repression of the illicit business. Such violence may be preemptive or reactive. This dissertation will put more emphasis on the consequences of this type of violence for the spillover effects towards Venezuela. This type of violence started in the early 1980s with the assassination of magistrates, judges, and prosecutors and reached a peak with the assassination of Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in May 1984. His death marked the beginning of a spiral of violence between the Medellín cartel and the government that would end only in 1993. At this stage, the killing machine set in place in 1981 to be used against the guerrillas, Death to the Kidnappers, began to be used in an all-out war against the government and anyone who dared to take a position against the drug trafficking organizations. Death to the Kidnappers became a Medellín cartel 'Death to Everybody' group which received training from Israeli and British (former Special Air Forces -S.A.S -) mercenaries. ⁴⁰⁸ 

      A fifth type is a reactive violence against political personalities (although not necessarily members of the government), journalists, and anti-drug trafficking speakers.

      A sixth type of violence is the so-called 'social cleansing' (grupos de limpieza social) in Medellín and Cali cities. It refers to the killing of people considered as 'undesirable' by the traffickers (such as prostitutes, beggars, drug addicts, alcoholics, homosexuals, and common criminals). This is a common practice in the city of Cali, where gangs of killers (sicarios) at the service of the Cali cartel carry out these executions. The purpose of this violence is to seek support from the rest of the community by restoring "order." ⁴⁰⁹  Table 1 shows these six types of drug trafficking-related violence. These types were elaborated on the basis of the information provided by the Colombian historians Darío Betancourt and Martha García. ⁴¹⁰ 

      

Table 1. Types of drug trafficking related violence and targets of violence
PERPETRATOR:	MOTIVATION:	LOCATION:
		METROPOLITAN AREAS	RURAL AREAS
Drug traffickers	Preemption	PREEMPTIVE URBAN (Victims: Political leaders and candidates, Trade union leaders, Journalists, Judges ,Prosecutors)	PREEMPTIVE RURAL (Victims: Political Left (UP),Peasant population)
Drug traffickers	Reaction	REACTIVE URBAN (Victims: Civilian Military and Law enforcement members of the government)	REACTIVE RURAL (Victims: Guerrillas, Civilian and Military or Law enforcement members of the national or local government )
Drug traffickers	Competition	COMPETITIVE URBAN (Victims: Other drug trafficking groups)	COMPETITIVE RURAL (Victims: Guerrillas , Other drug trafficking groups)
Drug traffickers	Gain support of the police and the local population	PROSELITIST URBAN (Victims: Beggars, prostitutes, thieves, homosexuals)	PROSELITIST RURAL (Victims: Cattle thieves Common criminals)
Guerrilla Groups	Defense of peasants as a base of political support and recruitment and source of economic revenue (revolutionary taxes to coca and coca paste production)	STRATEGIC REVOLUTIONARY URBAN (Victims: Agents of the state, state buildings and property)	STRATEGIC REVOLUTIONARY RURAL (Victims: Armed forces/Police forces/ civilian eradication teams)
Guerrilla Groups	Tactical defense of drug traffickers' production sites in exchange for money and weapons	TACTIC REVOLUTIONARY URBAN (Agents of the state)	TACTIC REVOLUTIONARY RURAL (Police/Armed Forces units)

      This typology is based on the situation in Colombia. However, it could be applied to the rest of South America or even Latin America (for the specific case of Mexico) in terms of existing or latent drug trafficking-related violence. Certain similarities exist in Peru as far as the rural violence in the Upper Huallaga Valley is concerned, and Brazil is probably going in the same direction in terms of the urban drug trafficking-related violence.

      The following indicators can be used in order to identify cases of drug trafficking-related violence and measure the extent of drug trafficking-related violence in a country:

Number of civil judiciary officials (judges, prosecutors, magistrates, auxiliaries, and investigators) killed by drug traffickers' hit men per year. Number of Armed Forces/ Police and other security forces, which are part of drug trafficking paramilitary organizations, discovered per year. Number of armed actions by drug traffickers against the Armed Forces/Police or other security forces patrols or detachments per year. Number of armed actions by drug traffickers against the Armed Forces / Police or other security forces patrols of detachments by guerrilla groups acting on behalf of drug traffickers per year. Number of political candidate assassinations by drug traffickers' hit men per year. Number of state governor assassinations by drug trafficker's hit men per year. Number of political leader assassinations of by drug traffickers' hit men per year. Formation of drug traffickers' paramilitary groups. Mercenary groups or trainers hired by drug trafficking organizations. Number of personal attempts against guerrilla leaders self-adjudicated by drug trafficking organizations. Number of attempts against drug trafficking organizations' bosses perpetrated by rival bosses. Amount of property or equipment belonging to drug trafficking criminal organizations claimed by rival bosses. Number of civilian government coca eradication teams attacked by guerrilla groups per year. Number of Police/Armed Forces units participating in eradication activities attacked by guerrilla groups per year.

      Some of these indicators are used in the at the end of this Chapter where statistical tables are displayed in order to show the parallel and concomitant evolution between militarized enforcement and drug trafficking-related violence. More types inspired from the case of Bolivia are elaborated in Chapter VI, which analyzes the consequences of militarized enforcement in this other coca and cocaine producer country. These types will complement the typology developed above. ⁴¹¹ 

b) Manifestation of drug trafficking related violence in Colombia

      How it is possible to observe Colombian reality through the types of drug trafficking-related violence developed above? Darío Betancourt and Martha García identified four manifestations of drug trafficking-related violence or 'drug wars' between the drug traffickers (especially the Medellín cartel) and the Colombian government (that is, the "institutional component" of the state). Betancourt and García classified these episodes of violence according to the motives, scenarios and goals of the players resorting to violence. ⁴¹²  These manifestations of drug trafficking-related violence occurred simultaneously since the early 1980s, the period when the cocaine industry became consolidated and integrated not only in Colombia, but also in the Andean Region. The increasing pressure of the U.S. government over the Colombian government also had an influence on the level of enforcement and subsequent spiral of violence. Table 2 below categorizes four "drug wars" developed by Betancourt and García along the types developed in the previous section of this chapter.

      

Table 2. Colombia's drug wars
	War of the drug traffickers against the Colombian criminal justice:	War between drug traffickers turned into landowners against the Colombian political left and the guerrillas :	War between a the drug traffickers and a sector of the traditional political elite:	War between the cartels:
PARTICIPANTS	Drug Traffickers, judges and police.	Unión Patriótica (political branch of the FARC) and the paramilitary groups.	Medellín cartel and the New Liberalism	Medellín cartel and Cali cartel
MOTIVES	Retaliation of the traffickers against enforcement of the law (including but not reduced to the extradition) against ordinary crimes or insidious crimes related to drug trafficking.	Armed clashes with the FARC because of their revolutionary tax on coca and anti communist crusade.	Reaction of the government against the infiltration of the Party by Members of the Medellín cartel. Reaction of the Medellín cartel against the application of the extradition treaty.	Attempt of the Pablo Escobar to take over the New York cocaine market. Disagreement between the Cali and Medellín cartel over the use of frontal violence against the government.
VICTIMS	7 Magistrates, 41 Judges, and more than 200 judiciary investigators and assistants.	UP Presidential Candidate Jaime Pardo Leal, 840 activists of the UP, journalists and political leaders supportive of the opening of the system towards the left. Thousands of peasants and their families.	Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (Ministry of Justice), Guillermo Cano (President of the newspaper 'El Espectador," Enrique Parejo (Governor of Antioquia), Luis Carlos Galán (presidential candidate for the New Liberal Party)	Innocent people victim of the bomb attempts and shootings. Lieutenants of the Organizations and members of the families of the leaders.
TYPE OF VIOLENCE	REACTIVE	REACTIVE AND COMPETITIVE	REACTIVE AND PREEMPTIVE	COMPETITIVE

Source of data: Betancourt and García, op.cit., pp. 253-301

      Like in a Garcia Marquez' novel, all these types of drug trafficking-related violence occur simultaneously, an absurd combination in which enemies fight each other but can at the same time cooperate against a common worse enemy on a different front. For example, the police combated the cartels a the same time as the army supported the cartel's paramilitary groups in their fight against the guerrillas. ⁴¹³  Or the guerrillas occasionally gave protection to the cartels in exchange for weapons and money.

      As stated above, this chapter will concentrate on the consequences of the utilization of militarized enforcement as the Colombian government's main strategy to control the expansion of the illicit drugs industry.

      Section B of this chapter will focus on the 'drug wars' between the Medellín cartel and the Colombian government (the judicial system and the Colombian political elite as described in the table above). The effects of other types of drug trafficking-related violence--such as the rural violence against the guerrillas and the political left, or the 'drug war' of the cartels against the political left--will also be analyzed as a secondary variable insofar as it created an exodus of displaced peasants to Venezuela.

      The enforcement policies of the Colombian government were motivated, in part, by American pressure. In large part, they also came about as a reaction against the Medellín cartel's attempt to penetrate the political system, as well as a reaction to the campaign of political terror or 'narco-terrorism' unchained by the coalition led by Escobar. The militarization of the police and the utilization of the armed forces in particular were a response to American pressure, motivated by the fact that the major part of American assistance to Colombia was military equipment and training. As argued by one analyst,

"What Colombia wanted was the means to crush this arrogant display of criminal power. In addition to an adequate supply of police and military hardware. Colombia also asked for $ 19 million to install security systems to protect its judicial system, a clear sight that the government perceives the problem as a civilian one. That aid arrived , however in the form of $65 million worth of military equipment - cargo planes, A-37 subsonic jets, helicopters, assault boats, jeeps, trucks, and communications equipment- and presented a problem since much of this military equipment is not entirely useful for the Colombian national police, which conducts 85 to 90 percent of the antinarcotics operations [it should be stated however that National police is a highly militarized corps which functions under the Ministry of Defense]."  ⁴¹⁴ 

      Militarized enforcement, especially the use of the armed forces, was also a natural reaction of the Colombian state against the increasing armed power and violence of the Medellín cartel.

a) The beginning of militarized enforcement against drug trafficking: President Julio César Turbay Ayala's administration (1978-1982)

      In this period, cocaine trafficking is not identified yet as the dominant illegal activity in Colombia. At the beginning of President Turbay Ayalas´ term, the main concern was the production and trafficking of marijuana. Cocaine trafficking was identified only as another form of organized smuggling. This is the period of consolidation of the cocaine trafficking coalitions. By 1980, the Cali and Medellín coalitions formed a real cartel in the economic sense: they pooled together for transportation and production of the drug, and for the protection of the business with an agreement to keeping prices as high as possible.

      In this period it is possible to say that enforcement against drug trafficking was above all a response to U.S. pressure. During the mid and late 1970s drug trafficking was not perceived as a threat to the state, that is to say that it was not perceived as a national security issue. As stated by Juan Tokatlián,

"Clearly, in the 1970s the Colombian system did not see itself seriously threatened by (1) the political-institutional reach of the marijuana business; (2) its negative effect on national security; nor (3) the financial consequences of its production and trade. Thus, Colombia did not accentuate unilaterally, repressive measures in its attempts to control and eradicate this traffic." ⁴¹⁶ 

      Moreover, the government welcomed the money generated by both marijuana and the incipient cocaine trafficking. As explained by Francisco Thoumi, in 1975 the Colombian Central Bank relaxed the requirements to prove that real exports of services had occurred before purchasing the foreign exchange (generally US dollars) generated by them. This mechanism, know as the "sinister window" (ventanilla siniestra), continued during Turbay Ayala's administration. ⁴¹⁷ 

      In this period there were several proposals, especially from then-president of the National Association of Financial Institutions (Asociación Nacional de Instituciones Financieras-ANIF-), Ernesto Samper Pizano, to legalize the industry considered as a trade for the country. ⁴¹⁸ 

      Enforcement against drug trafficking was directed against the production of marijuana and was related to two factors. First, President Turbay Ayala feared that this activity could potentially corrupt the structure of his political party, as well as that of the state institutions. Second, the Carter administration exerted significant pressure. In fact, the U.S. Department of State indicated that Turbay Ayala could have links with the marijuana trafficking rings through members of his family. There were also U.S. spy flights in Colombian territorial waters set up to detect and capture marijuana shipments.

      As explained by Thoumi,

"In the United States there were widespread rumors that the marijuana industry had infiltrated the highest government levels, the [Carter] administration had begun 'Operation Stopgap' in which spy planes were used to locate and intercept marijuana boats, and President Jimmy Carter himself increased pressure on the Colombian government to become more active. Domestically, Turbay realized that the size of the marijuana industry was too corruptive, and that it could threaten his control over the government." ⁴¹⁹ 

      In order to prove the Colombian commitment against drug trafficking and to eliminate any suspicion of his alleged personal involvement, President Turbay started an aggressive campaign of marijuana eradication and disruption of the Atlantic Coast trafficking rings.  ⁴²⁰ 

      As stated in Chapter I, because of the characteristics of marijuana production, the traffickers of this drug did not form sophisticated and articulated coalitions that led to a vertically articulated illicit industry. Their ability to resist the state was not significant. Moreover, marijuana plants are relatively easy to eradicate with defoliants and herbicides. ⁴²¹  The campaign was very aggressive and consisted of the use of the aerial spray of gliphosate, a potent herbicide. The armed forces were also involved in the destruction of plantations and the arrest of traffickers. But the use of the military was a response timed to the pressures of the Carter administration. Even if the U.S. did not directly request it, the military was used by Turbay to show his strong commitment to the eradication of marijuana. ⁴²² 

      The armed forces were used in a single operation called "Fulminant" (Operación Fulminante) that started in November 1978. The military resisted participating in marijuana eradication arguing that their main function was to combat guerrilla groups. They were also afraid of the possible corrupting effects of involvement in counter drug activities. ⁴²³  As a matter of fact, cases of corruption and frequent clashes with the peasants delayed the eradication operations and began to undermine the image of the armed forces. Moreover, the eradication operations distracted a large number of troops from combating the increasing threat of guerrilla groups and from dissuading an external attack. These factors led to the termination of Operation Fulminant in March 1980. Since then, the Colombian armed forces have been reluctant to directly intervene in enforcement operations against drug trafficking activities. ⁴²⁴ 

      By the end of the Turbay administration, marijuana was no longer an issue for Colombia, partly because the eradication campaign was very successful. Also, the traffickers soon discovered that one kilo of cocaine (the new drug in demand in the U.S.) was as profitable as a shipload of marijuana. Also, a new variant of marijuana called sinsemilla began to be cultivated in California, Alabama, and Appalachia--thus reducing the demand for imported marijuana. ⁴²⁵ 

      In September 1979, an extradition treaty was signed between the Turbay Ayala administration and the United States government. The purpose of the treaty was the extradition of Colombian drug traffickers to the United States. Both the Colombian and the U.S. Congresses approved the treaty in March 1981. It became valid in April 1982, five months before the end of Turbay's presidential term. In order that social conflict not increase during the presidential campaign then in progress, the United States did not request any extradition, and Turbay did not have to extradite anyone. ⁴²⁶ 

      The extradition treaty was the result of the concern of the U.S. government over the growing cocaine seizures from Colombia and growing cocaine consumption in the United States. This preoccupation is reflected in hearings such as "Cocaine: A Major Issue of the Seventies" partially quoted below.

"As chairman of the special task force on cocaine - and my name is Tennyson Guyer- recent developments concerning the state of cocaine have come to my attention which call for decisive and immediate action. The availability, abuse, and popularity of cocaine in the United States has reached pandemic proportions with 19 metric tons illegally entering the United States in 1978. This is a drug which, for the most part, has been ignored and its increased use in our society has caught us unprepared to cope effectively with this menace....Its [of cocaine] popularity has spread vastly, and during the last several years it has become the drug of choice of millions of Americans. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that almost 10 million Americans have used cocaine, including 1 million under the age of 18. No longer it its use restricted to the so-called elite of society. Businessmen use it to get going in the morning, as do housewives, stockbrokers, and college students. Children indulge in it, and entertainers use it to keep going. Since cocaine is a powerful stimulant with a high potential for abuse, it is our responsibility to see that its availability is minimized and that its use not be taken lightly." ⁴²⁷ 

      As will be shown later, the use of the extradition treaty as the main tool for future administrations would be the key that would liberate all the demons from the spiral of violence between the Medellín cartel and the Colombian government. During this period, Colombia did not register a high degree of drug trafficking-related violence against the state. However, it is important to note that Pablo Escobar issued personal vendettas against every judge, witness or policeman who attempted to prosecute or arrest him. ⁴²⁸ 

      It is worth noting here that, from 1978 to 1982, there was an increasing militarization of the Colombian government drug law enforcement structures. As a matter of fact, since the early 1970s the agency responsible for enforcement activities against drug trafficking was the Administrative Security Department (DAS), a civilian intelligence body that works under the direct authority of the president. Because of cases of corruption, the responsibility over the enforcement against drug trafficking was transferred in early 1978 to the Judiciary Police, a civilian police agency under the General Prosecutor of the Republic. ⁴²⁹  In July 1980, after Fulminant Operation was over, the United States and Colombia signed a counter drug cooperation agreement that established that the United States government would,

"pay costs, in the amount of $13,225,000 for supplying and maintaining helicopters, patrol vessels, fixed radar equipment, transport vehicles, and fuel, which will be used exclusively for interdicting drug traffic, for training personnel with respect to the interdiction of drug traffic." ⁴³⁰ 

      In order to implement this agreement, in 1981 the Colombian government created the National Antinarcotics Directorate (NAD).This directorate functions within the structure of the Colombian National Police (CNP), which is in turn directly subordinated to the Ministry of Defense. Since its creation the NAD has been the main agency in charge of enforcement operations against drug trafficking. This force has suffered a constant process of militarization in terms of its doctrine and equipment. ⁴³¹ 

b) Knocking at hell's door. President Belisario Betancur Cuartas administration (1982-1986)

      By 1982 the flood of cocaine to the United States by the Colombian cartels was alarming. Law enforcement officials where astonished by the amount of seizures in ports of entry especially Florida and New York. As stated by an analyst,

"In 1981 authorities [in Florida] seized 3.5 million pounds of marijuana and 2,508 pounds of cocaine, two-thirds of all national seizures[...].Drug trafficking made homicide a common event in South Florida. The number of murders in Miami had skyrocketed, going from 349 in 1979 to 569 in 1980 to 621 in 1981, with about 40 percent of the murders related to drugs. So many people were being murdered in Miami that the mortuaries could not handle all the corpses, forcing the Dade Country Medical Examiner's Office to use refrigerated trucks to accommodate the overflow." ⁴³² 

      By this time, the Cali and Medellín coalition become a cartel, pooling agreements for production, transportation, and distribution. They also had very effective machinery for reprisals against the armed political left (the MAS mentioned earlier). This cartel would last until 1986 when the saturation of the U.S. market provoked a fierce and violent competition between the Cali and Medellín coalitions for the sale of their cocaine shipments. This division was also provoked by deep differences in the way of conducting the business. ⁴³³  As explained by Clawson and Lee,

"Yet this political and economic cooperation had begun to fade in the mid-1980s, in part due to market saturation in the United States. Port-of-entry U.S. cocaine prices declined almost 40 percent between January 1982 to January 1985 and more than 70 percent from January 1982 to 1989. Ruthless competition for external sales took place within Colombia's drug underworld. In a particularly egregious example, Medellín kingpin Pablo Escobar Gaviria and José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha took advantage of Gilberto Rodríguez´s [Cali kingpin] sojourn in a Spanish prison to penetrate the cocaine market in New York City, traditionally a Cali preserve. Important philosophical differences also divided the Colombian cocaine establishment. Medellín traffickers had personal political ambitions, harbored deep resentments against the Colombian elite and favored the use of violence as a political tool. By contrast, the group of traffickers based in Cali (and more broadly in Valle del Cauca department) preferred to advance their objectives through bribery and manipulations rather than through bullets and car bombs." ⁴³⁴ 

      Immediately after President Betancur took over in August 1982, the Reagan administration began an intense policy of persuasion and pressure aimed at the application of the extradition treaty. However, because of his strong feelings about Colombian sovereignty, President Betancur was reluctant to implement the treaty during the first two years of his government. ⁴³⁵  This chapter will argue that during this presidential period government enforcement against the cocaine industry (including the application of the extradition treaty) was motivated more by internal factors rather than bilateral issues between Colombia and the United States.

      By the early 1980s, the Colombian political class could no longer ignore the economic and paramilitary power of the drug traffickers. Several factors overlapped in this period that would lead to the beginning of a bloody spiral of violence between the Medellín cartel and the Colombian government. This escalation of terror by the Medellín cartel came to an end in December 1993 with the death of Pablo Escobar.

      In first place, as stated before, the Colombian political class had tolerated and even legally incorporated the illicit money generated by drug trafficking. However, since 1982, drug traffickers were perceived as a threat because they tried to penetrate the Colombian political system. A new social class claimed its right to share the political power with the traditional political elite. This was perceived as a threat to the monopoly of the traditional political class on political power as well as to the integrity of the traditional parties and Colombian institutions because of the possibility for subordination of political decisions to the interests of powerful criminal groups. ⁴³⁶  In fact, in March 1982, Pablo Escobar was elected as the replacement representative of Jairo Ortega Ramirez for the political movement Liberal Alternative (Alternativa Liberal). ⁴³⁷  Moreover, Escobar had already gained popularity in Medellín through the creation in 1982 of the local movement Civismo en Marcha (Civism on the Move) and his foundation Medellín sin Tugurios (Medellín Without Slums). Through both political organizations Escobar sought to gain electoral support and a social base of support among the low-income sectors of Medellín, which in fact would provide him with support in terms of information, recruitment base for his hit-men and employees, hiding places, etc. With the fortune gained from cocaine trafficking, Escobar built soccer stadiums, housing, and health centers. As explained earlier in the dissertation, Escobar filled the vacuum left by the weak capacity of the Colombian state.

      Another trafficker, Carlos Lehder, had created a political party the Movimiento Latino Nacional (National Latin Movement-MLN-). As explained by Rensselaer Lee III,

'The party's ideology combined populist and fascist themes (opposition to communism, imperialism, neo-colonialism and Zionism); it aims included nationalization of banks, transport, and the assets of multinationals ; and the end to 'foreign intervention' in Colombian life; the abrogation of the extradition treaty; and the creation of a united Latin American army to safeguard Latin sovereignty, culture and frontiers. The MNL for a time maintained its own newspaper, Quindío Libre, which circulated in Major Colombia Cities. The Party had limited electoral successes -winning approximately 12 percent of the vote in the regional elections in Quindío in March 1984. By 1986, however, the MNL's future had ebbed. Most of its followers had rejoined the traditional political parties or had affiliated themselves with the leftist Union Patriótica (Patriotic Union). Lehder himself, although a fugitive from justice, was the MNL candidate for the Colombian Senate from Quindío in the March 1986 congressional elections; he lost overwhelmingly' ⁴³⁸ 

      The Colombian government would react against this growing competitive criminal political force. A leader in this crusade against drug traffickers, (especially and almost exclusively the Medellín) cartel was Betancur's Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. A Liberal himself, he was concerned about party penetration by members of the Medellín cartel. Also, as the rest of the Colombian political class, Bonilla feared the formation of a political force that could represent the interest of the drug traffickers. Lara Bonilla was a strong supporter of the utilization of the Extradition Treaty to control the expansion of the cocaine industry in Colombia and he had the will to implement it. ⁴³⁹  He would lead the first campaign of enforcement against the drug cartels.

      A second factor that precipitated the spiral of violence was a campaign of intimidation against members of the judiciary and other government officials investigating drug trafficking activities and flagrant crimes, including massacres of peasants perpetrated or supported by the traffickers. Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was persistently harassed and threatened by the traffickers since the moment he took office in 1983. Death threats were part of his daily life and the traffickers tapped his home and office phones. ⁴⁴⁰  This threat to use of violence was also a preemptive move to prevent the application of the Extradition Treaty, a policy that became evident in 1983 after Betancur took office. ⁴⁴¹ 

      The traffickers preemptively threatened the use of violence against the state as a tactic of intimidation. They also tried to penetrate the Colombian party system in order to gain political power.

      The state made a second move in the escalation of violence through a campaign of aggressive interdiction against drug traffickers. The first big government intervention was the discovery, capture, and destruction in March 1984 of a huge complex of cocaine processing laboratories on the banks of the Yari river in the department of Caquetá. ⁴⁴²  The larger complex was known as 'Tranquilandia." Lara Bonilla was responsible for authorizing and politically directing the National Police operations. The result was a retaliatory campaign leading to the assassination of government officials and journalists. The reactive violence started with the assassination of Lara Bonilla on April 30, 1984. This unleashed a campaign of harsher enforcement by the government.

      The traffickers attempted to set a truce through secret negotiations with the government. However, the negotiations were leaked to the press (presumably by the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá), and they were strongly opposed in public opinion and by the political parties. ⁴⁴³  The government was left no alternative but to resort to enforcement operations against the Medellín Cartel. ⁴⁴⁴  Clawson and Lee describe this episode in the following terms,

"The traffickers communicated the [...] offer to the government in successive meetings with former President Alonso Lopez Michelsen and with Colombian attorney general Carlos Jiménez Gómez in May 1984. Lopez happened to be in Panama then as an observer for that country's president election [...] At the first meeting, in the Hotel Marriott in Panama City, Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa told Lopez that they represented 100 top Colombian mafiosi [...] The traffickers said they were ready to ´dismantle everything' and repatriate money in Swiss bank accounts provided that the government discontinued extradition and agreed not to confiscate their wealth. (According to one disputed version, the traffickers also offered to pay off Colombia's 10$ billion national debt). Lopez communicated the offer directly to Colombia's president Belisario Betancur, who has just initiated a peace dialogue with the country's guerrilla groups. Betancur found the traffickers' plan intriguing and authorized his attorney general to travel to Panama to contact Escobar and his colleagues. The traffickers gave Jiménez a long written document addressed directly to President Betancur in which they proposed to eliminate once and forever any drug trafficking in our country' and asked the president to 'consider the possibility of our reinstatement in Colombian society in the near future'[...] Referring to prosecution in Colombia, the traffickers denied responsibility for the murder of Lara Bonilla and affirmed their support for the Colombia's democratic and republican system of government. In a 'Suggestions' section at the end of the document, the traffickers requested revisions in the extradition treaty, an exemption for crimes committed before the revision and the right to appeal extradition decisions to the Colombian Supreme Court [...] Nothing ever came out of the trafficker's initiative, in part because of the overwhelmingly negative reaction of Colombia's political establishment. Leaders from every political party -liberals, new liberals, and conservatives- almost unanimously expressed open and categorical opposition to a dialogue with drug traffickers. Carlos Holguín Sardi, the conservative president of the Colombian Senate, summarized the view of the majority when he observed, '[Negotiations] where criminal law is concerned...would mean the total disintegration of our legal and other institutions'." ⁴⁴⁵ 

      According to Clawson and Lee III, Carlos Jiménez Gomez (one of the negotiators of the Colombian government) had informally communicated the substance of the drug kingpins' offer to the U.S. embassy in Colombia, and the Reagan administration strongly objected to an agreement with the traffickers. Besides domestic pressure, U.S. pressure would have then also motivated Betancur to stop the negotiations and to deny that they had ever taken place. ⁴⁴⁶ 

      As stated before, government enforcement activities during this period were motivated more by a reaction against the violence unchained by the drug traffickers and their overt attempts to penetrate the political system than by the pressure exercised by the U.S. government. As a matter of fact, President Betancur's reticent attitude towards the application of the Extradition Treaty changed after the assassination of Lara Bonilla. For example, right after Lara Bonilla´s murder, the government authorized the extradition of Carlos Lehder. Extradition became a main enforcement tool. ⁴⁴⁷  The Betancur administration also engaged the armed forces, in particular the army, in counter-drug activities. Since 1983, joint activities with the National Police and separate army operations were carried out for the destruction of production sites and the eradication of coca plantations. The involvement of the armed forces would become more evident after the assassination of Lara Bonilla. This participation took on operative and juridical dimensions: the armed forces would participate in counter-drug operations and the military justice would intervene in the prosecution of drug trafficking related crimes. ⁴⁴⁸  The tables and figures below illustrate some of the results of the enforcement operations against drug trafficking during this period.

      

Table 3. Seizure of Illicit Drugs 1983-1986 (in kilograms)
Type of drug	1983	1984	1985	1986
Cocaine	2,082	19,582	4,240	3,039
Cocaine base	--------	9,448	3,700	4,070
Coca leaves	--------	41,583	151,671	163,000
Bazuco	--------	785	605	481
Marijuana	3,537,387	4,301,262	1,021,045	846,000

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997.

      

Table 4. Captured presumed drug traffickers 1981-1986
	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986
National	105	430	665	5,250	11,981	3,659
Foreign	-------	-------	--------	-------	--------	40

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      

Graphic 1. Destroyed laboratories 1981-1986

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      

Table 5. Goods and elements seized during enforcement operations 1982-1986 (in units)
Units	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986
Weapons	621	308	1,517	337	39
Radios	-----	--------	241	120	46
Vehicles	107	155	520	228	185
Ships and boats	30	9	20	24	5
Planes	8	13	64	33	21
Portative power plants	------	-------	52	26	25
Scales	------	--------	60	389	133
Ammunition			35,588	9,698	6,615
Grenades	-------	-------		9	6
Dynamite (kilos)	-------	-------	84	----------	--------

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      Parallel to this spiral of violence between the government and the traffickers, the war between the traffickers continued (especially Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha and his alliance with the landowners and sectors of the army) against the UP and the guerrillas. As reported by Human Rights Watch,

"Political violence in Colombia took a dramatic turn on December 3, 1981, when a helicopter flying over the city of Cali dropped leaflets announcing the formation of a new group, Death to Kidnappers (Muerte a los secuestradores, MAS) [...] In the Middle Magdalena region, where people with land or business faced increased demands for so-called 'war taxes' , supplies and food from the FARC, and were plagued by kidnapping for ransom the MAS model represented a violent, yet effective means for fighting back. The Bárbula Battalion, in Santander´s Puerto Boyacá, and the town's military mayor, Capt. Oscar de Jesús Echandía, adopted the MAS model. In 1982, Echandía convened a meeting of local people, including local Liberal and Conservative party leaders, businessmen, ranchers, and representatives from the Texas Petroleum Company. They found that their goal went far beyond protecting the population from guerrilla demands. They wanted to 'cleanse' (limpiar) the region of subversives. To do so, they agreed to gather guns, clothing, food, and a fund to pay young men to fight. Money came from businessmen and ranchers, while the military committed tactical support [...] Before ending the meeting they chose a name for their new group: MAS, the same used by drug traffickers [...] by 1983, MAS was taking part in joint operations without the army. At the time , local peasants reported numerous cases of troops accompanied by MAS members carrying out extrajudicial excecutions and destroying farms[...]
[In 1983] MAS set up a public entity to carry out civic improvements and aid peasants who joined their fight: the Association of Peasants and Ranchers of the Middle Magdalena (Asociación Campesina de Agricultores y Ganaderos del Magdalena Medio, ACDEGAM). Likes the military's own counterinsurgency strategy, ACDEGAM operated in two levels: public statements against communism and in favor of a legalization of so-called 'self-defense' groups paired with covert attacks, assassinations, and death threats through MAS in league with the military. [...] By 1985, ACDEGAM had powerful new members: drug traffickers who bought land in the Middle Magdalena. The financial support of king pins dramatically improved the quantity and quality of the groups weapons, intelligence-gathering ability, and rage of action" ⁴⁴⁹ 

      Paramilitary squads massacred at least 5,300 peasants during this period, particularly in the Magdalena Medio Region where Rodriguez Gacha had purchased enormous extensions of land. ⁴⁵⁰  This violence will be also considered since it provoked the displacement of Colombian peasants to Venezuela. ⁴⁵¹ 

      The chronology below illustrates the reactive and preemptive spiral of violence carried out by drug traffickers during this period.

Deadly escalation 1983-1985:

December 1983 Creation of the peasant self -defense (autodefensas) groups finances and armed by the landowners of the Magdalena Medio region against the FARC. This self defense groups are supported by the "Bárbula" Army Battalion based in Puerto Boyacá. April 30 1984 Rodrigo Lara Bonilla is assassinated. January-April 1985 The self-defense groups of the Magdalena Medio eradicate the FARC from the area and consolidate as stable armed groups in the area. June 1985 First contacts and talks conversations between the autodefensas and the drug traffickers. August 1985 the autodefensas start patrolling and protecting coca producing plots and cocaine producing laboratories in the Magdalena Medio and Yarí lowland areas. November 6 and 7 , 1985. Assassination of 15 Justices of the Supreme Court and the Council of State, during the occupation of the Palace of Justice by the M-19 Guerrilla group , with the trouble (alleged) support of drug traffickers.

      Sources: Betancourt and García, op.cit., pp. 236-300 and Office of the President of the Republic, The Fight Against the Drug Traffic in Colombia, Bogotá, November 1989, 69pp.

c) Colombia's ordeal: President Virgilio Barco administration (1986-1990)

      This is the period of greater escalation between the Medellín cartel and the Colombian government. Drug trafficking-related violence stemmed from the utilization of the Extradition Treaty as the main repressive tool of the government. A group known as 'The Extraditables' was created under the leadership of Pablo Escobar. The traffickers also intensified their campaign of terrorism against the state.

      President Barco considered drug trafficking to be a national security problem and his point of view was that all the available resources of the state had to be used in order to cope with this threat. In Barco´s view, drug trafficking was threatening the survival of democratic institutions and public liberties. ⁴⁵² As explained by a group of Colombian analysts,

"[w]hereas traditionally drug trafficking was considered to be a particularly violent problem of delinquency, the Barco administration defined it as a foremost problem of national security. This implied [in its view] that the commitment of the armed forces in the repression of drug trafficking had to be enhanced." ⁴⁵³ 

      Although at the beginning of the Barco administration the National Police and the DAS had the lead in counterdrug activities, the Colombian president enhanced the participation of the armed forces in interdiction activities in remote areas. The table below shows the evolution of casualties provoked by drug traffickers to the Colombian armed forces and national police during the Barco administration.

      

Table 6. Casualties in the Armed Forces and the National Police provoked by drug trafficking organizations
	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
Killed	328	383	408	473	295
Injured	548	666	673	670	464

Source: Office of the President of the Republic, The Fight Against the Drug Traffic in Colombia, Bogotá, November 1989. (Data for 1989 is incomplete, due to the change of presidential administration in August of that year.)

      The increase in participation of the armed forces in counterdrug operations was particularly evident during 1988 and 1989. ⁴⁵⁴  Further militarization during that period was due to two factors: First, the recently inaugurated Bush administration was applying pressure for a stronger involvement of the Colombian military in enforcement operations against drug trafficking. Secondly, stronger involvement of the armed forces formed part of the offensive against the Medellín cartel provoked by the assassination of Galán. ⁴⁵⁵ 

      The assassination of Galán was a preemptive move by the Medellín cartel. Galán was not killed because of policies he had applied, but because of policies he would implement in the future. Galán was the favorite candidate for the 1989 elections. He was young, dynamic, and a friend of Lara Bonilla; he favored of the use of the Extradition Treaty as a means to combat criminal organizations. ⁴⁵⁶  Paradoxically, his death would create a contrary effect from that intended. After his murder, governmental enforcement was harsher than ever. The process would lead to a crackdown on the organization. The government retaliated by destroying laboratories and seizing property and assets belonging to the heads of the Medellín cartel. On December 15, 1989 Rodriguez Gacha was killed during a joint arrest operation of the CNP and the DAS. The tables and figures below illustrate some of the results of the enforcement operations against drug trafficking during this period.

      

Table 7. Illegal Crops Eradication 1985-1990 (in hectares)
Crop	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990
Coca	1,334	870	572	230	641	760
Marihuana	124	149	371	918	132	36
Opium poppy	-----	5	-----	------	-------	------

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      

Table 8. Seizure of Illicit Drugs 1987-1989 (in kilograms)
Type of drug	1987	1988	1989	1990
Cocaine	8,326	18,701	30,633	44,962
Cocaine base	6,712	3,897	6,726	5,786
Coca leaves	188,689	97,360	202,973	533,694
Bazuco	279	537	524	394
Marijuana	128,850	922,858	707,617	653,322

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997.

      

Table 9. Captured presumed drug traffickers 1987-1986
	1987	1988	1989	1990
National	4,653	4,898	3,574	2,678
Foreign	39	31	33	7

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      

Graphic 2. Destroyed laboratories 1987-1990

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      

Table 10. Goods and elements seized during enforcement operations 1987-1990 (in units)
Units	1987	1988	1989	1990
Weapons	358	758	986	887
Radios	61	206	376	307
Vehicles	187	348	494	311
Ships and boats	40	29	38	35
Planes	20	57	50	36
Portative power plants	22	55	105	74
Scales	177	261	300	214
Ammunition	12,572	46,321	40,728	132,620
Grenades	6	41	45	205
Dynamite	------------------	------------------	----------------	25,428

Source: Republic of Colombia, Ministry of Justice and Law, National Drug Directorate, 1997

      The position of the cartels was clear: terrorism would not cease unless extradition stopped. For this the treaty would have to be declared unconstitutional. The victims would naturally be the magistrates of the Supreme Court who had the last word on this matter. During this period, the violence of the traffickers against the political class was particularly high. The chronology below illustrates the reactive and preemptive spiral of violence by drug traffickers during this period.

Deadly escalation 1986-August 1990:

July 16, 1986, Leticia (Amazonas). Assassination of the journalist Roberto Camacho Prada, a correspondent of the newspaper 'El Espectador." July 17, 1986, Bogota, Assassination of Judge Hernando Baquero Borda. September 1, 1986 Assassination of Pedro Nel Jiménez Obando, UP's Senator. September, 17,1986, Cali. Assassination of Raul Echavarria Barrientos, assistant director of 'Occidente," a daily newspaper. October 22, 1986, Bogota, Attempted assassination of Judge Gustavo Zuluaga Serna. November 17, 1986 Assassination of Col. Jaime Ramírez Gómez, chief of the Narcotics Division of the National Police. December 10, 1986, Bogota. Assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Jose Agustin Ramos Rodriguez, distinguished officer of the Valle Police Department, very active against delinquency. December 17, 1986 Assassination of Guillermo Cano, director of the journal El Espectador. 1985-1989 Period of further organization, consolidation and training of the autodefensas (turn into fully organized paramilitary groups) by contracted Israeli, British and South African mercenaries. October 1987 Bomb in the Ministry of Defense. October 7, 1987 Massacre of peasants in Puerto Boyacá. October 14 1987 Assassination of Jaime Pardo Leal, presidential candidate by UP. November, 24 1987, Medellín, Abortive Kidnapping of Juan Gomez Martinez, Director of the Newspaper El Colombiano and elected mayor of Medellín. December 17, 1988, Budapest (Hungary), Attempt on former Minister of Justice and then Ambassador of Colombia in Hungary, Dr. Enrique Parejo Gonzalez. January 1988, Five former members of the armed forces allegedly paid by the Cali cartel are assassinated by the Medellín cartel. January 13, 1988, 700 kilos of dynamite explode in front of the "Mónaco" building in Medellín owed by Pablo Escobar and also the residence of his family. Escalation of violence between the Cali and the Medellín cartels. January 18, 1988, Kidnapping of Andrés Pastrana, son of the former president Miguel Pastrana Borrero, and Conservative candidate for the office of mayor of Bogotá (and current president of Colombia). January 25, 1988, Kidnapping and assassination of the General Prosecutor of the Nation, Carlos Mauro Hoyos. By coincidence during the failed attempt to free Hoyos, Dr. Andrés Pastrana is localized and released. February 18, 1988, a pharmacy of the Cali cartel owed commercial chain "La Rebaja" is burned in Medellín. From that moment on there were forty bomb attempts against "La Rebaja" locals and ten bomb attempts against the Colombian Radio Group owed by the Rodríguez Orejuela Family. April 3, 1988, 38 peasants are killed in La Mejor Esquina (Córdoba Department); allegedly they were giving support to the guerrillas. April 11, 1988, 12 fishermen and banana workers are killed in Punta Coquitos (Turbo, Urabá) July 3, 1988 , 16 peasants are killed in El Castillo (Meta). They were accused of supporting the UP. January 16, 1989, 12 judges that were investigating massive killings are murdered in La Rochela (Santander). February 4, 1989, 5 people are murdered in Santa Rosa del Cabal (Risaralda). February 27, 1989, Assassination of Teófilo Forero, member of the Central Committee of the Colombian Communist Party. March 29, 1989, Murder of the 'El Espectador' Journalist, Dr. Hector Giraldo Galvis. March 30, 1989 , In El Dorado airport of Bogotá is assassinated José Antequera, Secretary General of the Communist Youth and member of the UP. In the same attempt is wounded Ernesto Samper Pizano (presidential pre-candidate for the Liberal Party and president from 1994 to 1998). May 30, 1989, Bomb attempt against Brig. General Miguel Alfredo Maza, Director of the Security Department (DAS). July 4, 1989, Assassination in Medellín of Antonio Roldán, Governor of Antioquía. July 28,Medellín, Assassination of Public Order Judge Maria Helena Diaz Perez. June-August 1989, Escalation of murders of judges, magistrates, peasants and members of UP. August 16,1989, Assassination of Doctor Carlos Valencia Garcia, Magistrate. August 18, 1989 Assassination of Col. Valdemar Franklin Quintero, chief of the Metropolitan Police and assassination of Luis Carlos Galán S., presidential candidate for the New Liberal Party. August 23, 1989, the Medellín cartel declares a "total war" against the state. August 18-October 1, 1989, Eighty five dynamite attempts in Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla, Cartagena and Bogotá against banks, financial corporations, electoral campaign offices of the Liberal and Conservative parties, hotels and restaurants, newspaper offices, commercial centers etc. September, 2, 1989, Bogota, car-bomb attack on the building of the newspaper ' El Espectador." September 11, 1989, Medellín , Assassination of Doctor Pablo Pelaez Gonzalez, former Mayor of Medellín. October 16, 1989 Bucaramanga. Attack against the newspaper 'Vanguardia Liberal," 2 dead and 7 people injured. October 17, 1989, Medellín. Assassination of Doctor Jose Hector Jiménez Rodriguez, Magistrate of the Penal Superior Tribunal of Medellín. November 1, 1989, Assassination of the Magistrate of the Penal Superior Tribunal, Ms. Mariela Espinosa Arango. November, 27, 1989, Soacha, Bogota, Avianca flight bombed, 107 dead. December 6, 1989, DAS building explosion, 63 dead , 600 injured. December 19, 1989. Kidnapping of the son of the Secretary of the Presidency and 18 more people among them members of the family of President Barco. March 29, 1990, Chigorodó (Urabá), five peasants are assassinated. Massacres in Trujillo. May 1990, the rural violence provokes massive displacement of peasants in Sucre. May 27 1990, Presidential elections. The generalized violence and terror provokes the highest rate of abstentions in the last 50 years (68%). May-July 1990, Bombs in Medellín against military and police transport units. July 15, 1990, new massacres against peasants in Urabá and Córdoba. July 28, 1990, the government announces that up to that date there had been 517 bomb attempts and in only six months 11,000 people had been murdered.

      Sources: Betancourt and García, op.cit, pp. 236-300 and Office of the President of the Republic, The Fight Against the Drug Traffic in Colombia, pp.12-16.

      This period also registered a large number of massacres in rural areas. As reported by Human Rights Watch,

"The year 1988 proved a crucial one. The Center for Investigation and Popular Education [CINEP], a human rights group recorded 108 massacres that year [...], the worst of the decade. Not only wee paramilitaries increasingly active in the regions where their members were based; with the active coordination and support of the military, paramilitaries where also sent across country to kill supposed guerrilla collaborators." ⁴⁵⁷ 

      The main reason for this was that, since its institutionalization as a political party, the UP began winning support in the rural zones. These areas overlapped with the property of traffickers-turned-landowners who perceived the party as a threat since the main political flag of the UP was agrarian reform. Traffickers such as Rodríguez Gacha joined forces with the landowners and the army to counter the advance of the left by terrorizing the peasants to prevent them from supporting UP and guerrillas.  ⁴⁵⁸  They formed an anti-Communist political party called Movimiento de Restauración Nacional (MORENA) -Movement of National Restoration- whose main goal was to stop the expansion of the left. Paramilitary groups were trained by Israeli Defense Forces and ex-SAS mercenaries. ⁴⁵⁹ 

      The following tables and figures present general statistics of violence elaborated by the Council for Reconciliation, Normalization and Rehabilitation (Consejería para la Reconciliacíon, Normalization and Rehabilitation) of the Presidency of Colombia during 1988 and the first semester of 1989. ⁴⁶⁰  Notice that the figures displayed are not necessarily related to drug trafficking related violence as defined in this dissertation. However, violent acts registered under the category "private justice groups, drug trafficking organizations (narcotráfico), and organized crime (delincuencia organizada) can be assimilated to drug trafficking-related violence. Notice also the tables and figures below display official indicators and categories used by the Colombian government.

      

Graphic 3. Armed actions that took place in 1988 (by responsible groups)

      "Armed actions" refers to the following acts: ambushes, armed encounters, terrorist acts, armed assaults to villages, towns and private and official entities, attacks to installations, road robberies and armed harassment.

      

Graphic 4. 1988- Murder and kidnapping of civilians and public official/political leaders (by responsible group)

      "Public officials and political leaders (dirigentes y funcionarios)" refer to the following categories: Prosecutors, congressmen, national political leaders, departmental political leaders, mayors, members of local government assemblies, local political leaders, political candidates, trade union leaders, popular leaders, political militant and activists, police inspectors.

      

Graphic 5. Armed actions that took place in the first semester of 1989 (by responsible group)

      

Graphic 6. First Semester of 1989- Murder and kidnapping of civilians and public official/political leaders (by responsible group)

      "Public officials and political leaders (dirigentes y funcionarios)" refer to the following categories: Prosecutors, congressmen, national political leaders, departmental political leaders, mayors, members of local government assemblies, local political leaders, political candidates, trade union leaders, popular leaders, political militant and activists, police inspectors.

d) Escobar's phyrric victory: César Gaviria administration (1990-1994)

      President Gaviria would follow a different approach to stop the spiral of violence and terror unchained by the Medellín cartel. On one hand, the president continued with the enforcement against the traffickers but, at the same time, opened negotiations with them. In his effort to de-escalate violence, president Gaviria give the bulk of responsibility on counterdrug activities to the judiciary power and the police. The army was involved in counterdrug operations but their efforts were kept to a minimum; moreover, the army was allowed to concentrate on counterinsurgency operations as a their main task. ⁴⁶¹ 

      On the other hand, in September 1990 the president offered a negotiated surrender, in exchange for their surrender to the Colombian authorities. Surrendered traffickers would be tried in Colombian courts and imprisoned in Colombia. ⁴⁶²  Also, in June 1991 a Constitutional Assembly that had been elected in December 1990 in order to reform the Colombian Constitution declared the Extradition Treaty unconstitutional. ⁴⁶³  The ban of the Extradition Treaty was a result of a combined campaign of lobby and terror implemented by the Medellín's traffickers. ⁴⁶⁴ 

      Eventually, the war between the Medellín cartel and the government would end up in a Phyrric victory for the traffickers. The traffickers had imposed their will on the extradition issue. In exchange, the Medellín kingpins stopped the wave of violence and surrendered to be prosecuted and jailed in Colombian prisons. However, the coalition had been disbanded. As stated before, Rodriguez Gacha was killed during a police raid in December 1989. By February 1991, the Ochoa Vasquez Brothers and Pablo Escobar had surrendered voluntarily. Most of their goods, laboratories, airstrips, and land had been destroyed or confiscated. In a desperate attempt to avoid imprisonment in a military unit and a trial, Escobar escaped from prison in July of 1992, and started a new campaign of terror against the state and his rivals. ⁴⁶⁵  The Bloque de Búsqueda, (Search Block, a special elite unit formed by 600 members of the CNP and the army) localized and killed him in December 1993. Escobar's demise was the result of constant and tacitly combined harassment from his rivals (allegedly the Cali cartel sponsored the hit group Los PEPES ) and the Colombian police. ⁴⁶⁶  His death marked the end of the Medellín coalition as well as an end of the spiral of violence between the traffickers and the state. The Cali cartel would, however, benefit from the demise of their rivals. As explained earlier in this dissertation, the Cali traffickers were less prone to direct armed confrontation with the state and preferred corruption as a tactic to secure the business. In this way, they were able to maintain a low profile during the all-out war between the government and the Medellín cartel. The Cali coalition would dominate cocaine exports in the first half of the 1990s. ⁴⁶⁷ 

      The chronology below illustrates the reactive and preemptive spiral of violence by drug traffickers during this period.

Deadly escalation August 1990-1993:

August 30, 1990, kidnapping of Diana Turbay Quintero, director of the Hoy x Hoy magazine, partner of the Criptón T.V. news program and daughter of former president Julio César Turbay Ayala. September 1990, the "Extraditables" clamed responsibility for the kidnapping of Diana Turbay and her news team and announce that they will only release her if they receive a similar treatment to the one granted to the M-19 and EPL (that is open negotiations and truce with the government). Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela (heads of the Cali cartel) announce that as a preventive measure against the Medellín cartel they have formed their own intelligence network. October 30 and November 1990, kidnapping of Maruja Pachón de Villamizar sister in law of Luis Carlos Galán. January 25, 1991, during a police operation Diana Turbay Quintero is killed while the police attempted to release her. March 1991, indiscriminate killings in Cali and murder of Cali traffickers. March, 7, 1991 , the police identify 11 of 31 bodies that were found floating in the Cauca river. Allegedly drug traffickers operating in the Norte de Valle department (members of the Cali coalition) killed this people. March 19, 1992, the Cali police deactivates a bomb of 50 kilos placed near a soccer stadium. July 21, 1992 ,Pablo Escobar escapes from prison. In 1993 the organization of Pablo Escobar carried out 6 terrorist attempts in Bogotá with a total of 64 dead and 276 wounded. A similar campaign of terror took place in Medellín. February 28, 1993,a house belonging to a boss of the Medellín cartel is burned by Los Pepes. March 5, 1993, a lawyer of the Medellín cartel is murdered by Los Pepes. Four other lawyers are threatened. January-March 1993, several installations of the Medellín cartel are attacked by Los Pepes. December 2, 1993, the Colombian security forces kill Pablo Escobar.

      Sources: Betancourt and García, op.cit, pp. 277-300 and CINEP, La verdad del '93 : paz, derechos humanos y violencia, Bogotá, Cinep, 1994.

      Rural violence between guerrillas and paramilitary groups did not stop during this period and, paradoxically, the paramilitary groups financed by the traffickers would still have the support of the Colombian military. As reported by the Human Rights Watch,

"Law enforcement investigators identify three groups engaged in violence there [the northern part of the Middle Magdalena region]: the FARC and ELN; a handful of ranching families and drug traffickers who have organized paramilitary groups; and the military. Although violence has a long history here, the most recent increase dates from the early 1990s, as the military-paramilitary alliance based in Puerto Boyacá and Puerto Berrío began to push north in pursuit of suspected 'subversives'. By 1993 when, Mobile Brigade 2 was active in that area, human rights groups were flooded with reports of serious human rights abuses [...] In a letter to the Public Ombudsman (Defensoría) in Bogotá, the regional ombudsman identified a group calling itself the "Peasant Self-Defense Group" (Autodefensas Campesinas) as responsible for the July 30, 1994 massacre of six people. He reported that despite abundant evidence, Gen. Ricardo Cienfuentes, commander of the Fifth Brigade and the officer responsible for the area, claimed 'not to be aware of self-defense groups in the area'. At the same time civil authorities described themselves as 'overwhelmed' with reports of such groups." ⁴⁶⁸