Cocaine seizures drop as traffickers 'shift to semi-submersibles'

US officials say drug traffickers have shifted to semi-submersible craft and other smaller, harder-to-detect boats to elude surveillance, causing a sharp drop in cocaine seizures last year. Officials say seizures of cocaine flowing north out of South America plummeted from 257 metric tons in 2006 to 208 metric tons last year, the second year in a row they have fallen.

Traffickers’ success attributed to their adaptability
Officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity acknowledged that they were slow to pick up on the latest change in tactics by drug traffickers. They say their success in tracking and stopping high powered speed boats laden with cocaine forced drug traffickers to find new ways of slipping through the net of radars and air and naval patrols use to catch them. Authorities recognize that traffickers now send out more, less powerful boats with smaller loads of cocaine that blend in with other vessels. They also say that the use of semi-submersible boats is on the rise. "They are very hard to detect," said one official, who added that US authorities intercepted its first semi-submersible in November 2006. Others attribute the decrease in cocaine seizures to the hefty bribes being paid to officials to ensure the safe passage of cocaine shipments.

As supply increases, prices decline
The Belfast Telegraph published a story today about the arrival of cheap, heavily adulterated cocaine in Northern Ireland. The weak U.S. dollar has increased the volume of cocaine shipments from South America to Europe and the drug's declining street value has raised fears that more and more young people will be lured into cocaine use. Northern Ireland has been chosen as a desirable destination for cocaine distribution given the prevalence organized crime syndicates--a result which I suspect is mostly attributed to the unsuccessful demilitarization and reintegration of the IRA and other ex-combatants.

New armed groups in Colombia threaten prospects for peace

For decades, Colombians have been caught in the crossfire between leftist guerillas (FARC, ELN) and right-wing paramilitary organizations. In 2003, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe signed a peace deal with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the country’s largest paramilitary group, in an effort to initiate a transition from war to peace. Since then, over thirty thousand combatants have demobilized and requested legal, economic, and social benefits under the Justice and Peace Law of 2005 (Ley 975- in Spanish).

In early 2006, the Organization of American States (OAS) Peace Support Mission in Colombia (MAPP/OEA) and civil society organizations warned of a possible rearming of demobilized paramilitary groups and the merging of former paramilitary members with transnational criminal syndicates. Evidence has since emerged that these new armed groups also established relations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN). According to the March 2006 OAS report:

In regions where guerrilla activity is low and the entry of the forces of law and order has not been effective, conditions arise under which various armed illegal groups can assume control. In these areas, the problem arises when middle-level demobilized combatants step into the vacuum. They assume control of the criminal activities that were traditionally the preserve of the units or groups based there (extortion, levies on drug production, social cleansing, alliances with local administrations) and organize themselves into small groups, armed with side arms, remaining in urban areas and communicating by cell phones.

The report also points out:

There is a risk of demobilized sectors of the population being co-opted, and of new combatants being recruited. This phenomenon has emerged primarily in areas with consolidated illegal economies.

On January 11, 2008 Stephanie Hanson of the Council on Foreign Relations published "Colombia’s Right-Wing Paramilitaries and Splinter Groups," providing an insightful assessment of this developing situation. The report is available at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Related information:
In May 2007, the International Crisis Group published a similar report on the emergence of "Colombia's New Armed Groups" which urged the Colombian government to move beyond treating the groups as simple "criminal gangs" but as organizations requiring an urgent and comprehensive response.

For additional information on Colombia's illegal armed groups:
FARC, ELN, AUC Backgrounder (Council on Foreign Relations)

Photo by Jason P. Howe

War profiteers "don't want war to end"

The following article about Salvatore Mancuso, a demobililized paramilitary commander and former leader of the AUC, illustrates how transnational criminal enterprises not only rely on shady characters such as smugglers, traffickers, and dealers (STDs) but also on the complicity of legitimate actors including governments, politicians, military personnel, foreign contractors, and multinational corporations.

ITAGUI, Colombia, August 14 (Reuters) -- Colombia's cocaine trade is much bigger than the government says and will continue to grow on stronger European and Asian demand unless a coherent anti-drugs plan is adopted, a jailed warlord said.

Salvatore Mancuso, once feared throughout northern Colombia for his cocaine-financed paramilitary war against leftist rebels, says Colombia is not serious about cracking down on the drug trade that fuels the four-decade-old insurgency.

Vested interests -- from politicians and military officers who collude with drug smugglers, to contractors connected to a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-narcotics program, to companies that sell chemicals used to process cocaine -- don't want the war to end, he said. "As long as there is a conflict in Colombia, all this will flourish," Mancuso told Reuters on Monday at a maximum security prison in the mountains outside Medellin.

The ex-leader of the 2,500-member Northern Bloc militia said he ordered a study that shows Colombia produces 960 tonnes of cocaine a year, more than 50 percent above official estimates, and the trade will remain strong as the U.S. cocaine market holds steady and demand grows fast in Europe and China.

Mancuso said he is trying to persuade the U.S. government to listen to his plan for ending the drug trade in this Andean country, but has had little luck so far. He said the U.S.-backed program of fumigating coca plants used to make cocaine is haphazard and that sprayed areas are often retaken by the rebels and replanted. "First we need all-out coca eradication. Second a coherent plan for security and a state presence in these rural areas," Mancuso said. "Then there has to be social and economic development for each community." This would include construction of roads allowing farmers get their legal crops to market. Click here to here the full text.

Photograph courtesy of AFP

"War profiteers" undermine reintegration of ex-combatants

Work has been somewhat slow the past few days, however I have had a chance to do some research on "Pablo Sevillano" an ex-paramilitary commander that has agreed to disarm, demobilize, reintegrate into civilian life. In exchange for a lighter prison sentence, this ex-paramilitary and notorious druglord must publicly confess to his crimes. Today he is confessing to crimes that include systematic murders, intimidatation, extortion, and vast ties to the narcotics industry, including the Tijuana Cartel in Mexico.

DDR in Colombia
The demobilization and disarmament of paramilitaries and guerrillas are part of a larger process known as DDR (disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration). Disarmament focuses on the collection of weapons whereas demobilization involves the dismantling of military units and transition of ex-combatants from military to civilian life. Reintegration involves the sustainable reinsertion of ex-combatants into civilian life and is arguably the most difficult step. Reintegration is also considered to key to the prevention of new conflicts.

Colombia has gone through many DDR processes over the past 40 years, however none have been able to successfully create durable peace. For my thesis, I would like to research why these efforts have failed and specifically, I would like to understand ways in which illicit "war profiteers" (smugglers, traffickers, dealers, and others) derail the DDR process. My hypothesis is that "war profiteers" engaged in the trade of weapons, drugs, humans, gems, counterfeit money, fake passports, and pirated software, and etc., effectively sidetrack the reintegration of ex-combatants by luring them into these transnational criminal activities. They exploit ex-combatants' extensive military knowledge, unique access to shipping routes, and pre-existing relationships with il/licit businesses dealing in "questionable" goods and promise far greater profits than "normal" civilian life, making the reintegration of former guerillas and paramilitaries all the more difficult.