Former President Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Peru first defined the term “narco-terrorism” in 1983. The term was first created to describe terrorist-type attacks against Peru’s anti-narcotics police. President Terry used to the word “narco-terrorism” to attempt to describe the narcotics trafficker’s use of violence and intimidation to influence the policies of the government. However, the word narco-terrorism has more than just one definition. According to the DEA, narco-terrorism is defined as, “participation of groups or associated individuals in taxing, providing security for, otherwise aiding or abetting drug trafficking endeavors in an effort to further, or fund, terrorist activities.” However, the latest definition of the term narco-terrorism is now defined by the UNSC as “terrorist groups that rely on narcotics to finance their operations”.
While conducting research about narco-terrorism and it’s history, involvement, and impacts I have decided to narrow the focus to the impact of cocaine in Latin American countries, specifically Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, and Mexico.
Nations Involved
Every nation in the world is involved in narco-terrorism whether it is directly or indirectly, licitly or illicitly. Because funding of narco-terrorism is based on ...
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"Treaties." United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2011. Web. Feb. 2013. .
The Transnational Institute, The Bolivian Documentation and Information Center, and Inforpress Centroamericana Guatemala. Democracy, Human Rights, and Militarism in the War on Drugs in Latin America. April 1997. Web. Feb. 2013.
http://www.tni.org/drugs/folder1/contents.html.
United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. Global Illicit Drug Trends 2002. Web. Feb. 2013.
June 2002. http://www.odccp.org/odccp/global_illicit_drug_trends.html.
Walker, Thomas W and Armony, Ariel C. Repression, Resistance, and Democratic Transition in Latin America. Scholarly Resources Incorporated, 2000. Wilmington, Delaware.
From the time of its colonization at the hands of Spanish Conquistadors in the early 1500’s, Guatemala has suffered under the oppression of dictator after dictator. These dictators, who ruled only with the support of the military and only in their own interests, created a form of serfdom; by 1944, two percent of the people owned 70 percent of the usable land. The Allies’ victory in WWII marked democracy’s triumph over dictatorship, and the consequences shook Latin America. Questioning why they should support the struggle for democracy in Europe and yet suffer the constraints of dictatorship at home, many Latin Americans rallied to democratize their own political structures. A group of prominent middle–class Brazilians opposed to the continuation of the Vargas dictatorship mused publicly, “If we fight against fascism at the side of the United Nations so that liberty and democracy may be restored to all people, certainly we are not asking too much in demanding for ourselves such rights and guarantees.”
The United States has had a long-standing policy of intervening in the affairs of other nations when the country has thought it within its best interests to do so. Since the 1970’s the United States has tried to impose its will on other nations to combat the most pressing political enemy of the day often linking the war on drugs to the matter to stoke support both domestically and abroad. In the times of the Cold War, this enemy was communism and the government tried to make the connection of the “Red Dope Menace” insinuating drug links with China, Castro’s Cuba, and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. However, as the world has evolved and communism’s prominence has waned, there is a new enemy whose existence has become intertwined with the drug war. That enemy is terrorism. The connection has gone so far that politicians and journalists have coined a new term to describe the link calling this new problem of our time “Narco-terror.” This paper will examine US efforts to control the drug trade and fight terrorism in Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan and the desired and often undesired consequences that have come about because of those efforts.
Human trafficking has been entwined into the structure of governments, arms trade, drug trade, and even spreads as far as terrorism. For many years it has been a fact that the money that has been made by selling other humans to the highest bidder. It is also known that the organized crime operations generate one of the most profitable resources to the organization. These organizations use this money for theirs or other’s crime and end up in the hands of drug lords. Drug lords, in order to promote their own business give money to support terrorist groups and activities. Security after September 11, 2001 has recognized human trafficking as a national and international security risk.
The cartels are now in control of most of the drug trades and are successful. The Mexican border gives them the power to go everywhere they desire, making them a relentless force. “To date operation Xcellrator has led the arrest of 755 individuals and the seizure of approximately 5 U.S. Currency more than 12,000 kilograms of cocaine, more than 16,000 pounds of marijuana, more than 11,000 of methamphetamine, more than 8 kilograms of heroin, approximately 1.3 million pills of ecstasy”(Doj 2). Mexican cartels extend to central and southern America. Columbia is the supply of much of the cocaine exported to the U.S. Colombia is under control of South American gangs, they do business with the Mexican cartels to transport drugs the north. The Northern Mexican gangs hold the most control because the territory is very important (Wagner1). They are many different types of cartel in Mexico it also signifies that there are killing each other so their cartel can expand an...
Cnn.com. [online], Available: http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/23/kiddrugs2_23.a.tm/ Schwarzer, Kathy. A. Interview December 15, 2000 The International Coalition for Drug Awareness. ICFDA.
Gootenberg, Paul. Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy (2011). War on Drugs Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy June 2011. Retrieved from http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/themes/gcdp_v1/pdf/Global_Commission_Report_English.pdf
In Jeanette Schmidt’s article, Transporting Cocaine states, “Colombian cartels would pay the Mexican groups as much as $1,000/kilo to smuggle cocaine into the United States” (Schmidt, 2). The Colombian cartels would then pick up the drugs and resume distribution and sales efforts, making personal profits that are unrecorded. In order to seize these individuals who are growing in power and numbers, the U.S. must control the connections between Mexico and Columbia. Mexico is the biggest transporter amongst Columbia and the U.S. because it shares a border with the U.S. This increasingly poisonous drug trafficking leads to drug dealers...
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
National Institute on Drug Abuse (2009). Preventing Drug Abuse: The Best Strategy . Retrieved October 21, 2011, from http://www.nida.nih.gov/scienceofaddiction/strategy.html
The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on terrorism.
"National Drug Threat Assessment Summary." Welcome to the United States Department of Justice. U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
Terrorist organizations have been committing atrocities against innocent civilians throughout the world for hundreds of years. Terrorism has evolved in many different forms and from various motivations such as religious protest movements, political revolts, and social uprisings. Regardless of the motives for terror, the problem is the financing of terrorism and terrorist organizations themselves. Recent global terrorist attacks using high technology and extensive networks have shown that money is essential to provide the means behind all terrorist activities. Individual terrorists plan terrorist operations and require resources to live, prepare, and implement their plans. The use of money laundering and financial support schemes are the root of the cause. If money laundering were curtailed or even eliminated, and financial supporters of terrorism were identified terrorism would decrease dramatically. To achieve these goals would take monumental efforts. The United States, United Nations and all sovereign nations would need to take cooperative action that has never been accomplished. Terrorism, its' history, concepts, reasoning, methods, and financial roots are object of this research.
Office of the National Drug Control Policy. "National Survey on Drug Use and Health." May 2008. Print. 26 March 2014.