The Heritage Foundation, an institution engaged in global policy analysis,
defines Narco-State as "a country whose economy, political system, and
society have been profoundly compromised and distorted by the wealth and power
of the drug cartels."
Narco-Politics on the other hand is defined, by author and political analyst
Alan Riding, as "the abuse of power to achieve wealth through drug trade
and the abuse of power to achieve power, using corruption to seal political
alliances, and corruption which makes the wheels of bureaucracy turn."
It cannot be denied that illegal drugs play a leading role in economic matters
of major drug producer and drug consumer countries. In so far as narco-politics
is concerned, there is no publication yet, providing a comprehensive study on
the impact of drug trafficking on the geopolitics of these countries. By this,
we mean the impact of the production, trafficking, and consumption of drugs,
and money laundering on power relations inside a country (which we call, internal
geopolitics) and on the economic, political, and military conflicts opposing
several states (which is, international geopolitics).
The drug phenomenon often seems to be a response to social and economic dysfunction,
but it can also make a bad situation worse (as in the recent financial crises
in Mexico and Asia) and perhaps even generate crises, thus creating areas of
impunity, which in turn lead to more crime.
This phenomenon begins when the State withdraw their commitment to the people
through the privatization of the economy in an effort to accelerate its growth.
Some countries then turn into providers of services, ... providing offshore
banking, free-trade zones, tourism, and cheap labor; whose economic fallout
usually do not benefit the general population.
The social elites, who refuse to let their living standards drop, do not hesitate
to create "closed spaces" or to resort to corruption and violence
in order to maintain their privileges. As for the ordinary people, who are increasingly
left to their own devices while being bombarded with images of "success",
they are looking to solve economic problems through informal or criminal activities
and immigration.
Thus, a process of integrating the political economy of drugs at two general
levels has been observed. Firstly, all illicit products and activities are intimately
linked. Once it has proven its profitability, no network, no trafficking activity
restricts itself to an individual territory or product. The compartmentalization
of trafficking activities (namely: production, transformation, distribution,
and integration of the profits), while still in force, is now developing within
the perspective of exchanging goods and services. Secondly, through process
of money-laundering and corruption, the drug economy is being integrated into
the economy as a whole.
The processes in which democracies transform into narco-states is called "narcostatization",
a term corned by David C. Jordan, former US Ambassador to Peru, and now a professor
at the University of Virginia. In his book, "DRUG POLITICS: Dirty Money
and Democracies", (published Oct. 1999) Prof. Jordan describes the results
of his study on the characteristics of each stage level in narcotstatization.
Listed here are trends that characterize a Narco-State:
- Consequent loss of critical support or neutrality of certain sectors
of society, which damages the governability and result in further deterioration.
Faltering governmental self-confidence may encourage abdication or collapse,
or governments may simply be neutralized and withdraw.
- Growing damage to civic governance through organized crime and narcotics
trafficking will be exacerbated by their penetration of legitimate institutions
such as courts, legislatures, and security forces.
- Sociologically, we anticipate a progressive withdrawal of domestic support
for government and a growing popular perception of regime illegitimacy,
with criminals viewed as leading nationalists and "Robin Hoods".
- Diplomatic isolation lead to the progressive withdrawal of foreign investment,
foreign aid, donor institution support, and trade as the overhead of doing
legitimate business there becomes too dear.
- There is a significant expansion of territory under the control of syndicated
crime in the absence of state authority.
- Finally, state security forces does not have the capability to assure
protection for the citizenry, to gather intelligence needed to fight local,
regional, and international crime, or to defend land and sea borders. The
judiciary loses the capacity to punish criminals and protect the innocent
in an efficient, evenhanded, and democratic way.
In sum, two potential weaknesses of governments are: 1) ineffective delivery
of government services, and; 2) inability to broker and defuse conflict and
dissent.
Weak institutions leave the public marginalized, with their fears exacerbated
by soaring crime, strong-arm law enforcement, and expanding impoverishment.
Ironically, in many countries, the government services that do regularly each
the grassroots level are often of the most draconian sort and represent the
raw power of the state-the forces of law and order.
As far as the international community is concerned, there hasn't been a country
that has been officially labeled as a Narco-State. However, several publications
have pointed to a few countries, which are considered as emerging narco-states.
Narco-politics is not a new concept in the Latin American region. Bolivia has
been accused of having narco-presidents and Panama of having narco-dictators.
Drug trafficking has permeated some Latin American civil societies to such an
extent that South Americans now talk about narco-senators, narco-guerrillas,
even narco-beauty queens.
Some U.S. counternarcotics experts believe that Colombia is the world's first
narco-democracy. Colombian drug traffickers repatriate between $3 billion and
$7 billion a year in laundered drug-related earnings from the United States
and Europe. Their influence within the banking industry, government, and law
enforcement agencies already has impeded attempts to prosecute them. Colombia's
five-year-old constitution bans the extradition of Colombian citizens wanted
for crimes committed in other countries, and the courts rarely punish drug traffickers.
In Mexico, politicians are being killed off because of a power struggle related
to money and drugs, not over questions such as democracy and human rights.
In Peru, high officials, judges, mayors and other authorities had been turned
into employees of the Peruvian mafioso.
Throughout the Caribbean region, drug barons, dons, "small island big
men," and international entrepreneurs alike have connections with governments,
commercial houses, and political party bosses. Overlapping, vertically integrated
chains of patron-client relationships ripple throughout society, connecting
top to bottom, reaching down to the unemployed, disaffected youth who hustle
and kill each other.
The U.S. State Department's annual International Narcotics Control Strategy
Report of 1998 endorsed this view by reporting that for the entire eastern Caribbean
the stability of the area's traditionally democratic governments is threatened
by narcotics trafficking and organized criminal activity.
In Haiti, narcotics traffickers are routinely released from prison by corrupt.
Drug related corruption is widespread in the Haitian National Police. A senior
police commander says that up to three-quarters of the country's 4,500-member
police force have accepted bribes from drug lords and their lieutenants, and
the country's justice minister says the going price for a judge starts at $5,000
In Mainland China and Taiwan, just as they did in the days of Chiang Kai-Shek,
the Triads are moving in on the government. Wong Man-Fong, a very senior Communist
Party official and former Chinese diplomat in Hong Kong, has said publicly that
a secret deal was forged with the Hong Kong Triads in the early 1980s to the
effect that, if theydid not cause political unrest after the transfer of the
colony's sovereignty, their criminal activities would be tolerated. It is Chinese
government policy not to antagonize the Triads.
Likewise, whether Burma can be said to constitute a "narco-state"
remains for the most part a matter of semantics and opinion. Fact is, however,
that narco-capitalists and their close associates are now involved in running
ports, toll roads, airlines, banks and industrials, often in joint ventures
with the government. And the junta is increasingly dependent on narco-dollars
to keep a floundering economy above water.
Recently, the Paris-based Geo-Political Drug Watch has labeled Pakistan as an
emerging 'narco-state', a nation in which drug barons collaborate closely with
politicians, senior bureaucrats and armed forces officers. This illegal and
clandestine business pumps more than $2 billion annually into Pakistan's sinking
economy. Hence it is not surprising that the State Bank of Pakistan reportedly
bought over $1 billion from narcotics dealers in the preceding year proving
that the government was openly using drug money to finance its operations.
The Philippines is not a narco-state, nor is it plagued by narco-politics.
We do not possess the- trends that characterize an emerging narco-state.
Likewise, by definition, the Philippines is NOT a country whose economy, political
system, and society have been profoundly compromised and distorted by the wealth
and power of the drug cartels. Nor its political scene is characterized by the
abuse of power to achieve wealth and the abuse of power to achieve power, using
corruption to seal political alliances, and corruption, which makes the wheels
of bureaucracy turn.
The Paris-based "Observatiore Geopolitique Des Drogues" or Geopolitical
Drug Watch, is an organization supported by the European Union, the France's
Inter-Ministerial Mission for the Fight Against Drugs and Drug Addictions, and
the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation. Its research data and analyses are compared
to those published by international organizations such as the UN Drug Control
Program, Interpol, Europol, World Customs Organization, and national bodies
active in the filed of drugs.
Herman Tiu Laurel
Tribune
Friday, 06 27, 2003
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) sends out its signals on the anti-drug campaign of Arroyo and Barbers, and they aren't looking good. It seems that Lacson instead is being cast in a better light. It all appears to be the problem with the Wang thing. Lawrence Wang, drug kingpin who was sprung from jail from beneath the nose of his "friend" and then Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Robert Barbers, is getting the senator and aspiring anti-drugs czar into a tangle. Though long gone from the reach of local law enforcers, the story of police payoffs and bribery comes back to drive Barbers weng-weng (to go crazy, in local street language).
The last laugh now seems to be Lacson's, specially after that dinner invitation from foreign police attachés. The dinner included the US DEA representatives in the country. Being in their very sensitive posts make these anti-drugs diplomatic corps members absolutely careful and being invited to their tete-a-tete is certainly a boost. This news surfaced the day after my column dissecting the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character of Anglo-US anti-drugs policy, with Lacson working with the genuine anti-drugs faction like the DEA and his detractors actually networks of the drugs promoting covert faction.
Barbers' discomfiture increases as more facts surface about his chummy relations with the escaped drugs kingpin Lawrence Wang, as the Tribune news reports show. Wang's friend, a certain "Michael," was interviewed over dzEC radio giving the gory details to the close relations with Lawrence Wang of Barbers and the "four aces" Arroyo has floated to lead her P1-billion anti-drugs campaign. More gory details of Roxas Boulevard Legaspi Tower condominiums, money and other properties were given, all in exchange for the liberty of the drugs kingpin that did eventually happen.
Lacson, on the other hand, can be very happy that good guy Dr. Jekyll in the US anti-drugs policy of the DEA acknowledged the "active role" Lacson provided in the anti-drugs campaign when he was still with the Philippine National Police. Affirmation of Lacson's role was made in remarks of outgoing DEA country attaché, Jeffrey Wendling, at his despedida hosted by United States Ambassador Ricciardone. Meanwhile, we have confirmation from our PCSO sources that Arroyo will be committing graft in getting P1 billion from the PCSO for her anti-drugs campaign while no such fund is available.
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Based-on the institution's studies, Col. Corpus claims, seconded by dubious
witnesses, on the emergence of narco-politics in the Philippines based on unfounded
accusations of drug trafficking activities by PNP drug law enforcement units,
and specifically, SEN. LACSON ... is encapsulated in its scientific finding
as part of the drug phenomenon: quote
... governments use the proclaimed need to fight the "drug scourge"
as an excuse to violently repress political opponents by accusing them, rightly
or wrongly, of involvement in the drug trade. This phenomenon, because it is
selective, not only reduces the efficiency of drug law enforcement ... but also
contributes to discredit it, because it implies the subversion of the law by
the very institutions that are supposed to enforce it."
The study implies that if ever Col. Corpus succeeds to wrongly accuse political
opponents and drug law enforcers of involvement in the drug trade, then he only
contributes to discrediting the country's drug law enforcement efforts... and
ultimately, the Philippines could be at the risk of emerging as a narco-state.
Hence, Col. Corpus, along with his entourage of half-truths, half-lying, and
inconsistent witnesses, is part of our drug problem.