5th International Security Conference at the Forte de Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, 20th – 21st of November, 2008

Executive Director of ICOS, Emmanuel Reinert addressed participants of the 5th International Security Conference of The Forte de Copacabana Dialogue. The Dialogue was organised by The Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Brazil, the Brazilian Centre of International Relations (CEBRI), the Centre for American Studies (CEAs), and the Chair Mercosur of Sciences Politique (University of Paris). The event included the participation of authorities from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, United States and other countries, in addition to diplomats, politicians, journalists, academics, members of the military and entrepreneurs. Mr Reinert's address was on the subject of The Illegal Drug Trade as both a Symptom and a Cause of a Global Security and Development Failure.

Click here to download the event programme

Mr Reinert’s speech is available in full below:

The Illegal Drug Trade: Both Symptom and Cause of a Global Security and Development Failure

Introduction
Within the international security and development nexus, crime is often connected to poverty, underdevelopment, instability and insecurity. For decades, the illegal drug trade has been one of the most profitable and one of the most harmful sectors of domestic and international crime, placing a huge burden on the legal economy and political wellbeing of many countries. Despite the multi-billion dollar programmes, projects and efforts of all the countries affected in one way or another, the problem has not gone away and has in many ways become worse: abundant availability of all types of illicit drugs, stable levels of purity of drugs, stable or decreasing price levels and increasing number of ever-younger drug users around the world.

At the level of individual countries, there are many examples of how the illegal drug trade has had a huge impact on the development and security situation of nation states. Countries in the so-called Golden Triangle, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, have been fighting the illegal opium economy for decades, a problem that has fuelled conflict, violence and instability. Now, with much less opium production these countries face the growing destabilising threat of the illegal methamphetamine trade. The illegal opium economy in Afghanistan is not only sabotaging the country’s road to recovery, stability and prosperity, but also has enormous negative consequences for the stability of the entire region. In Mexico, the raging drug war is currently affecting all levels of society and creating unprecedented levels of violence. In Colombia, the illegal drug trade has been one of the main factors in the prolongation of the insurgency-based war in the country. The list of affected countries and regions is long and becomes longer every year.

The illegal drug trade as a symptom of a wider security and development failure
The illegal drug trade – the production and trafficking of drugs – is both a cause and symptom in a broader framework of interrelated security and development crises. As a symptom, the illegal drug trade can be described as an indicator and outcome of the deplorable state of a country in terms of instability, poverty and unemployment. Besides the direct linkages between poverty, despair and drug consumption, the illegal drug trade as a whole is a symptom of the underdeveloped state of a country, region or city. At all levels, in one way or another, poverty, unemployment and the general lack of perspectives in life both cause and attract crime. It is not only related to the stereotypes of the unemployed people that start using drugs or the disenchanted youth that join a criminal gang involved in trafficking and selling drugs. It is general climate in which a combination of lawlessness, poverty, a lack of income opportunities or low salaries, violence, legitimate grievances and despair causes drug production, trade and consumption to prosper. In some cases, domestic criminal actors take advantage of the situation; in others foreign criminal networks or both.

Drug trafficking is among the most profitable forms of crime, especially because demand is fairly stable or increasing and the illegal nature of drugs is keeping prices relatively high. That is one of the main reasons why drug trafficking can always be found in places where crime can prosper because of the local situation. That does of course not mean that drug production and trafficking are only found in places where the security and development situation is highly problematic. For example, The Netherlands, ranking number nine on the Human Development Index, is the world’s main producer of amphetamines and ecstasy. This shows that domestic and international organised criminal organisation will of course try to make a profit wherever they can. However, the opportunity to do so is much greater in countries with relatively weak government institutions or that have structural economic development, political or social problems. Such countries or regions with weak or inexistent rule of law work as magnets on organised crime.

The illegal drug trade as a cause of wider security and development failure
On the other hand, as a cause, drug production and trafficking are creating, maintaining and boosting related phenomena such as violence, corruption, insurgency and other forms of crime such as money laundering. In other words, it is a direct cause of an interrelated set of destabilising factors that seriously hamper the security and development situation of a country. When a country is weak enough, the illegal drug trade can even completely hijack progress such as in the extreme case of present-day Afghanistan and potentially in the West African states that now find themselves in the eye of the hurricane. As a consequence, countries can become de facto ‘narcostates’ when the illegal drug economy gains so much economic and political clout that it tends to overshadow and even dominate the regular economy and the legitimate government.

In the context of West Africa, drug trafficking was described as a present and future cause of a much bigger problem by the UNODC, stating that it is perverting weak economies, corrupting senior officials and poisoning the youth and spreading addition and criminality. In some cases it can be even worse. In countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia, the illegal drug trade is to a large extent funding insurgencies that are further destabilising these countries by maintaining a serious armed struggle against the legitimate governments. In Mexico the trafficking of drugs through the region has led to an exponential rise in violence and pernicious corruption with 4,000 murders associated with drug violence registered so far this year, not including the deaths of Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño and Anti-Drug Prosector Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos key players in Mexico’s anti drug cartel strategy, who both died in a suspicious plane crash in Mexico City this October. These are just some example of the huge impact the illegal drug trade has as a cause of bigger problems that go way beyond the direct consequences in terms of drug consumption and the profits made by drug trafficking networks.

Brazil Brazil shares long and difficult to police land borders with all cocaine producing countries, and has a large litoral coast from which to export drugs towards the eastwards from the continent.

A large portion of cocaine enters Brazil directly from Colombia via the Amazon river system, on small boats each carrying small, hidden cargos of cocaine, most of which is directly exported. Cocaine also enters Brazil from Paraguay and Bolivia via road, or is flown into the interior of Sao Paulo via light aircraft.

The consumption of drugs is much less than in European countries, or in the United States, but Brazil is estimated to have the highest cocaine consumption rate in the region, especially in the South and South East of the country. The consumption of drugs in Brazil has significant perverse social effects. A lack of alternative economic opportunities makes drug dealing a viable career choice for large segments of the poor in Brazil’s urban centres. As Brazil becomes more prosperous, we can predict that the consumption of lifestyle products, such as recreational drug use will rise, exacerbating the social problems associated with drug retailing.

The negative effects of drug dealing in Rio
The most negative effects of drug trafficking can be seen in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, where drug retailing gangs are locked into a brutal market competition with each other for control of strategic locations from which to sell drugs. This competition led to the necessity for small arms with which to defend and acquire strategic locations from rivals and state authorities, acquired with the proceeds from drug retail. Guns easily find their way into the city, given the Brazil’s porous border with Paraguay for example, where guns can be bought and sold in illegal street markets.

This situation has led to a territorial stale-mate in the city, where entrenched drug trafficking gangs have full domination over almost all of the 700 favelas in the region, and public security forces do not have the resources to reclaim this territory. State forces are reduced to enxugando gelo (drying the ice cube), i.e. sporadic mega-operations designed to capture specific individuals, or operations to reduce drug trafficking organisations arsenals of drugs and guns. However, these operations are incursions into foreign territory, and do not have the aim of re-claiming this territory.

Another issue is the emergence and entrenchment of militias in the suburbs of Rio, which can also be understood as a result of the dynamics of drug retail in the city. The Militias raison d’etre was originally to provide the service of keeping the areas under their control free from the influence of drug trafficking gangs and their associated violence. However the Militias are another form on non state domination of territory, and are themselves violent criminals, involved in Mafia like activities such as protection rackets, political corruption and murder.

The development context of the growth of drug trafficking
The perpetuation of this dynamic of drug trafficking is also a symptom of the marginalisation of Rio’s favelas. Drug retail gangs have a constant supply of willing recruits given the lack of alternative economic opportunities, low levels of education and high birth rate in the favelas. Decades of state neglect and a lack of institutional capacity to act have allowed this un-planned urbanisation combined with regional migration to spiral out of control. Thus, as in other examples from around the world, the drug trade in Rio has flourished in poverty, lack of opportunity, and negligence of relevant authorities.

The under-development of Brazil’s penal system has contributed heavily to the rise in power of drug trafficking. This October, The Director of Rio state prison Bangu 3 was hit by more than 30 bullets while driving home by a drug trafficking gang hit squad armed with assault rifles.

The domination of prisons drug trafficking groups forces new inmates to choose an allegiance with one or other gang. Thus prisons become recruiting grounds and graduate schools for criminality, paralleling the phenomena in favelas they become the territory not of the state, but extensions of drug dealing gangs’ dominance. Again, this entrenchment of drug trafficking gangs in penal institutions arose as a result of a lack of state attention or investment into the criminal justice system.

Drug dealing gangs’ control of marginalised state territory, and the prison system mean that public security policy needs to be completely re-thought. Bellic police operations are inefficient given drug gangs’ high recruitment rate, at the same time, entrusting drug dealers to the justice system is inefficient given the many loop holes in the law, and the lack of efforts to re-socialise offenders.

Public Security needs to be reconceptualised as part of a broader framework of contributory actions. Vocational training, family planning, addiction treatment, and the provision of health services need to be understood as essential instruments for security. The re-conquest of state territory requires a ‘hearts and minds’ approach, demonstrating the positive values of the state and membership of wider society, as well directly confronting the impunity of drug retailers’ tyranny. However, in order to implement such a strategy, multi-sectoral and territorially specific intervention is needed, which require a high degree of policy coordination.

It is precisely because of this huge impact that we need to upgrade the profile of the drug problem. It is no longer a mere criminal phenomenon, but tightly linked to issues of insecurity, insurgency and war. The current situations in countries such as Afghanistan and Mexico show what the spill-over effects can be of the illegal drug trade and how it can put into jeopardy the security situation and development process of an entire country or region.

Old and new trends in drug trafficking
The global patterns of the illegal drugs economy are constantly changing as new actors, producer, transit and consumer countries, and trade routes emerge and develop. Criminal organisations have always looked for new business opportunities and innovative ways to be one step ahead of the law enforcement agencies. For example, when it comes to the opium/heroin trade stemming from Afghanistan, the ‘Balkan’ route traditionally transports Afghan drugs via Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Balkan Peninsula to Europe. Over the past decades a relatively new ‘Northern’ route was developed through the Central Asian republics to Russia and to the Baltic and Nordic countries. Similarly, another new route developed that trafficked drugs through Iran into Iraq and onwards into Jordan, benefiting from high levels of insecurity, instability and lawlessness that plagued Iraq. Now, traffickers again seem to favour the route through Pakistan and Iran as most Afghan opium is produced in the southern part of the country. Drug traffickers tend to be flexible, entrepreneurial, smart and above all practical when it comes to changing the routes their merchandise is travelling on.

The continuation of the Balkans as still the major trafficking hub for heroin and other drugs is not only because of its geographical position between Afghanistan and Western Europe. It is also strongly linked to its history of instability and the absence of strong rule of law in recent years. Moreover, the phenomena of crime, poverty and instability reinforce each other in such as way that the region keeps being very attractive for drug traffickers. About 60 percent of all heroin and morphine seizures are still made in countries located along the West Balkan route, maintaining the importance of this region as the main drug trafficking hub in this part of the world.

West Africa as a new hub for the cocaine trade
The development of Central and especially West Africa as the new hub for the cocaine trade stemming from South America on its way to Europe is very similar to what happened in the Balkans. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has described this new trend in cocaine trafficking over the past two years. Overall, almost everywhere in Africa seizures of cocaine have gone up since 1990, despite the many constraints of the law enforcement systems in most of these countries. The largest African cocaine seizures are found in Nigeria, but other countries such as Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde are also emerging as important cocaine trafficking hubs as identified by UNODC in its 2008 World Drug Report and its recent report on Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa. An estimated 27 percent of the cocaine consumed in Europe is already trafficked through West Africa.

For cocaine trafficked via West Africa Brazil is the most significant transit country, followed by Venezuela and Colombia, perhaps because of the shared language with countries such as Guinea Bissau, which estimates that 60% of the cocaine coming into its territory comes via Brazil. Of the estimated 80 tons of cocaine which passes through Brazil every year, 40 ton stay in the country, while the other half is trafficked via African countries to Europe.

Finding the weakest link for the strongest business
Similar to the Balkans, drug traffickers are looking in West Africa for the places with the weakest rule of law, instability and with under-resourced criminal justice agencies that are susceptible to corruption. At first glance, using West Africa as a new trafficking hub for drugs destined for growing consumer Europe may seem odd given the fact that this route takes much longer than other routes going through North Africa or straight across the Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, from an entrepreneurial point of view, the much lower seizure rates in the end make this indirect route potentially much more profitable. Countries such as Guinea Bissau have assumed the role of ‘cocaine super markets’. Large amounts of cocaine are stored and subdivided in the region as supervision and control mechanisms in Colombia and Europe make it risky for traffickers to store large amounts of cocaine, whereas the institutional incapacity of Guinea Bissau for example offer much less risk.

Moreover, trafficking through West Africa means that drug trafficking networks can benefit from the large communities and networks of African immigrants living in Europe. It is not only the weak law enforcement capacities or the immigrant networks in Europe that make these countries ideal hubs for drug trafficking. It is much more. In general, many of these countries find themselves at the bottom of all development indicators. When we look at the latest Human Development Index 2007/2008 developed by the UNDP, the final, least developed five countries on the list are Mali, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone – all countries in West Africa. In this sense, drug traffickers have literally chosen the poorest, least developed countries in the world that offer an ideal climate of instability, corruption and weak rule of law.

Supply and demand of illegal drugs
The natural starting point of any discussion on illegal drug trafficking has normally been either drug demand (e.g. the consumption of drugs in Europe) or drug supply (the production of drugs in countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan). Whatever starting point is used, the cause-effect relationship is highly complex and difficult to explain. Is it the drug demand that is causing farmers to cultivate coca bush or opium poppies? Or is it the availability of the drugs themselves that has created its own demand? As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In any case, the drug production cartels and trafficking networks find themselves literally in the middle and are constantly looking for ways to boost both supply and demand for illegal drugs.

Impact of drug production
Drug production, especially production of plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin, is often related to poverty. Given the illegal nature of drugs, the cultivation of the raw materials of these drugs can of course always compete with legal produce, but it is especially in relatively poor countries such as Afghanistan or the Andean countries where there are few alternatives and where the gap between the prices a farmer receives for legal and illegal produce is widest. In addition the relatively high levels of unemployment in these countries ensure that there are at all times enough farmers and other labourers available to work in the illegal economy. While it is true that illegal drug production hampers the economic and general development of countries, it is not true that the production itself only represents a source of instability. For example, in the extreme example of Afghanistan, the illegal opium economy may be the main obstacle on the road to stability, development and prosperity, but at the same time, it is providing the sole livelihood to a huge Afghan farmer community of 2.4 million people – an astonishing ten percent of the total population. What is worse about this dependence on a monoculture based on illegal crops is that the relatively high profits involved prevent the full development of a diversified rural economy, the development of agro-industry and other development that would occur in normal circumstances. This status quo is ideal for drug trafficking organisations which benefit most from Afghanistan’s structural dependence on poppy cultivation and opium production.

Impact of drug trade
Both drug production and drug trafficking produce a common risk that all countries involved face to at least some extent: the possibility or reality of increased domestic consumption of drugs. Again, the degree of impact is not easy to predict. In Afghanistan and in neighbouring countries along the major trafficking routes, consumption levels have increased sharply over the past years, while in the Balkans consumption has not really increased and remains relatively low. For West Africa, UNODC has already witnessed an increase of drug use directly related to the increased importance of the region as a trafficking hub between South America and Europe. Nevertheless, the impact of the growing public health burden on transit regions in terms of increased drug consumption and addiction and the associated costs of treatment and rehabilitation remains relatively small in comparison to a much bigger risk and cost for the country: the destabilising impact on the general security and development situation.

Impact of the drug trade on countries in terms of security and development
While the illegal drug economy’s benefits for drug cartels and drug trafficking networks are clear, it is more difficult to describe and predict the impact of new or existing drug trafficking routes on the security and development of the transit regions. What are the effects on public security, security in general and the development and prosperity of a country? For failed states or countries that are already fragile, these effects can be devastating. The illegal drug trade reinforces the vicious circle of poverty, crime, violence and insecurity and makes it more and more difficult for a country to escape from this negative cycle. In general, it is difficult for governments to compete with an illegal drug economy that moves billions of dollars and corrupts government officials and law enforcement officers. Guinea Bissau provides a stark example of this. In 2006 the IMF reported that the national budget of Guinea-Bissau in 2006 was equal to 41.3% of its GDP, or US$125 million, which is slightly more than the wholesale value of two and an half tons of cocaine in Europe.

The social and political dynamics of these states are also politically worrying, if we remember the relatively recent conflicts of Sierra Leone or Liberia, the prevalence of light weapons and ex-combatants in dire economic circumstances. Conflict for the control of strategic points for drug transit could explode given the economic value of cocaine in the region, low price of fire-arms and supply of recruits for armed groups.

Lessons from Mexico for West Africa
The lessons of Mexico could be interesting for the region. Pressure on Colombian drug-trafficking organizations opened the door for Mexicans to control a greater share of the cocaine supply chain. Mexicans now control cocaine routes out of Colombia from Andean ports to wholesale points well inside the United States, purchasing directly from cocaine laboratories in Colombia, and selling directly in The US, as well as the methamphetamine production and distribution. The social effects of drug trafficking in Mexico have been well documented this year, 4,000 people have been killed so far, and corruption and assassinations have reached the highest levels of Mexican institutions.

The West African region is the most under-developed in the world, and the estimated 25% the cocaine supply to Europe represents 1.8 billion US dollars wholesale per year, if we also consider the cheap price and prevalence of assault rifles, which according to The Small Arms Survey 2007 sell for an average of US$119, we can foresee that the potential for conflict to emerge for control of the drug transit economy is high, potentially much worse than the Mexican dynamic.

A structural, balanced and multidimensional solution should focus on the dual cause-symptom nature of the drug crisis
Because of the dual nature of the illegal drug trade – being both a cause and a symptom at the same time – the solution to this problem has to be structural, sophisticated, balanced and multidimensional. The response has to be structural in the sense that it needs to address a problem that is firmly established as a symptom of persistent underdevelopment, poverty, instability and insecurity around the world while at the same time as a cause, it is reinforcing and exacerbating this negative environment. To make matters worse, it is structurally linked to the official economies and governments that try to combat the problem, through its tentacles of corruption, money laundering and investments in the legal economy.

We know very well that the solution should be balanced in the classic sense of counter-narcotics policy theory that has been developed over the past decades. This entails a balanced policy mix of supply reduction and demand reduction, with as much attention for law enforcement and interdiction as for economic and social development. However, we need to apply this balanced approach differently to the symptom and cause nature of the current crisis. One of the most important lessons of the past fifty years of global drug policy is that law enforcement alone is powerless against the ever-greater challenge of drug production, trafficking and consumption. Instead, a sophisticated mix of targeted law enforcement, public health programmes, economic development in producer countries and international cooperation programmes should be developed, which is tailored to the specific circumstances in each region and country. This policy mix cannot simply focus only on the symptom of the problem (drug demand and supply) as fighting the symptoms might make some of the underlying causal relationships much stronger. For example, in Afghanistan, fighting the drug trade by confronting the impoverished Afghan poppy farmers could perhaps decrease opium production in the short run, but may cause more support and easy recruitment for the Taliban insurgency.

Given the fact that many developing countries have both an underdeveloped or overstretched law enforcement and public health system, a lot of the international technical assistance, support and aid programmes should be targeted towards ensuring that risk countries can also implement a truly balanced approach domestically that carefully addresses both the symptoms and causes of the crisis.

Lastly, the approach should be multidimensional, which goes beyond a merely balanced approach between various strategies. It literally means that all local actors involved should work together to reinforce each other’s work. That requires, for example, that the police do not only work together with the military and customs, but also with doctors, nurses, social workers and development specialists. All these dimensions should come together to both reinforce their overlapping and distinctive abilities, capacities and experience. Such an approach requires serious out-of-the-box thinking as there is a need to start seeing some of the work of these actors in the light of non-traditional roles: For example, development workers, nurses and doctors can be regarded as security instruments, while police officers should sometimes be regarded as public health instruments. For example, the police forces in many cities around the world have come to realise that it is often more effective to actively help and send problematic drug users into treatment than to arrest them on the streets and send them to prison.

Responsibilities
Given the transnational nature of the illegal drug market, the responsibility is naturally a shared responsibility between all countries involved, whether producers, transit, consumption countries or normally a combination of these characteristics. It could be argued that Europe has the most responsibility to tackle this problem as it has the necessary resources and expertise that is required to tackle this transnational problem, in addition to being the major driver of demand for cocaine production in the world.

In 2006 The EU initiated a three year project entitled ‘Law Enforcement and Intelligence Cooperation Against Cocaine Trafficking from Latin America to west Africa’, in cooperation with UNODC, Interpol and Europol, and plans to develop a capacity building project for 2009-2010.

In addition, a Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre-Narcotics (MAOC-N) has been set up by seven EU member states (France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom) which involves a joint naval and law enforcement strategy to curb cocaine trafficking in West Africa. MAOC-N, in its first year of existence seized 30 tons of cocaine in the region.

Given the alarming data of the latest UNODC report on West Africa, Europe should also look for ways to further expand its assistance in terms of capacity building and technical assistance for West Africa, before it really becomes an uncontrollable hub of failed states trafficking drugs and other illicit goods. In general, the international community should join forces (e.g. the World Bank, the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union) and invest much more in this region to prevent this geopolitical time bomb from exploding.

Conclusion
So far, the predominant focus on fighting the symptoms of the illegal drug trade have led to a disproportional and dysfunctional attention to the weakest elements within the illegal production chain and within the consumer societies: On one end of the spectrum the producers of drug-producing plants such as opium poppies and coca bush, and the consumers of illegal drugs on the other. This approach has largely disregarded some of the worst consequences of the illegal drug trade in terms of its causal impact on the wider security and development crisis. It is especially because of its unique nature as both a symptom and cause of the failure of the wider security and development framework that we need to upgrade counter-narcotics policies and place them among the highest priorities of global strategic thinking and crisis management. At that level, we have to integrate counter-narcotics policies as much as possible within the general security and development policies of countries and international institutions, tailored to the specific local circumstances and involving all stakeholders and policy instruments in a structural, balanced and multidimensional manner.