Opinion: Ecuador's slide to non-institutional government

Amidst the discomfiture of accusations levelled at him by the IISS regarding his links with Colombia’s FARC, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa today has something to smile about.  Going with the BBC’s coverage, details have emerged of Correa’s victory in the May 7^th referendum on political reforms, most significantly, giving him greater control over the media and the judiciary.

Writing in the Latin American Herald Tribune some two weeks ago, Lindsay Green Barber took a positive spin on the impending referendum, stating that regardless of the outcome, “the quantity, quality, and creativity of the discourse of the intense campaigns for ¨si¨ and ¨no¨ are evidence of an actively involved and concerned citizenry” and as such, should be viewed favourably.  What is more, she pointed to the encouraging direction of opposition to Correa’s power-maximising bid, from both left and right of the political spectrum.

But despite her best efforts, Correa’s victory has to come as a kick to the teeth.  She may, of course, be right that Correa’s popularity is on the wane ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 2013.  Indigenous groups, for example, have begun to turn their back on the president following a series of clashes over issues such as mining, water and the administration of justice.

But who’s to say the slide to a non-institutional model of governance will stop here?  If we take a hop, skip, and a rather large jump across Colombia and into Venezuela, for example, we find ourselves with a neat working example of how the incremental suffocation of democratic practice through media restrictions, constitutional reform and harassment of the opposition (amongst other initiatives) is actually a rather effective -- though non-commendable -- way of consolidating ones power.

It seems a full collapse of the indigenism that provided the backbone for Correa’s ascent in the first place will be the best means of preventing a slide to neo-statism and non-institutional governance of the brand witnessed in Venezuela today.

Opinion: Fighting Narco-terrorism in Latin America: time to put the hot potato down

Originally published by The Commentator, May 20th, 2011

Achieving equilibrium between security, governance and development will be the difference between decisively dealing with narco-terrorism across a restless continent, and continuing to pass the hot potato on next-door...

Details of a gruesome massacre at a ranch in Guatemala’s Peten province emerged earlier this week that revealed a narrative of 27 victims, bound, hacked by machetes and the majority eventually decapitated.  Sadly, such a tale is all too familiar in Latin America.

This restless continent has, throughout its modern history, embodied the protagonist in Aristotle’s precept of tragedy like no other; steeped in traditions of romanticism and grandeur, yet tainted by stagnation through a penchant for populism, dictatorship and brutal violence, and now left reeling decades, if not centuries behind, in its course of development.

Perhaps unremarkably, the prime suspects in Saturday’s heinous crime are the notorious Zetas - one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels.  Together with seven other major mafia organisations, los Zetas have managed to plunge a state once considered an outpost of civilisation at the head of more fiery climes to the south, into an abyss of violence.  Incredibly, over 35,000 people have been killed since Mexico’s War on Drugs began in 2006.

Yet, somewhere beneath the obvious element of humanitarian tragedy, there is a clear strategic lesson to be taken from this macabre tale.  Succinctly, it reveals how a purely militarised response to the phenomenon of narco-terrorism is a double edged sword in that it may help to clear up your own dwelling, but more often than not, it does so at the expense of the neighbourhood.

Should Calderon continue to apply military muscle with little else to compliment the heavy stuff, Latin America’s criminal entrepreneurs will continue to scramble operations out of Mexico’s borders and deeper into the likes of Guatemala.  Ironically, an almost identical sequence of events helped to spark Mexico’s own narcotics exportation culture.  As I have observed elsewhere, Colombia’s heavy-handed clamp down on the Cali and Medellin cartels throughout the 1980s and 1990s didn’t so much eradicate the problem as much as it simply pushed it away; forcing production units to scatter south, principally to Peru, and into the Central American isthmus to the north.

Not to labour the point, but tackling narco-terrorism with firepower alone is therefore a rather more complex and expensive means of passing a hot potato across sovereign borders.  It’s the problem no one wants to handle.

But if Mexico, and indeed the US are serious about putting this problem down once and for all -- and the US should be seeing as it is responsible for the lion’s share of refined imports, shares a 1,969 mile border with its Southern neighbour, and could quite frankly do without a failed state next door -- then the answer lies not with military muscle (at least not entirely) but with a heightened dedication to a liberal agenda for Latin America.

Only through democracy, respect for individual rights, rule of law with independent judiciaries, effective law enforcement agencies, the promotion of a culture of lawfulness within civil society, and not least prosperity through positive liberal market reforms, will this culture of grotesquely violent entrepreneurialism truly begin to disappear in favour of more virtuous means of making ends meet.  After all, to boil it down to the crudest of concoctions, this is what the drug game is really all about: making ends meet.

To be sure, consider the following nugget of wisdom from security expert, Phil Williams (himself borrowing wittingly from Carl von Clausewitz).  Transnational organised crime is simply a continuation of business by other means.  An irritatingly simple maxim it may be, yet true nevertheless.  And as any scholar of Clausewitz will tell you, in war (or be it a frightening merger of war and business in this instance), military means must be both subordinate to, and guided by the hand of the state so as to maximise ones chance of translating available means into desired goals.  That, as they say, is strategy.

This is not to discredit the military’s utility within this international predicament.  Indeed, Mexico’s military must play a major role in providing security amidst a pack of fierce gangs that, by and large, enjoy de facto control over masses of territory.  But it is imperative that this approach is part of a multi-pronged attack that keeps in touch with strategy by creating durable and effective linkages with development and governance.  Put simply, security through military predominance is not an end itself, but a means of creating the necessary breathing space required for governance and development to cultivate peace -- the ultimate end in any war.

In realising good governance and development, a range of other institutions, principally Mexico’s executive and legislative branches, must make the necessary socio-political and legal adjustments.  Suitable initiatives might include the regeneration of poorer areas, such as Mexico’s Pacific Coast states, and the decriminalisation of certain physician-prescribed drugs, through to fighting corruption at the highest levels, and acquiring diplomatic, law enforcement and military support from Mexico’s Latin neighbours.  Invariably, of course, this process will also require said support from Mexico’s giant northern neighbour throughout.

Beating Los Zetas and company in Mexico, and indeed, putting rest to the phenomenon in the entirety of Latin America, will be no small feat.  Crucially though, achieving the equilibrium between security, governance and development described here, will be the difference between decisively dealing with narco-terrorism across a restless continent, and continuing to pass the hot potato on next-door. 

Opinion: Kicking Cocaine out of Colombia

Inform someone of your Colombian heritage and the customary response will consist either of acknowledgment of Carlos ‘El Pibe’ Valderrama – the eccentric and effortlessly talented Colombian football icon; worldwide music sensation, Shakira; or cocaine.  Whisper it, but the latter association may be on its way into the dustbin of history.

While acknowledging that Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has dropped Colombia from its list of countries requiring special observation since production has decreased by 58% between 2000 and 2009.  This is high praise indeed for a state that spent the lion’s share of the 80s and 90s as hostage to rival drug cartels that held levels of geostrategic power previously unseen in non-state actors.

Where did it all go so right?  Well, without getting too carried away (Colombia still has a number of socio-political problems that it needs to address as well as the ongoing drug problem itself), much of the acclaim belongs with the preceding Uribe administration.  Much maligned by left-of-centre commentators (even more so further-left-still, principally in Chávez’s Palacio de Miraflores), human rights activists, and indigenous demographics for his military-orientated approach to the war-on-drugs, the ex-president has often been dismissed as a “gringo puppet”.  But it seems his kinetic-military approach combined with mass eradication projects appear to be paying off - for the new Santos administration and Colombia at least.

The drug problem in Colombia is complex.  Its roots hover between left-wing guerrilla groups, principally the FARC, right-wing paramilitary organisations, notably the AUC, and abhorrently violent criminal entrepreneurs.  Solving the problem is therefore equally complex.  If the desired end is simple enough to settle on (eradication of drug exportation), the means are less so.  Uribe’s approach viewed the crisis through a military paradigm; all out war.  But at the other end of the scale there is the development approach which includes providing alternatives to coca cultivation for Colombia’s indigenous populations, tackling poverty and acute inequality, and addressing the grievances of the FARC.  In short, there is a lack of consensus on what needs to be done.

Amid this lack of consensus, a glaring problem arises despite Colombia’s improvements: the drugs may be disappearing from Colombia, but they’re not disappearing.  The Central American isthmus, especially Mexico, and sub-equatorial South America, significantly Peru, have experienced an explosion of drug production in the time that Colombia’s has decreased.  It seems, therefore, that Uribe’s approach has, to an extent, simply pushed the problem away from Colombia’s borders and into its local neighbourhood.   

Thus, while the military approach has served Colombia well, now is the time to foster development in an integrated multi-pronged assault.  While left-wing guerrilla’s and violent entrepreneurs are on the defensive, Bogotá is in a strong position to negotiate their demise.  In turn, decreasing the power of the FARC will delegitimise the raison d’être of the AUC.  Act now, achieve lasting success, and Colombia may well provide the template for future success stories to come.

Originally posted in March 2011, by the Henry Jackson Society

Opinion: All that oil and no power

A story that has done the rounds in the last couple of days (see the BBC's coverage here) is that Venezuelans are facing up to electricity rationing following country-wide blackouts earlier this week.  Power is set to be cut for 3 hours a day in 19 of the country's 23 states.  Lights out.

I certainly won't be the first to point out that this isn't the first time that Chávez has pulled the plug on Venezuela's grid.  2010 was also an infamously patchy year for household appliances as droughts were blamed for energy shortages before rationing was finally lifted in June. 

How ironic - all that oil and no power.  Perhaps not that surprising though; since when have socialism and wide scale government intervention really produced?  Combine that historical lesson with Chávez’s penchant for spending big bucks on regional politico-economic initiatives (at the expense of Venezuela’s own infrastructure) and failing services suddenly seem less remarkable.

Really, then, this energy affair is just a crude (mind the pun) microcosm of 21st century socialism; fight against market forces and expect to land in an unsightly heap of inefficiency and paucity.  Oh, and on a final note, it's worth pointing out that this heap will require more than an hourlong prayer meeting to solve.

 

Opinion: Where's Walid?

If Obama wishes to avoid playing the Wally, he needs to face up to the implications of Walid Makled Garcia's extradition to Venezuela, while, fortituously, new links between Chávez and the FARC may give Obama the second chance needed to check Bogota’s drift toward Caracas...   

Last month, in the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl asked a very valid question: why isn't Obama fighting Colombia's dirty deal with Venezuela?  The dirty deal was of course the extradition of drug lord, Walid Makled Garcia, to his native Venezuela, completed this Monday.  As Garcia flew back to be imprisoned in Venezuela, his alleged evidence of Caracas' compliance with the international drug trade shared a similar fate.  To come to the point, Washington missed a trick while Chávez wiped his brow and silenced the troublesome Garcia once and for all.

Colombia's Santos claimed that the decision was made on a first-come-first-serve basis; that Caracas had simply beaten Washington to the post with its paperwork.  Whether Bogotá genuinely assigns such importance to punctuality is doubtful, but what is clear is that the move is the latest in a line of developments that, on Obama’s watch, have seen Bogotá drift toward Caracas.

That said, a recent publication by the IISS shows that there is still at least one big thorn in the side of this relationship: the FARC.  Unsurprisingly, given that the FARC issue is a real deal breaker for diplomatic peace between Colombia and Venezuela, Venezuela’s UK embassy was quick to voice its objection to this report which has brought Chávez’s links with the left-wing rebels back into focus.  From Washington's point of view, however, these fresh revelations may mark the false-start in the Santos-Chávez lovefest that one would hope it has been looking for.

In being generally slow out of the blocks in tackling this particular geostrategic concern, Obama should be thankful for the false-start and use it as an opportunity to re-focus his own performance in the race to reinforce Washington’s alliance with Bogotá.  The struggle with Islamic extremism may currently dominate the White House's agenda, but crossing the finish line in this race may be significant if Obama wishes to maintain the US' influence in her own backyard and prevail in the less widely reported war of ideas she faces with 21st century socialism.