thiago rodrigues drug-trafficking and militarization

7/14/2019 Thiago Rodrigues Drug-Trafficking and Militarization

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/thiago-rodrigues-drug-trafficking-and-militarization 1/9

Drug-trafficking and the militarization of public safety

in Mexico and Brazil: comparative perspectives

Thiago Rodrigues1

Abstract: The ‘war on drugs’ launched by the United States in the 1970’s has been accepted in differentdegrees by Latin American countries. One of its pillars has been the mobilization of military commandosto fight drug-trafficking organizations. The paper intends to propose an overview on this militarization asa central principle of the ‘war on drugs’ in order to indicate some co nceptual and political challengestaken from the contemporary experiences of Mexico and Brazil.

Keywords: War on drugs, security, Latin America, Brazil, Mexico

As recently as a century ago, there was no drug trafficking. The majority of drugs

that nowadays are traded by drug traffickers and consumed against the law were not

regulated. A complex process, however, that involved arguments based on morality

and public health led to the illegality of these substances within a few years. The advent

of so-called drug prohibition transformed, during that time, producers, traders and

consumers of particular drugs into criminals. Prohibition was aimed at eliminating a

market; nevertheless, it was able only to render that activity illegal. As a result,producers and traders became traffickers and consumers became addicts living at

society’s margins. What was seen as a moral and public health problem became, with

prohibition, a public security problem.

The prohibitionism found room to assert itself in the United States, and there

found its primary advocate at the international level (McAllister, 2000). The first

international meeting on drug control – the Shanghai Conference, in 1909 – was

convened by the U.S., as were the subsequent diplomatic meetings, including those

organized in the 1920’s by the League of Nations, an organization to which the U.S. did

not formally belong. Although the initiative was American, the prohibitionism found

worldwide support, echoing the political and strategic interests of different countries(Escohotado, 1998; Rodrigues, 2004).

1 Thiago Rodrigues is professor of International Relations at the Instituto de Estudos Estratégicos [Strategic Studies

Institute] of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Rio de Janeiro, and researcher at Nu-Sol/PUC-SP. E-mail:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]





These conferences gave rise to the international regime of drug control based on

the logic of criminalization. This international regime established itself after the

publication of the UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs, in 1961, establishing the

prohibitionism as a global framework for combating psychoactive drugs (Herschinger,

2011). Thus, from the beginning, the issue of the control and criminalization of drugs

was an international one.

In addition to the three issues that initially drove the prohibitionism – morality,

public health, and public security – in the 1970’s, an additional issue emerged: national

security. The key moment was the speech in which President Nixon in 1972, proclaimed

that “drugs” were the “number one enemy” of the U.S. and that combating them

required declaring a “war on drugs.” This war would have both domestic targets –

consumers and traffickers – as well as external ones: the countries classified as the

producers of illegal drugs.

The discourse of the war on drugs both then and now was based on a division of

the world into two blocs: those countries that produced and those that consumed. Thisdivision is artificial and ignores the more complex dynamic of the production and

trafficking of drugs in the world (Passetti, 1991). However, it is a discourse that allows

the U.S. – and other countries that consider themselves “consumers” – to point to

“external sources” of the problem, triggering a discourse emphasizing national security

that gives rise to exceptional actions taken in defense of the state and of society

(Rodrigues, 2003).

In the first half of the 1970’s, as a result of the declared war on drugs, the U.S.

reformed its repressive apparatus (creating the Drug Enforcement Administration) and

initiated anti-drug operations in the Caribbean and Mexico. At the end of the 1970’s,with the growth of cocaine trafficking, the U.S. focused on the Andean countries

(Bolivia, Peru and Colombia). Since that time, the U.S. has defended the argument that

successfully combating drug trafficking required using the armed forces of the

“producing countries.” For this reason, the U.S. invested in the training and education

of special military groups, first in Mexico and later in the Andean countries (Somoza,

1990; Hargraves, 1992).

In the early 1980’s, the emphasis on the militarization of the war on drugs was

underscored when the U.S. identified the association between leftist guerillas – the

FARC in Colombia and the Shining Path in Peru – and cocaine trafficking (Labrousse,

2010). This phenomenon was called narco-terrorism and served as additional justificationfor U.S. insistence on the need for military action to combat drug trafficking and for the

Andean governments to adopt emergency laws and repressive measures that resulted

in the widespread increase of violence, without diminishing the supply of cocaine.

During the 1980’s, the U.S. increased its presence in Latin America to combat

drug trafficking. Hundreds of “military advisors” were sent to the region and there



were some missions involving U.S. military participation, especially in Bolivia and Peru

(Dale Scott & Marshall, 1998; Marcy, 2010). The Reagan administration strengthened the

war on drugs by highlighting the drug trade as a threat not only to the U.S., but to the

political and social stability of Latin America. Since then, drug trafficking and illegal

drugs took on another dimension: that of regional security.

Confirming this trend, the government of George Bush met twice with Latin

American presidents to discuss the coordinated fight against drug trafficking on the

continent. The first took place in Cartagena, Colombia in 1990; the second, in San

Antonio, U.S., in 1992. The original U.S. proposal involved creating and coordinating a

multinational military. National presidents and public opinion disapproved of this

proposal, which resulted in a change of tone. In San Antonio, there was no further talk

of a multinational military, but rather a reaffirmation of the need to combat drug

trafficking. This commitment was grounded in the idea of shared responsibility of all

countries in waging a war on drugs, an idea which was adopted at the first Summit of

the Americas in Miami in 1994.This principle reflected the decisions made at the Vienna Conference on Drugs,

in 1988, which brought up to date the prohibitionist regime established in 1961. The

Conference addressed new issues, such as money laundering, but continued to

emphasize the use of the military and police to combat drug users and drug trafficking.

Furthermore, the report produced at the Conference held that drug trafficking was a

threat to international stability, a finding that went one step further than those made at

previous conferences: drug trafficking as an issue of global security (Herschinger, 2011;

Rodrigues, 2006).

In the 1990’s, the Clinton administration implemented an additional form ofdiplomatic and economic pressure, the so-called Certification , a report published

annually by Congress that certifies whether a given country has been an ally in the war

on drugs. A country that fails to be certified can suffer cuts in U.S. military and financial

aid, as well as trade barriers with the U.S.

Despite U.S. military and diplomatic pressure, the wide acceptance of the war on

drugs by Latin American countries was not merely the effect of coercion. Each country

had its own way of incorporating the prohibitionist model while taking into account its

internal dynamics. In the Andean countries, the link made between drug trafficking and

leftist guerrillas meant that support for the war on drugs was a means to gain material

resources, diplomatic support and moral authority to wage domestic wars. In sum,support for the war on drugs by Latin American countries was not merely to succumb

to the U.S. agenda for hemispheric security. U.S. policy goals intersected with the goals

of those countries that supported the prohibitionist regime.

The case of Colombia sheds light on this relationship. The internal Colombian

conflict has existed since the 1960’s, involving leftist guerrillas, the state and right -wing



paramilitary groups. The emergence of drug trafficking groups at the end of the 1970’s

has further complicated the situation in Colombia (Pécault, 2010). For the Colombian

and U.S. governments, guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers are involved, to

some extent, with international drug trafficking. In light of this, Plan Colombia, begun

in 2000 with the intent to combat drug trafficking in the country, was from its inception

dubious in identifying its targets. After the terrorist attacks in September 2001, and the

resulting declaration of the war on terror by the U.S., there were no further definitional

problems, since both the FARC and paramilitaries were classified as terrorist groups

and could be targeted as a result of the connection asserted between the war on terror

and the war on drugs (Labrousse, 2005; Rodrigues, 2006).

Since 2001, the FARC – the enemy most targeted by the Colombian government –

have suffered serious defeats and are vulnerable, in contrast with their standing a

decade ago (Torres del Río, 2010). One could thus assert that Colombia’s adhesion to the

U.S. security agenda – regarding drugs and terrorism – linked its civil war to the global

war, strengthening the Colombian government’s dominion over its territory. PlanColombia also had an effect on the Colombian drug traffickers – the so-called drug

cartels – extending its operations and creating room for groups from other countries to

flourish, such as the Mexicans. It is possible that the rise of the Mexican drug trafficking

business, during the 2000’s, is linked to the effects of Plan Colombia on the Colombian

groups (Benítez Manaut, 2010). For authors like Rodríguez Luna (2010) the frontal

combat to the Colombian cartels have transferred logistic capacities, economic and

political power to the Mexican cartels. This way, the Mexican groups would have

gained control over the Caribbean and Central America’s cocaine and heroin routes to

the United States.The worsening situation in Mexico, however, led the government to opt for the

same Colombian recipe: toughening and militarizing the fight against drug trafficking

(Freeman & Sierra, 2005; Gutiérrez, 2007). The Felipe Calderón administration (2006-

2012) launched a direct attack to the Mexican’s cartels, mobilizing the Army and the

Navy to fight those groups. The Iniciativa Mérida Plan, alike the Plan Colombia, was

established with US support in order to strengthen the Mexican military skills and

equipment to fight drug-trafficking illegal groups. War-like operations started in early

2007, concentrated mainly in the northern states along the US border, the states of the

Mexican Gulf and the south-west states of the Pacific coast.

Then the general framework of violence got worse. On one side, the cartels werefighting each other aiming the control of the US routes and market. On the other side,

the military commandos started occupying municipalities, small villages and city’s

neighborhoods previously under cartel’s rule. For Cisneros (2010) and Boyer (2012) the

Calderón decision was in part a populist tactic to deal with the loss of legitimacy of his

mandate because of a contested election process. Partially true, the militarization of



drug-trafficking combat in Mexico was not a new strategy. In fact, it has started in the

1970’s, following the US declaration of the war on drugs. After that some scandals

related to military involvement with the ‘narcos’ reached the Mexican high command in

the 1990’s. The novelty of the Merida Initiative was the systematic and durable

militarization of the public safety policies, assuming the drug-trafficking issue as the

center cause of violence and crime in the country. This governmental decision has

created a hybrid strategic policy that has fused the national security case with a huge

public safety problem.

The result, since 2006, has been approximately 50,000 deaths, cities occupied by

drug trafficking groups, other cities occupied by the army, and a situation far from

being resolved. Despite of the fact that the Merida Initiative was negotiated with the

George W. Bush administration, Barack Obama’s administration has assured the plan

launching in 2009 a second phase called Iniciativa Mérida II. The new Mexican

president Enrique Peña Nieto, a political adversary of Calderón, has not demonstrated

intentions of changing the general plan of militarization.The Brazilian case was, until now, different. Considered during the 1980’s a

"cocaine export corridor," (Labrousse & Depirou, 1988) Brazil is also classified today as

a country that consumes and produces illegal drugs and that is an important market for

money laundering (Farer, 2003; Glenny, 2008). In Brazil, drug trafficking is commonly

associated with the poor and slum dwellers and is linked to the so-called commandos.

Although the situation regarding production, trafficking and consumption of illegal

drugs in Brazil does not fit this simple framework, the link between drug trafficking

and poverty has justified public safety programs that focus on prohibition and

repression as a means to address the drug problem.The most recent of these programs has been tested in Rio de Janeiro. The so-

called Police Pacification Units (UPP) have been implemented in slums after the

occupation by military police and its special battalions on a project fraught with

military connotations: territorial conquest, strategic occupation, pacification. The

Armed Forces have been engaged in this program since November 2010 in the area

known as the Complexo do Alemão. The visibility of the attacks allegedly sponsored by

groups of traffickers from the Complexo do Alemão , linked to the difficulty in occupying

this set of slums, justified a huge integrated action between civil and military police,

federal forces and the military (mostly the Army and Marines). This was not the first

time that the military acted in the field of public security, by occupying slums. Nor wasit the first time that society applauded the action. However, the use of the military in

public security in Brazil is a controversial topic (Zaverucha, 2008; Arruda, 2007). The

1988 Constitution provides for the use of armed forces to "guarantee law and order," by

presidential order, in extreme cases. The final version of this constitutional article was

completed only in August 2010, three months before the start of the Complexo do Alemão



operation. Previous laws had given police power to the Armed Forces at the border and

the territorial sea, allowing the military to arrest suspects and search vehicles (powers

previously held exclusively by the Federal Police).

One of the most important aspects of the Pacification Force formed to occupy the

favelas in Rio was the fact that some of its elements had previously taken part of the

Brazilian military force in Haiti. They were trained to act in urban combat scenarios

very similar to the ones they have found in Brazil. It remains not clear if the connection

between the Haitian experience of these military commandos and their operation in a

domestic context was a deliberated policy by the Federal government and the military

or if it was contingency (Rodrigues & Brancoli, 2012). The fact is that the so-called

Archangel Operation was the longest military occupation of urban zones in the modern

Brazilian History (from November 2010 until July 2012). Nevertheless, it was not a

novelty for the Brazilian military. Instead, it has a historical involvement in internal

missions. This expression – pacification – was used in the XIX century to describe the

military victories over regional rebellions, and it was also used in the beginning of theXX century to name the military control over indigenous peoples in Brazil ’s country

side and in the Amazon. The pacification task is taken by the Brazilian military as part of

its ethos and mission.

This self-assumed role as the ‘civilization keeper’ in Brazil has reflected over the

long and hard experience of military rule (1964-1985) in which the Armed Forces were

used – alike in many other Latin American countries – to arrest, torture and kill fellow

citizens taken as criminals and ‘internal enemies’. For these reasons, the military

mobilization to face public safety problems highlights a debate over the role of theArmed Forces in the Brazilian History, especially in the context of the new democratic

rule in the country.

In that sense, the role of the military in public security raises conceptual and

political issues. From a conceptual point of view, there is a challenge to the traditional

division between public safety and national security, because the military is classically

understood as the armed wing of the state for its defense against external attacks

(Figueiredo, 2010). External attacks as understood by international law are those made

by other states (Anand, 2009). Drug trafficking consists of activity that crosses borders

and, therefore, is from other states. But they are not armed forces of other states. Rather,

they are private groups operating a transnational business, without traditional politicalgoals.

However, drug trafficking has been understood since its inception as both a

national and international problem. It began as a public safety issue that later added

concerns involving national, regional and global security. This process of strengthening

security involves, by definition, the areas of domestic and international security. By



understanding drug trafficking as not only a threat to public safety, but also to national

security, the U.S. and parts of Latin America societies, including in Brazil, defend the

use of the Armed Forces in their fight.

The analysis of the war on drugs and drug trafficking as issues of global security

puts them in the field of study of the "new international conflicts" or "new threats"

(Kaldor, 2006; Kan, 2009), composed of transnational private groups that mobilize

transnational combat fighting producing what I call flux-wars (Rodrigues, 2004a;

Rodrigues, 2010).

From a political perspective, the impact of military involvement in combating

drug trafficking or "organized crime" is substantial. Many countries in Latin America

have recently emerged from long periods of dictatorship led by military governments.

In these regimes, violent repression was justified by the necessity to fight political

opponents deemed to be subversive "internal enemies". Defining these opponents as

"enemies" had the impact of dehumanizing them by treating them as an "Other", an

element that does not belong to society and that contaminates it (Herschinger, 2011).This act of political and moral discourse is the foundation on which societies like

ours authorize or accept persecution, arrest, torture and murder (Foucault, 2002). In the

case of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, this "Other" is not a foreigner but a co-

citizen. Democratic regimes, in their own way, also operate systems of selection and

punishment of those who are considered threats to society.

In Brazil's military dictatorship, the political opposition was identified as the

"internal enemy". And, now, in democratic Brazil? The militarization of the fight against

drug trafficking shows what? Does it show that drug traffickers are the new "internal

enemies" that can be combated and eliminated for the good of society? Does it showthat society supports, even if silently, the elimination of people seen as dangerous?

Prohibitionist discourse describes such individuals as a danger to public health, public

security, national security and global security. The prohibitionism is thus a political

practice that produces enemies. Global enemies and internal enemies.

The Roman god Janus, with his two faces, looked at the future and the past. His

two-faced image led the Romans to choose to name the first month of the year, and in

modern times experts, to represent the two dimensions of state security: internal and

external. This division in dimensions of state security is found in the ideals of

democratic constitutions. The fusion of these two faces would be acceptable only in

exceptional moments, such as in a state of war or social upheaval. Yet beneath theseeming normality of democratic institutions and civil peace is a state of undeclared

war, but which is evidenced by the prohibitionism and the fight against drug

trafficking. In our analysis of the war on drugs we can see that Janus has a single face.

Regarding the militarization of public security, it is interesting to note that the

United States since 1878 has prohibited the use of the Armed Forces in this role, while



advocating since the 1970s that Latin Americans do the opposite. And the fight against

drug trafficking has been a major justification for further using the armed forces as law

enforcement. From an analytical standpoint, the militarization of the fight against drug

trafficking has an advantage: it shows the daily war being waged as a result of the

prohibitionism, both inside and far from the borders, and makes the war on drugs more

than a figure of speech.

Meanwhile, Latin American societies, frightened and desperate for security,

actively support − or silently consent to − continuing this war, with its thousands of

dead and endless violence.

Bibliography:

AMARAL, Arthur (2010). A Tríplice Fronteira e a Guerra ao Terror . Rio de Janeiro: Apicuri.ANAND, Ruchi (2009). Self-defense in International Relations. New York: Palgrave McMillan.ARRUDA, João Rodrigues (2007). O uso político das Forças Armadas e outras questõesmilitares. Rio de Janeiro: Mauad X.BENÍTEZ MANAUT, Raúl (2010). México 2010. Crimen organizado, seguridad nacional ygeopolítica. In: BENÍTEZ MANAUT, Raúl (ed.). Crimen organizado e Iniciativa Mérida en lasrelaciones entre México-Estados Unidos. México: CASEDE, pp. 09-30.BOYER, Jean-François (2012). No México, o Estado recua diante dos cartéis. Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil , n. 60, p. 18-20, Julho.BUZAN, Barry; WÆVER, Ole; DE WILDE, Jaap (1998). Security: a new framework or

analysis. London: Rienner.CISNEROS, José Luis (2010). El cáncer del narcotráfico y la militarización de la seguridad pública. El Cotidiano, v. 161, p. 47-54, mayo-junio.DALE SCOTT, Peter; MARSHALL, Jonathan (1998). Cocaine politics: drugs, armies and theCIA in Central America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.FARRER, Tom (ed.). Transnational crime in the Americas. New York: Routledge, 2003, KindleEdition.FREEMAN, Laurie e SIERRA, Jorge Luis (2005). “México: la trampa de la militarización” In:

YOUNGERS, Coletta A. e ROSIN, Eileen (eds.). Drogas y democracia en América Latina.Buenos Aires: Biblos, pp. 325-371.FIGUEIREDO, Eurico de Lima (2010). “Os Estudos Estratégicos, a Defesa Nacional e a

Segurança Internacional” In: MARTINS, Carlos Benedito e LESSA, Renato (coords.). Horizontes das Ciências Sociais no Brasil: Ciência Política. São Paulo: ANPOCS.FREGOSI, Renée (org.) (2004). Armées et pouvoirs en Amérique Latine. Paris: Éditions del’IHEAL. FOUCAULT, Michel (2002). Em defesa da sociedade. Tradução Maria Ermantina Galvão. SãoPaulo: Martins Fontes.



GLENNY, Misha (2008). McMÁFIA: crime sem fronteira. Tradução Lucia Boldrini. São Paulo:Companhia das Letras.GUILLERMOPRIETO, Alma (2008). Las guerras en Colombia. Bogotá: Aguilar.GUTIÉRREZ, Alejandro (2007). Narcotráfico: el gran desafío de Calderón. México D.C.:Planeta.

HARGRAVES, Clare (1992). Snow fields: the war on cocaine in the Andes. Nova Iorque:Holmes & Meier.HERSCHINGER, Eva (2011). Constructing global enemies: hegemony and identity ininternational discourses on terrorism and drug prohibition. New York: Routledge.KAN, Paul Rexton (2009). Drugs and contemporary warfare. Washington: Potomac.LABROUSSE, Alain (2005). “Drogue et terrorisme” In: MICHEL, Quentin. Terrorisme:regards croisés/Terrorism: cross analysis. Bruxelas: Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes, pp.47-69. ____________ (2010). Geopolítica das drogas. Tradução Monica Seincman. São Paulo:Desatino. ____________ e DEPIROU, Alain (1988). Coca Coke. São Paulo: Brasiliense.

MARCY, William L. (2010) The politics of cocaine: how the U.S. foreign policy has created athriving drug industry in Central and South America. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, KindleEdition.McALLISTER, William (2000). Drug diplomacy in the twentieth century. New York:Routledge.PASSETTI, Edson (1991). Das ‘fumeries’ ao narcotráfico. São Paulo: Educ.PÉCAUT, Daniel (2010). As FARC: uma guerrilha sem fins? Tradução Ivone C. Benedetti. SãoPaulo: Paz e Terra.RODRIGUES, Thiago (2012). Narcotráfico, uma guerra na guerra. 2ª edição. São Paulo:Desatino.RODRIGUES, Thiago & BRANCOLI, Fernando (2012). Brazil’s South-South Humanitarian Actions: Paradigm Shifts and Domestic Consequences. International Affairs at LSE,http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ideas/2012/11/brazil%C2%B4s-south-south-humanitarian-actions- paradigm-shift-and-domestic-consequences/ RODRÍGUEZ LUNA, Armando (2010). In: BENÍTEZ MANAUT, Raúl (ed.). Crimenorganizado e Iniciativa Mérida en las relaciones entre México-Estados Unidos. México:CASEDE, pp. 31-68.SANTANA, Adalberto (2004). El narcotráfico en América Latina. México D. C.: SigloVeintiuno Editores.SOMOZA, Alfredo (1990). Coca, cocaína, narcotráfico. São Paulo: Ícone Editora.TORRES DEL RÍO, César (2010). Colombia, siglo XX : desde la guerra de los Mil Días hasta laelección de Álvaro Uribe. Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma

ZAVERUCHA, Jorge (2008). “La militarización de la seguridad pública en Brasil”,Nueva Sociedad , nº 213, enero-febrero, pp. 128-146.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ideas/2012/11/brazil%C2%B4s-south-south-humanitarian-actions-paradigm-shift-and-domestic-consequences/





thiago rodrigues drug-trafficking and militarization

Documents