Yesterday I noted that the initial report presented to the Constitutional Court in Colombia regarding the process that could lead to a referendum on re-election in Colombia was reported to be “negative.”
The basics needed to understand the following: one method of amending the Colombian constitution is a petition drive that would trigger a constitutional vote and then a Constitutional Court review and, if approved, a referendum. The process derives from the Colombian Constitution of 1991, the procedures of which are defined by legislation (Law 134 of 1994).
Problems with the process being considered by the Court:
1. The language on the petition differs from that passed by the Congress. The specific language was altered in Senate committee, which raises the issue of whether the legislation passed and the referendum question that would be on the ballot comports with the petition drive.
2. The petition drive cost six times the legal limit for such a process.
3. Five of the votes in the Chamber of Representatives may be invalid due to suspensions of the congresistas in question. Without those votes, the measure did not pass the lower house.
4. Extraordinary sessions of Congress used to debate and pass the legislation enabling the referendum were illegally called.
Now, it is up to the Court to determine whether these assertions are valid or not and therefore whether the legislation (Law 1354 of 2009) is constitutional or not.
Quite frankly, it doesn’t look too good for the referendum taking place, but we shall see.
The story also note some key dates:
March 12 is the last day that candidates not participating in party primaries on the 14th can register their candidacies. Significant if anything because Uribe would not be participating in a primary.
March 13: the likely date for the referendum, if it is allowed to go forward.
March 14: congressional elections and party primaries (for those parties utilizing this option).
May 30: first round of presidential elections (second round held only if not candidate receives an absolute majority).
They also project a 70% chance for a Juan Manuel Santor win should Uribe not run.
I have no idea as to the nature or validity of the model used, but the numbers sound reasonable.
A key issue is that it has been reported that the report given the Constitutional Court regarding the referendum legislation this week was “negative.” 1
Indeed, it was sufficiently negative to spark what El Tiempo described as an “intense meeting” at the Case de Nariño (the Colombian version of the White House) which included Uribe, the aforementioned Juan Manuel Santos, and Andrés Felipe Arias, a candidate for the Conservative Party’s nomination. The reported reason for the meeting was to attempt to reach an accord concerning a unified uribista candidate should the referendum fail.2
The crunch is on, for sure, as time is running out and various parties and candidates are going to have to start making choices.
The subtitle of the piece reads “Seizures set a record last year for the country, which is growing in importance as a hub for shipments to the U.S. and Europe.”
If I had a dollar for every time I had read about record seizures or some example of adaptation in cultivation or shipment in the cocaine industry, I would have a cartel-like fortune (well, maybe not, as they make tons of money, quite literally).
The basics:
International experts have estimated that as much as 200 tons, or one-third of the cocaine produced in Colombia, may be transiting through Ecuador, four times the estimated percentage a decade ago.
Combating the cartels has become more complicated since U.S. surveillance aircraft left the Manta air base in June after President Rafael Correa refused to renew a lease agreement, officials say. The shift of those flights to Colombia — as well as the departure of U.S. Coast Guard vessels from Ecuadorean waters — has lengthened response time to suspicious activity.
No doubt the loss of the Manta lease is part of the issue, although as the story notes, the Ecuadoran government is still actively pursuing anti-cocaine policies.
One suspects that that is also as much about the focus that has been placed on other shipping routes by the US and its allies. If there is any certainty in the drug war it is that as the balloon is squeezed in one place, it bulges out in another.
The most salient piece of information in the piece to help explain the overall behavior is as follows:
Russia, where a kilo of cocaine sells for $100,000 wholesale, or four times the U.S. price, is now the world’s hottest market for the drug, police say.
Over the past several months, a number of reports have circulated that address the subject of drug trafficking ties between South American narcotics trafficking interests and terrorist organizations, principally Al Qaeda and its smaller affiliates now known to be based in Northern Africa. These assessments have cited evidence pointing to a disturbing ring, an “unholy alliance,” which reflects alarming links between FARC exporters and Al Qaeda distributors according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s Jay Bergman. This expanding nexus involves transporting drugs from South America to Africa and, once there, smuggling them over established land routes to EU countries. The stakes are too high to ignore, especially if the charges turn out to be true, and the consequences of this operation could further destabilize impoverished and relatively lawless regions of Africa. However, upon closer examination, much of the evidence cited in these articles turns out to be circumstantial at best.
A couple of key things come to mind.
1) Using the locution “FARQaeda” is clever (or, at least cute) and inflammatory. The clever/cute part is self-evident The inflammatory part is serious because the notion of an “unholy alliance” between these groups could conjure any number of concerning scenarios, especially by persons who are tend to see al Qaeda as an existential threat to the United States. If they decide that the FARC is actually merging in some way with al Qaeda, they will cook up any number of worst case scenarios (and Heaven help us once they work Hugo Chavez into the scenarios). Indeed, I have written about this before: The “Terror Threat” from Latin America. All this will do is lead to an escalation of US military activity in Latin America (which will cost a lot of money, potentially damage democratic development in the region, and do precious little to make the US safer).
The problem is, there is no particular reason to assume that the FARC and al Qaeda have any reason to form such an alliance. The revolutionary Marxism of the FARC doesn’t fit too well with the radical Islam of al Qaeda. Beyond that, the FARC’s goal are aimed at overthrowing the Colombian state, while al Qaeda’s demands are linked to things like the Palestinian question, the restoration of the Caliphate, and the enforcement of Sharia. These aren’t exactly compatible goals. The FARC is a revolutionary group, with al Qaeda is a profoundly reactionary one.
2) The word “links” is a tricky one. “Links” do not mean alliances. I could see a business relationship existing between the FARC and al Qaeda affiliated groups. The FARC has been known to deal with other extra-legal groups like the Russian mafia, why not al Qaeda? Indeed, the FARC likely doesn’t care with whom they are dealing in terms of drug trafficking so long as the money is right and law enforcement is not involved. Such an arrangement, if it exists (as the article notes, much of this is conjecture) doesn’t necessarily mean the groups are allied in a political or military sense. It should noted that the FARC is a cellular organization and al Qaeda is decentralized at best. It is therefore possible that parts of the group are engaged with parts of al Qaeda. Again, not the same as some merger or major alliance.
Don’t get me wrong, the notion that al Qaeda may be engaging in the drug trade to fund its operations isn’t a comforting one, but it also isn’t a new or surprising one. All those opium poppies in Afghanistan aren’t for decoration, shall we say.
3) This fits a pattern I have seen for years from some in the U.S. security apparatus. I have been convinced for years (approaching a decade) that there is a vested interest within the security apparatuses of the US to find a deeper link between the war on terror and the war on drugs, especially in the Western Hemisphere.2 It is basic bureaucratic politics: members of government want to be involved in the hot policy areas of the day. After 9/11 that was terrorism, and SOUTHCOM in particular needed to find a way to be involved with terrorism. The growing linkage of drugs with terrorism was the route to that end. However, the fact of the matter is that the drug war has always been primarily an issue of organized crime. Yes, it often funds groups that engage in terroristic acts, and yes organizations involved in the drug trade (e.g., the FARC and AUC) are on the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations. None of that changes the fact that the drug war is basically about stopping an illicit business. This is a far cry different than dealing the Taliban or al Qaeda.
One thing that I have noticed is that these stories about serious terrorist links between Latin American revolutionaries and Middle Eastern terrorists tend to repeat a lot of the same information over and over, and yet treat it like it is new. A good example is the Triborder Area (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay) which always comes up because a) there a large number of Lebanese immigrants in the area, and b) there is some evidence of Hezbollah fund-raising in that area. However, while these observations tend to be treated as new revelations, they are in fact rather old at this point. One would think that if the Triborder Area was as significant as it often is painted to be that perhaps some new evidence to bolster this hypothesis would be forthcoming. I have no doubt that it is good place for smuggling and money laundering, but that doesn’t make it a hotbed of potential Islamic terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
It is worth noting that a lot the theories about FARC-al Qaeda links are speculative. For example, the most recent spate of analysis along these lines are the result of the discovery of a cache of cocaine a 727 that crashed in Mali (I blogged about it here: Drugs Funding Violence in Africa). Now clearly, cocaine comes from the Andes and so forth, but there is not yet any clear evidence that directly link the FARC to al Qaeda in these reports.
As such, I agree with the basic conclusion from the COHA write-up:
In Africa, as in a number of regions in Latin America, expansive and relatively unmonitored spaces have proven fertile ground for criminal activity. Until now the correlation between these groups has been tenuous at best: a rise in drug trafficking through western Africa and an increase in the presence of Al Qaeda and other affiliated terrorist organizations in the same or neighboring areas. However, reports drawing on these two trends have not adequately established precise causality. Until actual documented evidence from organizations such as Interpol, the United Nations or the individual law enforcement agencies operating in the countries at risk has been made public or even found, the correlation amounts merely to an inconclusive pairing of interests and prejudices.
It’s true that South American cocaine is increasingly being smuggled through West Africa to Europe with disastrous consequences for the stability of that region, and there are increasing concerns about Islamist miltants — particularly Hezbollah — operating in South America. But it does seem like the DEA is stretching the evidence a bit in its portrayal of this "unholy alliance."
See an article I have recommend before: Weeks, Gregory. 2006. Fighting Terrorism While Promoting Democracy: Competing Priorities in U.S. Journal of Third World Studies. 23, 2 (Fall) [↩]
I would agree that those US government officials involved in Western Hemispheric security want to be involved in the hot policy issues of the day. It increases their budget and their prestige if they are able to connect the war on drugs to the war on Al Qaeda.
I also wonder how much of it is basic “CYA.” If they downplay the threat and then something happens, no matter how remote, head will roll. On the other hand, simply inflating a threat that has a low probability of materializing is unlikely to bring severe consequences.
Comment by Mike — Thursday, February 4, 2010 @ 10:02 am
I concur: the CYA factor has to be taken into consideration as well. There are a series of incentives for this behavior, unfortunately.
Colombia’s constitutional court began evaluating today a proposal for a referendum that could pave the way for Alvaro Uribe to become the country’s first president since Simon Bolivar to govern for more than 10 straight years.
Uribe, who four months before a scheduled presidential election still hasn’t said he wants to run, remains the most popular choice among voters, according to a poll by Bogota-based pollster Datexco Company SA. The court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether legislation setting up the referendum and its approval by congress were constitutional.
[…]
If the referendum goes ahead, 47.5 percent of Colombians said they would participate in it, with 85 percent of those who intend to vote saying they would cast their ballot in favor of Uribe running for a third term, according to the Datexco survey of 1,200 adults taken Jan. 28. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
Timing may also be an obstacle for Uribe. Candidates must declare by March 12 their intention to run in the May 30 elections and a referendum may take three months to organize, Carlos Ariel Sanchez, head of the National Registry, has said.
“It depends first on the constitutional court, then on the Colombian people at the ballot box, and thirdly on the hand of God,” Uribe said in October.
I have thought this matter dead more than once, so I am not ready to declare it dead now. However, the timing does increasingly look problematic.
Colombian sniffer dogs smelled something that was just not right: cocaine-stuffed cookies that were about to be shipped to Barcelona, police said Saturday.
A total of five kilograms (11 pounds) of the drug were concealed in 10 packs of cookies, counternarcotics police said in a statement.
Not your average biscuit, "the cream was taken out of the cookies and replaced with compressed bleached cocaine to avoid suspicion from counternarcotics units," it added.
That’s no sugar high, amigo.
This made me think of the following (which also inspired the title):
The relevant part is the clip of the old commercial, which I remember from when I was a kid. The whole concept (“open up a cookie, a Drox filled cookie, open and say “hi Drox!”) was one that I always thought a bit odd, although really the pertinent drug for the creators of those commercials was more likely LSD than cocaine.
An airliner has been diverted to Florida because a passenger on the no-fly list might be on board, the Associated Press is reporting, citing "officials."
The flight originated in Newark, was headed to Bogotá, Colombia and was diverted to Florida.
This caught my eye originally because I am flying to Bogotá in about a month (although, thankfully, not out of Newark).
The second thought was: isn’t the point of a “no-fly list” that the person on the list isn’t allowed to fly? How does said person end up on the plane and then someone says “Hey! Who let that guy on?” This strikes me as a rather poor procedure.
Ends up that there was no threat. While there is certainly a sense to which better safe than sorry and all that, this sounds like a failure (yet again) of the no-fly list (not to mention a process which unnecessarily frightened a plane full of people, as well as seriously inconveniencing them).
A Continental Airlines jet flying from Newark, N.J., to Bogota was diverted to Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday over concerns a passenger was on the government’s watch list of suspected terrorists banned from commercial flights. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
The passenger — one of 75 on board — was cleared by the FBI at Jacksonville International Airport and permitted to continue on the flight to Colombia, the Transportation Security Administration said.
Hence as I noted yesterday: the FARC need no help in demonizing themselves.
Not only are there obvious and horrible crimes on display here, it is vexing as to what the political or tactical gain was being sought through such actions.
Yes, Cuellar was a member of the government that the FARC is fighting (although he came from a center-left party that might be more sympathetic to negotiations than the uribista parties—and hence a tactically odd choice); and yes, the FARC see kidnapped politicians as bargaining chips for possible prisoner exchanges. However, kidnapping has not led to the desired release of captured FARC rebels to date—nor is it likely to do so in the future. Indeed, actions like this will simply increase the resolve of both the Uribe administration, and the general populace, to increase the fight against the FARC. Further, rather than striking a blow for the revolution by fighting the oligarchs, the policy of kidnapping has made the FARC more and more unpopular with the Colombian people.
Politically, high profile crimes of this nature committed by leftist guerrillas will help Uribe in his quest for re-election,1 as the Colombian public, in large numbers, credit his “democratic security” policies with quelling violence and placing the FARC on its heels. If the public thinks that the FARC is reasserting itself, that will likely fuel the fires that Uribe is the indispensible man who has to stay in office to continue fighting the good fight.
The Congress passed enabling legislation for a referendum that, if passed, would allow for Uribe to run for a third term. The legislation is currently under review by the Constitutional Court. Their ruling as to the constitutionality of the process and the legislation is due out in early 2010. Exactly when the referendum would be held remains unclear. Presidential elections will be held in May—with Congressional elections to be held in March. [↩]
Cuellar was elected in 2007 as a member of ASI, the Social Indigenous Alliance (Alianza Social Indígena).
This event made me think of a piece I read yesterday: FARC is being demonized: scholar, and to further think that the FARC are doing a good job of that themselves.1
While I have advocated for (and continue to hold the position) that a negotiated solution is ultimately the only way out of this conflict (which means having to treat the FARC as legitimate belligerents), I also continue to find the FARC’s behavior (including the usage of kidnapping as a political and fiscal tool) to be reprehensible as well as politically counter-productive.
The FARC murdered Cuellar, apparently decapitating him and leaving his body in a minefield. These are “legitimate belligerents?”
I tend to agree that a negotiated settlement will have to ultimately happen, though clearly the FARC is going to have to be beaten further back to do so — they’ve never negotiated in good faith from a position of strength, so clearly they’ll have to be even weaker. Nevertheless, it’s a far jump from that to the legal status of “legitimate belligerents” that they’ve long sought - and clearly do not merit, given this action.
Comment by Mike — Wednesday, December 23, 2009 @ 8:53 am
Perhaps I am being unclear in my usage–but my point is if negotiations take place, then, by definition, the Colombian state will be treating the FARC as legitimate belligerents. A negotiated settlement cannot happen otherwise.
Do I think that such a scenario is around the corner? Sadly, no.
[...] I noted that the initial report presented to the Constitutional Court in Colombia regarding the process [...]
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