Drug War Capitalism

by Dawn Paley

  In December of 2009, Pacific Rubiales became the first foreign company listed on the Colombian Stock Exchange. Today, Pacific Rubiales is the second most important oil company in Colombia, after Ecopetrol. It is an early mover in the latest phase of oil and gas exploration and production in the country. In a newspaper interview, CEO Ronald Pantin explained why his company was in Colombia: “The stars aligned. It was a combination of Uribe’s politics, the new hydrocarbon laws, the national security policies and very promising geology.”[107] But it wasn’t stars aligning. Colombia’s oil boom is the result of a deliberate set of policies and practices applied over the previous years, some of which, like the training of Colombian military brigades by US troops specifically to guard pipelines, were part of Plan Colombia. The 600 Colombian troops that were stationed at a military base inside the Rubiales oilfields illustrate a national security policy that Pantin probably appreciates.

  When Pantin mentioned the “new hydrocarbon laws” in Colombia, he was referring to laws rewritten with Canadian assistance. In a project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, the Calgary-based Canadian Energy Research Institute worked with Colombia in 2001 and 2002 to “streamline the country’s mining and petroleum regulations.”[108] This initiative can be understood as part of a multinational effort to improve investment conditions in Colombia. As mentioned, the passage of legislation to encourage investment was part of Plan Colombia. This legislation increased legal security for corporations seeking long-term guarantees from the Colombian state.[109] At the end of Plan Colombia, corporations enjoyed a new legal regime as well as increased security provided by the Colombian state.

  From Drug War to Open Occupation

  The drug war policies backed by the United States in Colombia did little more, in terms of the flow of narcotics, than create the perception that the drug trade was suffering as a result of a military strategy against trafficking. The same policies failed to create a safer environment for rural populations, who continue to be displaced from their lands and to be targets of state and non-state violence. In 2008, Uribe signaled to the United States that Colombia would be interested in hosting what is euphemistically called a Cooperative Security Location, which the United States said it would be interested in pursuing if Ecuador didn’t renew their agreement to use the Manta base (it didn’t).[110] In 2009, the United States and Colombia signed an agreement to allow US troops to access seven military bases in the South American country for ten years, with the possibility of renewal.[111] The agreement, which Colombian officials tacked on to Plan Colombia so that it did not go before Congress, was declared unconstitutional and struck down months after it was signed. That didn’t stop US troops from moving in or the Pentagon from beginning construction on the new bases.[112] People I interviewed in Arauca and Meta attested to the fact that US military personnel are present in bases in their regions, though there is no official confirmation of how many US soldiers are present in Colombia.

  What has changed is official and media discourse regarding the war in Colombia: today, the general message is that paramilitary groups and drug cartels have demobilized and been disbanded. These irregular forces have today been rebranded as criminal bands (the Bacrim), which are presented as apolitical criminal groups without links to the state apparatus, and as such can be persecuted by police under the rule of law. According to international organizations active in Colombia, since the end of negotiations with the AUC in 2005, much of the Colombian government has acted as though paramilitaries no longer exist. They quote the attorney general’s office as stating that “criminal organizations that emerged after the demobilization of the AUC, developed as a new form of paramilitarism, considered to be the third generation of paramilitary groups in Colombia and whose initial purpose was maintaining control of the lands that had been abandoned by the AUC. Paramilitaries have not been dismantled and their crimes go unpunished.”[113] Attempting to rebrand paramilitaries as narcotraffickers without links to the government or state security forces is particularly interesting because it represents a shift in Colombia to a Mexican-style discourse around organized crime, which depoliticizes the reactionary actions of these groups and creates discursive distance between them and state actors.

  I asked Fabian Laverde, with whom I opened this chapter, about the difference between paramilitary groups and Bacrim. “It is exactly the same thing,” he said. “If you look at who are the commanders of the Bacrim, as they call them, they are effectively the same commanders who were in the paramilitary blocs.” Today, the lay of the land looks similar to how it did throughout Plan Colombia, but instead of big-name regional paramilitary blocs, there are smaller, localized groups able to work with perhaps even less media scrutiny. “The lands that they take or that they’re after, or the leaders that they murder, don’t even benefit the commander of the Bacrim, rather it benefits a third party, who was the same person who robbed the peasants of their lands twenty years ago using the armed power of the paramilitaries with the complicity of the state, and now those who are impeding the recuperation of those lands are the famous Bacrim,” said Laverde. His analysis was one that I heard repeated over again by people I met in Colombia: the emergence of the Bacrim was a public relations tactic to conceal the state’s ongoing connection with armed groups.

  There can be no doubt that Plan Colombia was a failure when it came to stopping the flow of drugs, and increasing how safe many Colombians—especially but not exclusively rural Colombians—felt in their homes. What it did achieve, however, was increased security for investors, both on the ground in regions where the state previously did not exercise control, and legally, through entrenching protection of investments and the ratification of free trade agreements between Colombia and the US and Canada. Colombia’s economic boost following Plan Colombia has to do with financial and legal reforms instituted as part of the “anti-narcotics” program, but it also goes hand in hand with the repressive social order and militarization imposed during (and after) the initiative. Armed groups cleared territories around the country of the people who lived there, and then corporations arrived to occupy and exploit them. Unions were weakened, and Indigenous and popular movements were left reeling from the violence leveled against their members.

  What did the US government learn from Plan Colombia? First, that the war on drugs can be used as a mechanism to promote business-friendly policies, and second, that paramilitarism strengthened by prohibition can assist in the maintenance of control over territories and populations.

  A refined version of the comprehensive, US-backed drug war strategy is what has been applied in Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere, beginning in 2007. Seen through this lens, the war on drugs appears to be a bloody fix to the US economic woes. Today, the United States and Colombia fund and promote security-related trainings by Colombians throughout the hemisphere. For the US State Department, “Colombia is also a significant contributor to Central America’s security sector and is becoming a partner in addressing citizen security in the region.”[114]

  General Kelly, commander of US SouthCom, notes that “with Colombia increasingly taking on the role of security exporter, we are facilitating the deployment of Colombian-led training teams and subject matter experts and attendance of Central American personnel to law enforcement and military academies in Colombia as part of the U.S.-Colombia Action Plan on Regional Security Cooperation. This is a clear example of a sizeable return on our relatively modest investment and sustained engagement.”[115]

  It is with this in mind that we can begin to explore the impacts of the Mérida Initiative and CARSI in Mexico and Central America. The economic results achieved with Plan Colombia, combined with its proximity to the United States, made Mexico a natural next place to roll out the drug war. Making the links between US anti-drug policy and the expansion of capitalism in Mexico is difficult because the impacts of these policies are continuously being implemented and felt, and we don’t (yet) have the benefit of hindsight. We do know
, however, that Colombia is considered a model for Mexico’s anti-drug war, and we can see what the results have been there in terms of the anti-drug strategy serving to increase Colombia’s integration into global capitalism. Today in Mexico we’re presented with a confusing, jumbled picture, but that is all the more reason to attempt to analyze events taking place there with a view to the broader context.

  Chapter 4:

  Mexico’s Drug War Reforms

  In 2010 and 2011, grenades exploded at city hall buildings in Reynosa, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, and Ciudad Victoria, all located in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. Organized crime was blamed for the explosions—in particular, members of the Zetas or the Gulf Cartel. I visited the region in early 2011, at a loss for what could be driving criminal groups to fight against local governments that are, for all intents and purposes, under cartel control. I went to the region against the counsel of various journalists, who said it was too dangerous. Most of my sources refused to go on the record, and the stories they told in hushed tones were enough to give any reporter the chills. It wasn’t until I met Francisco Chavira Martínez that things began to become clear. The first time we met, he suggested we eat together at the back of a Reynosa restaurant that caters to well-heeled locals. Waiters dressed like penguins bowed in and out; the rest of the tables were occupied mostly by older men. Chavira, who runs a private university with campuses throughout Tamaulipas, spoke loudly between bites, not seeming to mind the fact that others could hear him.

  After a bit of small talk and a couple of sips of coffee, I asked about the bombs. Local governments “use car thieves to steal the cars of anyone who opposes them; house thieves who will rob your house to frighten you; narcotraffickers, who they use as a way to create fear in the people, so that you don’t participate, so that you don’t raise your voice or go against the government; they even send their own to throw grenades at city halls,” Chavira explained.[1] Silence. Maybe Chavira noticed the quizzical look on my face. He quickly explained what it was he meant. “Why?” he asked himself, pausing for a moment. “So that the people are scared and don’t go to City Hall to make demands; they won’t go and demand that public accounts be transparent, or [ask] what the money is being spent on.” Some months after our interview, Chavira, a candidate for the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), was arrested on trumped-up charges and held in jail until after the elections, in what he referred to as a “legalized kidnapping” by the state.

  Members of the Mexican government have used many means to defend their position in society, from explosions to extortion and threats. The methods Chavira describes above can help us understand the extent of this, and go a little ways toward illustrating the complicity between state actors and criminal groups. But the politics of the drug war isn’t just about bombs and bad guys. Alongside the violence, there are legal and policy reforms embedded in Plan Mexico that have everything to do with creating a more hospitable business environment as well as entrenching the US-backed rule of law framework.

  The stated focus of the Mérida Initiative is fourfold: dismantle criminal organizations; strengthen air, maritime, and border controls; reform the justice system; and diminish gang activity while decreasing demand for drugs.[2] The Mérida Initiative, or Plan Mexico, is the overarching policy and legislative framework that establishes drug war capitalism in Mexico. It takes a page directly from Plan Colombia in terms of enshrining support for disrupting narcotics trafficking while transforming Mexico in three key ways: introducing a new legal system and promoting structural reforms, increasing levels of militarization, and, as a by-product of the latter, encouraging the formation and multiplication of paramilitary groups.

  As with Plan Colombia, the Mérida Initiative is not strictly a military agreement. It has four “pillars”: disrupt organized criminal groups, institutionalize reforms to sustain rule of law and respect for human rights, create a 21st century border, and build strong and resilient communities. According to the US Government Accountability Office, “The Mérida Initiative is an assistance package with diverse program components that is being implemented by a wide range of U.S. agencies under the leadership and management of the State Department.”[3]

  The first component of the Mérida Initiative is officially known as “Assistance to Enhance the Rule of Law and Strengthen Civilian Institutions.”[4] Tied to—or simultaneous with—anti-drug funding, laws are adjusted, and reforms are brought in that encourage privatization and increased foreign direct investment. According to the US government, this will “Build Strong and Resilient Communities,” and “Strengthen Institutions.”[5] An alternative analysis of this component of drug war funding could instead carry a title that represents the spirit of these adjustments: in the case of Mexico these policies could be called “NAFTA-plus” as they are a form of deepening institutional changes formalized in the Canada-US-Mexico (North American) Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1994. In addition, this component fulfills an important part of counterinsurgency, as it attempts to convince and capture the hearts and minds of Mexicans.

  The second component of the Mérida Initiative is officially called “Law Enforcement and Security Assistance.”[6] This consists of state-funded militarization of police and of borders, as well as increased police and military powers, training, and weaponry. This represents agreements made in a legal manner between cooperating governments, though implementation can be on the margin of legality in host states.[7] The US government tells us that this is designed to “Disrupt Organized Criminal Groups” and “Build a 21st Century Border,”[8] but in actual fact it looks a lot like counterinsurgency. Back in 2010, Hillary Clinton, then US secretary of state, compared the situation in Mexico to an insurgency. “It’s looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago,” she told delegates at a Council on Foreign Relations event. Drug cartels “are showing more and more indices of insurgencies,” she went on.[9] In 2009, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that he backed the use of counterinsurgency in Mexico.[10]

  Counterinsurgency can be understood not only as a form of warfare but also as a kind of war with outcomes that may differ from those of traditional combat. “Victory in the context of counterinsurgent warfare is measured not by the number of enemies vanquished but by the increase in trust and sympathy among native peoples that would wean them away from the insurgents’ influence,” writes Vicente L. Rafael, a professor of history at the University of Washington.[11] Keep Rafael’s description of victory in mind, and then take a look at how John D. Feeley, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the US State Department describes the US’s National Drug Control Strategy as it is applied in Mexico. He describes the core of the strategy as enhancing citizen security and strengthening the rule of law, “while empowering average citizens to collaborate with police, prosecutors, and judges, as well as teachers, community activists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and human rights advocates.”[12] Seen from an alternative perspective, the law enforcement segment of the Mérida Initiative can be understood as the application of counterinsurgency war within a formally democratic framework. It also serves as a program to limit human mobility while encouraging the flow of goods and services.

  The two components described above are both formally acknowledged by proponents of anti-drug policy. The policy component and the policing component reinforce one another: as public companies are privatized and state revenues fall, more force will be required on the part of the state in order to maintain social order. Take Pemex, the state oil company, for example. Before reforms in December 2013, 99 percent of the state-owned oil company’s profits went to paying taxes, representing the largest revenue source in Mexico’s national budget.[13] It remains to be seen how the reforms to Pemex will affect the country’s revenue stream and budget. If the taxation of private oil companies fails to fill state coffers in the future, it could result in the application of the harshest austerity measures yet in Mexico, whic
h may in turn trigger mass social protest.

  To this end, the capacity of security forces to make massive arrests and jail dissidents is being increased through Mérida Initiative programs. As more people are arrested by larger and more aggressive police forces, the expedited justice system offered by the United States model could prove useful in processing them. The increased prison capacity, also funded by the US through the Mérida Initiative, will doubtless be useful in detaining them. Looked at from this perspective, the Mérida Initiative appears to be a long-term strategy to enforce austerity and globalized capitalism while militarizing Mexico.

  The third and final component of the Mérida Initiative is a generally unacknowledged yet known effect of the application of the drug war: the emergence of new forms of social control that stem from the reorganization of narcotics flows and crime groups provoked by the militarized disruption of existing trafficking networks. In the dominant discourse of the drug war, this phenomenon is described using cartel war discourse. However, from a critical perspective it can be understood as something closer to a form of paramilitarization. This part of the drug war is the most nebulous and difficult to describe. Journalists are encouraged to use a frame around cartels warring with each other to explain this phenomenon, but a closer look shows that paramilitarization is a known effect of militarizing drug trafficking. As we saw in the example of Colombia, paramilitarization can serve the interests of investors and transnational corporations seeking to prevent unionization or community mobilization.

  The Mérida Initiative served as catalyst for a sharp increase in domestic police and military spending in Mexico. Before the Mérida Initiative, the US was giving Mexico in the neighborhood of $60–70 million a year.[14] The drug war changed that, and fast. US security spending in Mexico in 2010 was over $500 million, compared with $434 for Colombia, before falling off to $160 million or less (compared to over $250 million in following years for Colombia).[15] World Bank data shows Mexico’s military spending as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has risen 0.4 to 0.6 percent over recent years, between 2012 and 2013 Mexico increased military spending “by 5.1 per cent, despite weaker economic growth.”[16] “It should be noted that Mexico has devoted considerable monies of its own to combat drug-related crime in the country, increasing the defense budget from just $2 billion in 2006 to $9.3 billion in 2009. This investment has been used to mobilize thousands of troops and federal police, underwrite interdiction of drug shipments, implement institutional reform, and enhance inter- and intra-agency cooperation and intelligence sharing,” reads a report by the US army–linked RAND Corporation.[17] It is worth pointing out that military spending does not include the full spending on policing. Calderón’s offensive “was backed by the U.S. under the Mérida Initiative and included deployment of 96,000 army troops, together with thousands of marines and the appointment of dozens of military officers as police chiefs in towns and cities.”[18]