Drugs, Law and Conflict

** Police patrol the Paraisopolis favela in Sao Paolo, Brazil (Photo courtesy of AP/Nelson Antoine).

• Brazilian police have occupied four Sao Paolo shanty-towns in the largest operation since 2006, designed in part to rid the slums of drug traffickers. Nine Brazilians are detained, according to the New York Times, and ten are counted dead. The Times article recounts how the operation occurs just as Brazil is pushing a new, community-based policing model.

• Marijuana is the “king crop” of Mexican cartels, says the DEA’s Mexico and Central America regional director, in a New York Times article: “It consistently sustains its marketability and profitability.” Mexican organizations are also moving marijuana crops inside the US and developing more advanced trafficking technology to avoid detection, the Times reports.

• Meanwhile, the Mexican Attorney General’s office finds that the Gulf cartel is the country’s most violent, just days before a high-ranking former general and security adviser is killed in Cancún, where this cartel operates.

• Obama’s new Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, vows increased interdiction efforts against drug trafficking from the US to Mexico, but says she hasn’t “thought about” asking Congress to reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons ban.

• The Center for International Policy’s “Plan Colombia and Beyond” blog has two great English translations of recent, revealing interviews out of Colombia.

The first, from ex-paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, who was extradited to the US last year on drug trafficking charges, details the economy of the cocaine trade in Colombia:

There are 160,000 hectares [of coca in Colombia] that produce 80,000 kilograms per month, which equals 1,000 tons per year, which is worth US$7 billion. Where does that statistic come from? The campesino sells it to whoever transforms it [into cocaine] (in general, guerrilla or paramilitary commanders) who then sells it to narcotraffickers. They buy coca base for $2.5-3.0 million pesos [more than US$1,000], transform it, paying $400,000-450,000 pesos [nearly US$200] for a laboratory to do the transformation, and sell it to narcotraffickers for $4.5 million pesos [about US$1,800]. … From every kilo they [the armed group] are getting more or less another million pesos [just under US$500] or maybe a little more due to corruption… It means that about US$7 billion enters the torrent of the national economy every year. How much of that do they repatriate? They repatriate between 80 and 90 percent, with the rest they buy luxury properties and stupid things overseas. But the rest enters the torrent of the national economy.

The second comes from Alan Jara, the former governor of Meta department who was released by the FARC along with three other hostages on Monday:

I’m going to tell another story to illustrate the reach that the FARC have today. One day we arrived in an area where, apparently, there was nothing. There, they were cooking with firewood. I said to the comandante: ‘This wood is making a lot of smoke, we can’t keep cooking without a gasoline stove.’ The next day, the stove was there. They started to cook, but the stove used up a lot of gasoline and the beans they were cooking wouldn’t soften. ‘Why don’t you get a pressure cooker?’ I asked jokingly. And the next day the pressure cooker was there. So, with that demonstration of how they operate, we arrived at a stream at about 11 or 12:00 at night. After walking I don’t know where, it is impossible to say, there was a boat waiting for us. After half an hour, another boat launched, picked us up and we arrived at a site where, with lanterns, from the bank, they signaled that we had to get off at that point.

• Swiss police find a massive marijuana plantation using Google Earth, the Telegraph reports.

The Dallas Morning News reported several days ago that over 400 municipal police officers from Ciudad Juárez, nearly a quarter of the city’s entire force, will be dismissed for failing corruption tests. Replacing them on the streets will be 500 Mexican troops, who arrived last week in response to mayor José Reyes Ferriz’s request to Sedena. The article quoted an anonymous U.S. law-enforcement official, who offered a pessimistic prediction:

“We applaud that the mayor wants to weed out corruption. The usual result is that we’re likely to see more violence as these people usually turn to organized crime for jobs as hit men or distributors, etc.”

Corrupt police essentially sell services to traffickers–from the non-enforcement of the law, to information about the actions of rival traffickers or other officers–destroying the efficacy of public security efforts. These officers therefore need to be purged from the force, as part of a larger project of police reform. President Calderón has referred to this process as “limpiando,” or cleaning, the security forces.

Yet even if the police in Ciudad Juárez are scrubbed clean, the dirt doesn’t disappear. As local, state and federal officials seek to reform the Mexican police by removing corrupted officials from their posts, how can we prevent them from taking their skills and intelligence to illegal armed groups? I wonder, has there ever been a DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) program for corrupt police officers?