Notes from Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, and Criminalized States in Latin America – An Emerging Tier-One National Security Priority

Douglas Farah is an American journalist, national security consultant, a Senior Fellow of Financial Investigations and Transparency at the International Assessment of Strategy Center and also an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Farah served as United Press International bureau chief in El Salvador from 1985 to 1987, and a freelance journalist for The Washington Post, Newsweek, and other publications until being hired as a staff correspondent for The Washington Post in 1992.

These are notes from his monograph published by the Strategic Studies Institute Monograph Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, and Criminalized States in Latin America – An Emerging Tier-One National Security Priority in August of 2012.

NOTES

The emergence of new hybrid (state and nonstate) transnational criminal and terrorist franchises in Latin America poses a tier-one security threat for the United States. These organizations operate under broad state protection and undermine democratic governance, sovereignty, growth, trade, and stability.

Leaders of these organizations share a publicly articulated doctrine to employ asymmetric warfare against the United States and its allies that explicitly endorses the use of WMD as a legitimate tactic.

illicit forces in Latin America within criminalized states have begun using tactical operations centers as a means of pursuing their view of statecraft. That brings new elements to the “dangerous spaces” where nonstate actors intersect with regions characterized by weak sovereignty and alternative governance systems. This new dynamic fundamentally alters the structure underpinning global order.

Being capable of understanding and mitigating this threat requires a whole-of-government approach, including collection, analysis, law enforcement, policy, and programming. The traditional state/nonstate dichotomy is no longer useful for an adequate illumination of these problems. Similarly, the historical divide between transnational organized crime and terrorism is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME, TERRORISM, AND CRIMINALIZED STATES IN LATIN AMERICA: AN EMERGING TIER-ONE NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITY

INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL FRAMEWORK

The Changing Nature of the Threat.

The purpose of this monograph is to identify and discuss the role played by transnational organized crime groups (TOCs) in Latin America, and the inter- play of these groups with criminalizing state structures, “stateless” regions, extra-regional actors, and the multiple networks that exploit them. It particularly focuses on those areas that pose, or potentially pose, a threat to U.S. interests at home and abroad; and, it can be used as a model for understanding similar threats in other parts of the world.

This emerging combination of threats comprises a hybrid of criminal-terrorist, and state and nonstate franchises, combining multiple nations acting in concert, and traditional TOCs and terrorist groups acting as proxies for the nation-states that sponsor them. These hybrid franchises should now be viewed as a tier-one security threat for the United States. Under- standing and mitigating the threat requires a whole- of-government approach, including collection, analysis, law enforcement, policy, and programming. No longer is the state/nonstate dichotomy useful in illuminating these problems, just as the TOC/terrorism divide is increasingly disappearing.

These franchises operate in, and control, specific geographic territories which allow them to function in a relatively safe environment. These pipelines, or recombinant chains of networks, are highly adaptive and able to move a multiplicity of illicit products (cocaine, weapons, humans, and bulk cash) that ultimately cross U.S. borders undetected thousands of times each day. The actors along the pipeline form and dis- solve alliances quickly, occupy both physical and cyber space, and use both highly developed and modern institutions, including the global financial system, as well as ancient smuggling routes and methods.

This totals to some $6.2 trillion— fully 10 percent of the world’s GDP, placing it behind only the United States and the European Union (EU), but well ahead of China, in terms of global GDP ranking.1 Other estimates of global criminal proceeds range from a low of about 4 percent to a high of 15 percent of global GDP.

Latin American networks now extend not only to the United States and Canada, but outward to Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and Asia, where they have begun to form alliances with other networks. A clear understanding of how these rela- tionships evolve, and the relative benefits derived from the relationships among and between state and nonstate actors, will greatly enhance the understand- ing of this new hybrid threat.

 

There is no universally accepted definition of “transnational organized crime.” Here it is defined as, at a minimum, serious crimes or offenses spanning at least one border, undertaken by self-perpetuating associations of individuals who cooperate transnationally, motivated primarily by the desire to obtain a financial or other material benefit and/or power and influence.3 This definition can encompass a number of vitally important phenomena not usually addressed by studies of TOC:

• A spectrum or continuum of state participation in TOC, ranging from strong but “criminalized” states to weak and “captured” states, with various intermediate stages of state criminal behavior.

• A nexus between TOCs on the one hand, and terrorist and insurgent groups on the other, with a shifting balance between terrorist and criminal activity on both sides of the divide.
• Recombinant networks of criminal agents, potentially including not only multiple TOCs, but also terrorist groups as well as states and proxies.
• Enduring geographical “pipelines” for moving various kinds of commodities and illicit profits in multiple directions, to and from a major destination.
• We have also crafted this definition to be broadly inclusive: It can potentially encompass the virtual world of TOC, e.g., cybercrime;
• It can be applied to other regions; the recombinant pipelines and networks model offers an analytical framework which can be applied to multiple regions and circumstances.

 

The term “criminalized state” used in this mono- graph refers to states where the senior leadership is aware of and involved—either actively or through passive acquiescence—on behalf of the state in trans- national criminal enterprises, where TOC is used as an instrument of statecraft, and where levers of state power are incorporated into the operational structure of one or more TOC groups.

New Actors in Latin American TOC-State Relations.

Significant TOC organizations, principally drug trafficking groups, have posed serious challenges for U.S. security since the rise of the Medellín cartel in the early 1980s, and the growth of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the 1990s. In addition, Latin America has a long history of revolutionary movements, from the earliest days of independence, to the Marxist movements that sprouted up across the region in the 1960s to 1980s. Within this context, these groups often served as elements of governance, primarily to advance or defeat the spread of Marxism in the region. These Marxist revolutions were victorious in Cuba and Nicaragua, which, in turn, became state sponsors of external revolutionary movements, themselves relying on significant economic and military support from the Soviet Union and its network of aligned states’ intelligence and security services.

With the end of the Cold War, the negotiated end to numerous armed conflicts (the Farabund Marti National Liberation Front [FMLN] in El Salvador; the Contra rebels in Nicaragua; the Popular Liberation Army [EPL], M-19, and other small groups in Colom- bia), and the collapse of Marxism, most of the armed groups moved into the democratic process. However, this was not true for all groups, and armed nonstate groups are again being sponsored in Latin America under the banner of the “Bolivarian Revolution.”4

Other states that traditionally have had little inter- est or influence in Latin America have emerged over the past decade, primarily at the invitation of the self- described Bolivarian states seeking to establish 21st- century socialism. This bloc of nations—led by Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, also including Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua—seeks to break the traditional ties of the region to the United States. To this end, the Bolivar- ian alliance has formed numerous organizations and military alliances—including a military academy in Bolivia to erase the vestiges of U.S. military training— which explicitly exclude the United States.

Over the past decade, China’s trade with Latin America has jumped from $10 billion to $179 billion.11 With the increased presence has come a significantly enhanced Chinese intelligence capacity and access across Latin America. At the same time, Chinese Triads—modern remnants of ancient Chinese secret societies that evolved into criminal organizations—are now operating extensive money laundering services for drug trafficking organizations via Chinese banks.

China also has shown a distinct willingness to bail out financially strapped authoritarian governments if the price is right. For example, China lent Venezuela $20 billion, in the form of a joint venture with a company to pump crude oil that China then locked up for a decade at an average price of about $18 a barrel. The money came as Chávez was facing a financial crisis, rolling blackouts, and a severe liquidity shortage across the economy.12 Since then, China has extended several other significant loans to Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

The dynamics of the relationship between China and the Bolivarian bloc and its nonstate proxies will be one of the key determinants of the future of Latin America and the survival of the Bolivarian project. Without significant material support from China, the economic model of the Bolivarian alliance will likely collapse under its own weight of statist inefficiency and massive corruption, despite being richly endowed with natural resources.

Chinese leaders likely understand that any real replacement of the Bolivarian structure leadership by truly democratic forces could result in a significant loss of access to the region, and a cancellation of existing contracts. This, in turn, gives China an incentive to continue to support some form of the Bolivarian project going forward, even if ailing leaders such as Chávez and Fidel Castro are no longer on the scene.

While there have been criminalized states in the past (the García Meza regime of “cocaine colonels” in Bolivia in 1980, and Desi Bouterse in Suriname in the 1980s, for ex- ample), what is new with the Bolivarian structure is the simultaneous and mutually supporting merger of state with TOC activities across multiple state and nonstate platforms. While García Meza, Bouterse, and others were generally treated as international pariahs with little outside support, the new criminalized states offer each other economic, diplomatic, political, and military support that shields them from international isolation and allows for mutually reinforcing structures to be built.

Rather than operating in isolation, these groups have complex but significant interaction with each other, based primarily on the ability of each actor or set of actors to provide a critical service while profiting mutually from the transactions.

While not directly addressing the threat from criminalized states, the Strategy notes that:

• TOC penetration of states is deepening and leading to co-option in some states and weakening of governance in many others. TOC net- works insinuate themselves into the political process through bribery and in some cases have become alternate providers of governance, security, and livelihoods to win popular support. The nexus in some states among TOC groups and elements of government—including intelligence services and personnel—and big business figures, threatens the rule of law.
• TOC threatens U.S. economic interests and can cause significant damage to the world financial system by subverting legitimate markets. The World Bank estimates that about $1 trillion is spent each year to bribe public officials. TOC groups, through their state relationships, could gain influence over strategic markets.
• Terrorists and insurgents increasingly are turn- ing to crime and criminal networks for funding and logistics. In fiscal year (FY) 2010, 29 of the 63 top drug trafficking organizations identified by the Department of Justice had links to terror- ist organizations. While many terrorist links to TOC are opportunistic, this nexus is dangerous, especially if it leads a TOC network to facilitate the transfer of WMD material to terrorists.17

Stewart Patrick and others correctly argue that, contrary to the predominant thinking that emerged immediately after September 11, 2001 (9/11) (i.e., failed states are a magnet for terrorist organizations), failed or nonfunctional states are actually less attractive to terrorist organizations and TOC groups than “weak but functional” states.18 But there is another category, perhaps the most attractive of all to TOC and terrorist groups they are allied with: strong and functional states that participate in TOC activities.

The Unrecognized Role of the Criminalized States.

While it is true that TOC penetration of the state threatens the rule of law, as the administration’s strategy notes, it also poses significant new threats to the homeland. Criminalized states frequently use TOCs as a form of statecraft, bringing new elements to the dangerous spaces where nonstate actors intersect with regions of weak sovereignty and alternative governance systems.19 This fundamentally alters the structure of global order.

As the state relationships consolidate, the recombinant criminal-terrorist pipelines become more rooted and thus more dangerous. Rather than being pursued by state law enforcement and intelligence services in an effort to impede their activities, TOC groups (and perhaps terrorist groups) are able to operate in a more stable, secure environment, something that most businesses, both licit and illicit, crave.

Rather than operating on the margins of the state or seeking to co-opt small pieces of the state machinery, the TOC groups in this construct operate in concert with the state on multiple levels. Within that stable environment, a host of new options open, from the sale of weapons, to the use of national aircraft and ship- ping registries, to easy use of banking structures, to the use of national airlines and shipping lines to move large quantities of unregistered goods, and the acquisition of diplomatic passports and other identification means.

Examples of the benefits of a criminal state can be seen across the globe. For example, the breakaway republic of Transnistria, near Moldova, known as “Europe’s Black Hole,” is a notorious weapons trafficking center from which dozens of surface-to-air missiles have disappeared; it is run by former Russian secret police (KGB) officials.

The FARC needs to move cocaine to U.S. and European markets in order to obtain the money necessary to maintain its army of some 9,000 troops. In order to do that, the FARC, with the help of tra- ditional drug trafficking organizations, must move its product through Central America and Mexico to the United States—the same route used by those who want to move illegal aliens to the United States, and those who want to move bulk cash shipments, stolen cars, and weapons from the United States southward. All of these goods traverse the same territory, pass through the same gatekeepers, and are often inter- changeable along the way. A kilo of cocaine can be traded for roughly one ton of AK-47 assault rifles before either of the goods reaches what would normally be its final destination.

Though the presence of a state government (as op- posed to its absence) is ordinarily considered to be a positive situation, the presence of the state is beneficial or positive only if it meets the needs of its people. If the state, as it is in many parts of Latin America and many other parts of the world, is present but is viewed, with good reason, as corrupt, incompetent, and/or predatory, then its presence is not beneficial in terms of creating state strength or state capacity. In fact, where the state is strongest but least accountable for abuses, people often prefer nonstate actors to exercise authority.25

This has led to an underlying conceptual problem in much of the current literature describing regions or territories as “governed” or “ungoverned,” a frame- work that presents a false dichotomy suggesting that the lack of state presence means a lack of a governing authority. “Ungoverned spaces” connotes a lawless region with no controlling authority. In reality, the stateless regions in question almost always fall under the control of nonstate actors who have sufficient force or popular support (or a mixture of both), to impose their decisions and norms, thus creating alternate power structures that directly challenge the state, or that take the role of the state in its absence.

The notion of ungoverned spaces can be more broadly applied to legal, functional, virtual, and social arenas that either are not regulated by states or are contested by non-state actors and spoilers.26

THE NATURE OF THE THREAT IN THE AMERICAS

Old Paradigms Are Not Enough.

Control of broad swaths of land by these nonstate groups in Latin America not only facilitates the movement of illegal products, both northward and south- ward, through transcontinental pipelines, but also undermines the stability of an entire region of great strategic interest to the United States.

The traditional threat is broadly understood to be posed by the illicit movement of goods (drugs, money, weapons, and stolen cars), people (human traffic, gang members, and drug cartel enforcers), and the billions of dollars these illicit activities generate in an area where states have few resources and little legal or law enforcement capacity .

As Moisés Naim wrote:

Ultimately, it is the fabric of society which is at stake. Global illicit trade is sinking entire industries while boosting others, ravaging countries and sparking booms, making and breaking political careers, desta- bilizing some governments and propping up others.27

The threat increases dramatically with the nesting of criminal/terrorist groups within governments that are closely aligned ideologically, such as Iran and the Bolivarian states in Latin America, and that are identified sponsors of designated terrorist groups, including those that actively participate in the cocaine trafficking trade.

While Robert Killebrew28 and Max Manwaring29 make compelling cases that specific parts of this dangerous cocktail could be defined as insurgencies (narco-insurgency in Mexico and gangs in Central America, respectively), the new combination of TOC, criminalized states, and terrorist organizations presents a new reality that breaks the traditional paradigms.

While Mexico is not the focus of this monograph, the regional convulsions from Mexico through Central America are not viewed as a narco-insurgency. Instead, this hybrid mixture of groups with a variety of motives, including those engaged in TOC, insurgencies, and criminalized states with a declared hatred for the United States, is something new and in many ways more dangerous than a traditional insurgency.

The New Geopolitical Alignment.

The visible TOC threats are only a part of the geo- strategic threats to the United States emerging from Latin America’s current geopolitical alignment. The criminalized states are already extending their grip on power through strengthened alliances with hostile outside state and quasi-state actors such as Iran and Hezbollah. The primary unifying theme among these groups is a deep hatred for the United States.

they have carried out a similar pattern of rewriting the constitution to concentrate powers in the executive and to allow for unlimited reelection; a systematic takeover of the judiciary by the executive and the subsequent criminalizing of the opposition through vaguely worded laws and constitutional amendments that make it illegal to oppose the revolution; systematic attacks on independent news media, and the use of criminal libel prosecutions to silence media critics; and, overall, the increasing criminalization of the state. These measures are officially justified as necessary to ensure the revolution can be carried out without U.S. “lackeys” sabotaging it.

The Model: Recombinant Networks and Geographical Pipelines.

To understand the full significance of the new geopolitical reality in Latin America, it is necessary to think in terms of the geopolitics of TOC. Because of the clandestine nature of the criminal and terrorist activities, designed to be as opaque as possible, one must start from the assumption that, whatever is known of specific operations along the criminal-terrorist pipeline, or whatever combinations of links are seen, represents merely a snapshot in time, not a video of continuing events. Moreover, it is often out of date by the time it is assessed.

Nonstate armed actors as treated in this mono- graph are defined as:

• Terrorist groups, motivated by religion, politics, ethnic forces, or at times, even by financial considerations;
• Transnational criminal organizations, both structured and disaggregated, including third generation gangs as defined by Manwaring;35
• Militias that control “black hole” or “stateless” sectors of one or more national territories; Insurgencies, which have more well-defined and specific political aims within a particular national territory, but may operate from out- side of that national territory.

“In some cases, the terrorists simply imitate the criminal behavior they see around them, borrowing techniques such as credit card fraud and extortion in a phenomenon we refer to as activity appropriation. This is a shared approach rather than true interaction, but it often leads to more intimate connections within a short time.” This can evolve into a more symbiotic relationship, which in turn can (but many do not) turn into hybrid groups.38

While the groups that overlap in different networks are not necessarily allies, and in fact occasionally are enemies, they often can and do make alliances of convenience that are short-lived and shifting. Even violent drug cartels, which regularly engage in bloody turf battles, also frequently engage in truces and alliances, although most end when they are no longer mutually beneficial or the balance of power shifts among them.

Another indication of the scope of the emerging alliances is the dramatic rise of Latin American drug trafficking organizations operating in West Africa, for onward shipment to Western Europe. Among the drug trafficking organizations found to be working on the ground in West Africa are the FARC, Mexican drug cartels, Colombian organizations, and Italian organized crime. It is worth bearing in mind that al- most every major load of cocaine seized in West Africa in recent years has been traced to Venezuela as the point of origin.

This overlapping web of networks was described in a July 2010 federal indictment from the Southern District of New York, which showed that drug trafficking organizations in Colombia and Venezuela, including the FARC, had agreed to move several multi-ton loads of cocaine through Liberia en route to Europe.

The head of Liberian security forces, who is also the son of the president, negotiated the transshipment deals with a Colombian, a Russian, and three West Africans.

On December 8, 2011, it aired footage of the Iranian ambassador in Mexico urging a group of Mexican university students who were hackers to launch broad cyber attacks against U.S. defense and intelligence facilities, claiming such an attack would be “bigger than 9/11.”

Geographical “Pipelines.”

The central feature binding together these disparate organizations and networks which, in aggregate, make up the bulk of nonstate armed actors, is the in- formal (meaning outside legitimate state control and competence) “pipeline” or series of overlapping pipe- lines that these operations need to move products, money, weapons, personnel, and goods. The pipelines often form well-worn, customary, geographical routes and conduits developed during past conflicts, or traditionally used to smuggle goods without paying taxes to the state. Their exploitation by various communities, organizations, and networks yields recognizable patterns of activity.

The geography of the pipelines may be seen as both physical (i.e., terrain and topography), and human (i.e., historical and sociological patterns of local criminal activity).

These regions may develop their own cultures that accept what the state considers to be illicit activities as normal and desirable. This is especially true in areas where the state has been considered an enemy for generations.

The criminal pipeline itself is often a resource in dispute, and one of the primary sources of violence. Control of the pipeline can dramatically alter the relative power among different trafficking groups, as has been seen in the ongoing war between the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels in Mexico.47 Because of the lucrative nature of control of the actual physical space of the pipeline, these types of conflicts are increasingly carried out in gruesome fashion in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

These states are not collapsing. They risk becoming shell-states: sovereign in name, but hollowed out from the inside by criminals in collusion with corrupt officials in the government and the security services. This not only jeopardizes their survival, it poses a serious threat to regional security because of the trans-national nature of the crimes.

CRIMINALIZING STATES AS NEW REGIONAL ACTORS

While nonstate actors make up the bulk of criminal agents engaged in illicit activities, state actors play an increasingly important yet under-reported role. That role pertains in part to the availability of pipeline territory, and in part to the sponsorship and even direction of criminal activity. TOC groups can certainly exploit the geographical vulnerabilities of weak or failing states, but they also thrive on the services provided by stronger states.

There are traditional categories for describing state performance as developed by Robert Rotberg and others in the wake of state failures at the end of the Cold War. The premise is that that “nation-states fail because they are convulsed by internal violence and can no longer deliver positive political goods to their inhabitants.”52 These categories are:

• Strong, i.e., able to control its territory and offer quality political goods to its people;
• Weak, i.e., filled with social tensions, the state has only a limited monopoly on the use of force;
• Failed, i.e., in a state of conflict with a preda- tory ruler, with no state monopoly on the use of force;
• Collapsed, i.e., no functioning state institutions and a vacuum of authority.

This conceptualization, while useful, is extremely limited, as is the underlying premise. It fails to make a critical distinction between countries where the state has little or no power in certain areas and may be fighting to assert that control, and countries where the government, in fact, has a virtual monopoly on power and the use of force, but turns the state into a functioning criminal enterprise for the benefit of a small elite.

The 4-tier categorization also suffers from a significant omission with regard to geographical areas of operation rather than criminal actors. The model pre- supposes that stateless regions are largely confined within the borders of a single state.

 

State absence can be the product of a successful bid for local dominance by TOC groups, but it can also result from a perception on the part of the local population that the state poses a threat to their communities, livelihoods, or interests.

 

 

A 2001 Naval War College report insightfully described some of the reasons in terms of “commercial” and “political” in- surgencies. These are applicable to organized criminal groups as well and have grown in importance since then:

The border zones offer obvious advantages for political and economic insurgencies. Political insurgents prefer to set up in adjacent territories that are poorly integrated, while the commercial insurgents favor active border areas, preferring to blend in amid business and government activity and corruption. The border offers a safe place to the political insurgent and easier access to communications, weapons, provisions, transport, and banks.

For the commercial insurgency, the frontier creates a fluid, trade-friendly environment. Border controls are perfunctory in ‘free trade’ areas, and there is a great demand for goods that are linked to smuggling, document fraud, illegal immigration, and money laundering.

For the political insurgency, terrain and topography often favor the narco-guerilla. Jungles permit him to hide massive bases and training camps, and also laboratories, plantations, and clandestine runways. The Amazon region, huge and impenetrable, is a clear example of the shelter that the jungle areas give. On all of Colombia’s borders—with Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, and Venezuela—jungles cloak illegal activity.

The Weak State-Criminal State Continuum.

One may array the degree of state control of, or par- ticipation in, criminal activity along a spectrum (see Figure 2). At one end are strong but criminal states, with the state acting as a TOC element or an important component of a TOC group.

In Latin America, the government of Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana) in the 1980s and early 1990s under Desi Bouterse, a convicted drug trafficker with strong ties to the FARC, was (and perhaps still is) an operational player in an ongoing criminal enterprise and benefited from it.

Bouterse’s only public defender in the region is Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Again, the elements of TOC as statecraft can be seen. Chávez reportedly funded Bouterse’s improbable electoral comeback in Suriname, funneling money to his campaign and hosting him in Venezuela on several visits.60 While no other heads of state accepted Bouterse’s invitation to attend his inauguration, Chávez did, although he had to cancel at the last minute. In recompense, he promised to host Bouterse on a state visit to Venezuela.

One of the key differences between the Bolivarian alliance and earlier criminalized states in the region is the mutually reinforcing structure of the alliance. While other criminalized states have been widely viewed as international pariahs and broadly shunned, thus hastening their demise, the new Bolivarian structures unite several states in a joint, if loosely-knit, criminal enterprise. This ensures these mutually sup- porting regimes can endure for much longer.

At the other end are weak and captured states, where certain nodes of governmental authority, whether local or central, have been seized by TOCs, who in turn are the primary beneficiaries of the proceeds from the criminal activity. Penetration of the state usually centers on one or more of three functions: judiciary (to ensure impunity), border control and customs (to ensure the safe passage of persons and goods), and legislature (to codify the structures necessary to TOC organizations, such as a ban on extradition, weak asset forfeiture laws, etc.). It also is more local in its focus, rather than national.

Typically, TOC elements aim at dislodging the state from local territory, rather than assuming the role of the state in overall political authority across the country. As Shelley noted, “Older crime groups, often in long-established states, have developed along with their states and are dependent on existing institution- al and financial structures to move their products and invest their profits.”

By definition, insurgents aim to wrest political control from the state and transfer it to their own leadership.

“Captured states” are taken hostage by criminal organizations, often through intimidation and threats, giving the criminal enterprise access to some parts of the state apparatus. Guatemala would be an example: the government lacks control of roughly 60 percent of the national territory, with the cartels enjoying local power and free access to the border; but the central government itself is not under siege.

In the middle range between the extremes, more criminalized cases include participation in criminal activity by state leaders, some acting out of personal interest, others in the interest of financing the services or the ideology of the state. A variant of this category occurs when a functioning state essentially turns over, or “franchises out” part of its territory to non- state groups to carry out their own agenda with the blessing and protection of the central government or a regional power. Both state and nonstate actors share in the profits and proceeds from criminal activity thus generated. Venezuela under Hugo Chávez is perhaps the clearest example of this model in the region, given his relationship with the FARC.

Hugo Chávez and the FARC: The Franchising Model.

Chávez’s most active support for the FARC came after the FARC had already become primarily a drug trafficking organization vice political insurgency. The FARC has also traditionally earned considerable income (and wide international condemnation) from the kidnapping for ransom of hundreds of individuals, in violation of the Geneva Convention and other international conventions governing armed conflicts. It was impossible, by the early part of the 21st century, to separate support for the FARC from support for TOC, as these two activities were the insurgent group’s primary source of income.

Chávez had cultivated a relationship with the FARC long before becoming president. As one recent study of internal FARC documents noted:

When Chávez became president of Venezuela in February 1999, FARC had not only enjoyed a relationship with him for at least some of the previous seven years but had also penetrated and learned how to best use Venezuelan territory and politics, manipulating and building alliances with new and traditional Venezuelan political sectors, traversing the Colombia-Venezuela border in areas ranging from coastal desert to Amazonian jungle and building cooperative relation- ships with the Venezuelan armed forces. Once Chávez was inaugurated, Venezuelan border security and foreign policies shifted in the FARC’s favor.67

Perhaps the strongest public evidence of the importance of Venezuela to the FARC is the public fingering of three of Chávez’s closest advisers and senior government officials by the U.S Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

OFAC said the three—Hugo Armando Carvajál, director of Venezuelan Military Intelligence; Henry de Jesus Rangél, director of the Venezuelan Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services; and Ramón Emilio Rodriguez Chacín, former minister of justice and former minister of interior—were responsible for “materially supporting the FARC, a narco-terrorist organization.” It specifically accused Carvajál and Rangél of protecting FARC cocaine shipments moving through Venezuela, and said Rodriguez Chacín, who resigned his government position just a few days before the designations, was the “Venezuelan government’s main weapons contact for the FARC.”

According to the U.S. indictment against him, Makled exported at least 10 tons of cocaine a month to the United States by keeping more than 40 Venezuelan generals and senior government officials on his payroll. “All my business associates are generals. The highest,” Makled said. “I am telling you, we dis- patched 300,000 kilos of coke. I couldn’t have done it without the top of the government.”75 What added credibility to Makled’s claims were the documents he presented showing what appear to be the signatures of several generals and senior Ministry of Interior officials accepting payment from Makled. “I have enough evidence to justify the invasion of Venezuela” as a criminal state, he said.76

The FARC and Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.

Since the electoral victories of Correa in Ecuador and Morales in Bolivia, and the re-election of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, their governments have actively supported FARC rebels in their war of more than 4 decades against the Colombian state, as well as significant drug trafficking activities.77 While Ecuador and Venezuela have allowed their territory to be used for years as rear guard and transshipment stations for the FARC and other drug trafficking organizations, Bolivia has become a recruitment hub and safe haven; and Nicaragua, a key safe haven and weapons procurement center. In addition, several senior members of both the Correa and Morales administrations have been directly implicated in drug trafficking incidents, showing the complicity of the state in the criminal enterprises.

In Bolivia, the Morales government, which has maintained cordial ties with the FARC at senior levels,78 has, as noted, faced an escalating series of drug trafficking scandals at the highest levels.79 It is worth noting that Alvaro García Linera, the nation’s vice president and a major power center in the Morales administration, was a member of the armed Tupac Katari Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupak Katari [MRTK]), an ally of the FARC, and served several years in prison.

An analysis of the Reyes computer documents concluded that the FARC donated several hundred thousand dollars to Correa’s campaign,84 a conclusion drawn by other national and international investigations.85 The Reyes documents show senior Ecuadoran officials meeting with FARC commanders and offering to remove certain commanders in the border region so the FARC would not be under so much pressure on the Ecuadoran side.

A closer friend, at least for a time, was Hugo Mol- dis, who helped found the MAS and has been one of the movement’s intellectual guides, and was seriously considered for senior cabinet positions. Instead, he was given the job as leader of the government-backed confederation of unions and social groups called the “People’s High Command” (Estado Mayor del Pueblo [EMP]),93 and he maintains a fairly high profile as journalist and writer for several Marxist publications.

The EMP was one of the principal vehicles of the MAS and its supporters in forcing the 2003 resignation of the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and Morales, as president, named it the organization responsible for giving social movements a voice in the government.

Moldiz told the group that “our purpose is to defend the government, defend the political process of change, which we have conquered with blood, strikes, marches, sacrifice, and pain. Our main enemy is called United States imperialism and the Bolivian oligarchy.”95

The Regional Infrastructure.

Brazil and Peru, while not actively supporting the FARC, have serious drug trafficking issues to contend with on their own and exercise little real control over their border regions. Despite this geographic and geopolitical reality, Colombia has undertaken a costly and somewhat successful effort to reestablish state control in many long-abandoned regions of its own national territory. Yet the Colombian experience offers an object lesson in the limits of what can be done even if the political will exists and if significant national treasure is invested in reestablishing a positive state presence. Once nonstate actors have established uncontested authority over significant parts of the national territory, the cost of recouping control and establishing a functional state presence is enormous.

It becomes even more costly when criminal/terrorist groups such as the FARC become instruments of regional statecraft. The FARC has been using its ideological affinity with Correa, Morales, Chávez, and Nicaragua’s Ortega to press for a change in status to “belligerent group” in lieu of terrorist entity or simple insurgency. “Belligerent” status is a less pejorative term and brings certain international protections.

the FARC and its political arm, the Continental Bolivarian Movement (Movimiento Continental Bolivariano[MCB] discussed below), has become a vehicle for a broader-based alliance of nonstate armed groups seeking to end the traditional democratic representative government model and replace it with an ideology centered on Marxism, anti-globalization, and anti-United States.

…not all states are criminal, not all TOCs are engaged in terrorism or collude with terrorist groups, and not all terrorist groups conduct criminal activities. The overlap between all three groups constitutes a small but highly dangerous subset of cases, and ap- plies most particularly to the Bolivarian states.

The TOC-Terrorist State Alliance.

At the center of the nexus of the Bolivarian move- ment with TOC, terrorism, and armed revolution is the FARC, and its political wing, the Continental Boli- varian Coordinator (Coordinadora Continental Bolivari- ana [CCB]), a continental political movement founded in 2003, funded and directed by the FARC. In 2009, the CCB officially changed its name to the MCB to re- flect its growth across Latin America. For purposes of consistency, we refer to the organization as the CCB throughout this monograph.

In a November 24, 2004, letter from Raúl Reyes, the FARC’s second-in-command, to another member of the FARC General Secretariat, he laid out the FARC’s role in the CCB, as well as the Chávez government’s role, in the following unambiguous terms:

The CCB has the following structure: an executive, some chapters by region . . . and a “foreign legion.” Headquarters: Caracas. It has a newspaper called “Correo Bolivariano,” [Bolivarian Mail] and Internet site and an FM radio station heard throughout Caracas. . . . This is an example of coordinated struggle for the creation of the Bolivarian project. We do not exclude any forms of struggle. It was founded in Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas. [Author’s Note: Fuerte Tiuna is the main government military and intelligence center in Venezuela, and this is a clear indication that the Venezuelan government fully supported the founding of the organization.] The political ammunition and the leadership is provided by the FARC. 97

According to an internal FARC report dated March 11, 2005, on the CCB’s activities in 2004, there were already active groups in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Chile. International brigades from the Basque region of Spain, Italy, France, and Denmark were operational. Work was underway in Argentina, Guatemala, and Brazil. The number of organizations that were being actively coordinated by the CCB was listed at 63, and there were “political relations” with 45 groups and 25 institutions. The CCB database contained 500 e-mails.

Numerous other documents show that different Bolivarian governments directly supported the CCB, whose president is always the FARC leader.

The government of Rafael Correa in Ecuador of- ficially hosted the second congress of the organization in Quito in late February 2008. The meeting was at- tended by members of Peru’s Tupac Amaru Revolu- tionary Movement (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru [MRTA]); the Mapuches and MIR of Chile; Spain’s ETA, and other terrorist and insurgent groups.

The 2009 meeting at which the CCB became the MCB was held in Caracas and the keynote address was given Alfonso Cano, the current FARC leader. Past FARC leaders are honorary presidents of the organization.101 This places the FARC—a well-identified drug trafficking organization with significant ties to the major Mexican drug cartels102 and a designated terrorist entity with a broad-based alliance that spans the globe—directly in the center of a state-sponsored project to fundamentally reshape Latin America and its political structure and culture.

The importance of the cocaine transit increase through Venezuela was documented by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which estimates that the product transit rose fourfold from 2004 to 2007, from 60 metric tons to 240 metric tons.

Finally, the CCB, as a revolutionary meeting house for “anti-imperialist” forces around the world, provides the political and ideological underpinning and justification for the growing alliance among the Bolivarian states, again led by Chávez, and Iran, led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hezbollah’s influence extends to the nature of the war and diplomacy pursued by Chávez and his Bolivarian comrades. The franchising model strongly resembles the template pioneered by Hezbollah.

THE BOLIVARIAN AND IRANIAN REVOLUTIONS: THE TIES THAT BIND

The most common assumption among those who view the Iran-Bolivarian alliance as troublesome, and many do not view it as a significant threat at all, is that there are two points of convergence between the radical and reactionary theocratic Iranian government and the self-proclaimed socialist and progressive Bolivarian revolution.

These assumed points of convergence are: 1) an overt and often stated hatred for the United States and a shared belief in how to destroy a common enemy; and 2) a shared acceptance of authoritarian state structures that tolerate little dissent and encroach on all aspects of a citizen’s life.

While Iran’s revolutionary rulers view the 1979 revolution in theological terms as a miracle of divine intervention in which the United States, the Great Satan, was defeated, the Bolivarians view it from a secular point of view as a roadmap to defeat the United States as the Evil Empire. To both, it has strong political con- notations and serves as a model for how asymmetrical leverage, whether applied by Allah or humans, can conjure the equivalent of a David defeating a Goliath on the world stage.

Ortega has declared the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions to be “twin revolutions, with the same objectives of justice, liberty, sovereignty and peace . . . despite the aggressions of the imperialist policies.” Ahmadinejad couched the alliances as part of “a large anti-imperialist movement that has emerged in the region.”

Among the first to articulate the possible merging of radical Shite Islamic thought with Marxist aspirations of destroying capitalism and U.S. hegemony was Illich Sánchez Ramirez, better known as the terrorist leader, “Carlos the Jackal,” a Venezuelan citizen who was, until his arrest in 1994, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.

The emerging military doctrine of the “Bolivarian Revolution,” officially adopted in Venezuela and rapidly spreading to Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, explicitly embraces the radical Islamist model of asymmetrical or “fourth generation warfare,” and its heavy reliance on suicide bombings and different types of terrorism, including the use of nuclear weapons and other WMD.

Chávez has adopted as his military doctrine the concepts and strategies articulated in Peripheral Warfare and Revolutionary Is- lam: Origins, Rules and Ethics of Asymmetrical Warfare (Guerra Periférica y el Islam Revolucionario: Orígenes, Reglas y Ética de la Guerra Asimétrica ) by the Spanish politician and ideologue, Jorge Verstrynge (see Figure 4).110 The tract is a continuation of and exploration of Sánchez Ramirez’s thoughts, incorporating an explicit endorsement of the use of WMD to destroy the United States. Verstrynge argues for the destruction of the United States through a series of asymmetrical attacks like those of 9/11, in the belief that the United States will simply crumble when its vast military strength cannot be used to combat its enemies.

Central to Verstrynge’s idealized view of terrorists is the belief in the sacredness of fighters sacrificing their lives in pursuit of their goals.

An Alliance of Mutual Benefit.

This ideological framework of a combined Marxism and radical Islamic methodology for successfully attacking the United States is an important, though little examined, underpinning for the greatly enhanced relationships among the Bolivarian states and Iran. These relationships are being expanded, absorbing significant resources despite the fact that there is little economic rationale to the ties and little in terms of legitimate commerce.

One need only look at how rapidly Iran has in- creased its diplomatic, economic, and intelligence presence in Latin America to see the priority it places on this emerging axis, given that it is an area where it has virtually no trade, no historic or cultural ties, and no obvious strategic interests. The gains, in financial institutions, bilateral trade agreements, and state visits (eight state visits between Chávez and Ahmadinejad alone since 2006), are almost entirely within the Bolivarian orbit; and, as noted, the Bolivarian states have jointly declared their intention to help Iran break international sanctions.

The most recent salvo by Iran is the launching of a Spanish language satellite TV station, HispanTV, aimed at Latin America. Bolivia and Venezuela are collaborating in producing documentaries for the station. Mohammed Sarafraz, deputy di- rector of international affairs, said Iran was “launching a channel to act as a bridge between Iran and the countries of Latin America [there being] a need to help familiarize Spanish-speaking citizens with the Iranian nation.” He said that HispanTV was launched with the aim of reinforcing cultural ties with the Spanish- speaking nations and helping to introduce the traditions, customs, and beliefs of the Iranian people.

What is of particular concern is that many of the bilateral and multilateral agreements signed between Iran and Bolivarian nations, such as the creation of a dedicated shipping line between Iran and Ecuador, or the deposit of $120 million by an internationally sanctioned Iranian bank into the Central Bank of Ecuador, are based on no economic rationale.

Iran, whose banks, including its central bank, are largely barred from the Western financial systems, benefits from access to the international financial mar- ket through Venezuelan, Ecuadoran, and Bolivian financial institutions, which act as proxies by moving Iranian money as if it originated in their own legal financial systems.120 Venezuela also agreed to provide Iran with 20,000 barrels of gasoline per day, leading to U.S. sanctions against the state petroleum company.

CONCLUSIONS

Latin America, while not generally viewed as part of the stateless regions phenomenon, or part of the failed state discussion, presents multiple threats that center on criminalized states, their hybrid alliance with extra-regional sponsors of terrorism, and nonstate TOC actors. The groups within this hybrid threat—often rivals, but willing to work in temporary alliances—are part of the recombinant criminal/terrorist pipeline, and their violence is often aimed at gaining control of specific territory or parts of that pipeline, either from state forces or other nonstate groups.

pipelines are seldom disrupted for more than a minimal amount of time, in part because the critical human nodes in the chain, and key chokepoints in the pipelines, are not identified, and the relationships among the different actors and groups are not under- stood adequately. As noted, pipelines are adaptable and versatile as to product—the epitome of modern management systems—often intersecting with formal commercial institutions (banks, commodity exchanges, legitimate companies, etc.), both in a physical and virtual/cyber manner, in ways difficult to determine, collect intelligence on, or disaggregate from protected commercial activities which may be both domestic and international in nature, with built-in legal and secrecy protections.

While the situation is already critical, it is likely to get worse quickly. There is growing evidence of Russian and Chinese organized crime penetration of the region, particularly in Mexico and Central America, greatly strengthening the criminal organizations and allowing them to diversify their portfolios and sup- ply routes—a particular example being precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamines and cocaine. The Chinese efforts to acquire ports, re- sources, and intelligence-gathering capacity in the region demonstrate just how quickly the situation can develop, given that China was not a major player in the region 5 years ago.

This is a new type of alliance of secular (self-proclaimed socialist and Marxist) and radical Islamist organizations with a common goal directly aimed at challenging and undermining the security of the United States and its primary allies in the region (Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, and Guatemala). This represents a fundamental change because both primary state allies in the alliance (the governments of Venezuela and Iran) host and support nonstate actors, allowing the nonstate actors to thrive in ways that would be impossible without state protection.

Under- standing how these groups develop, and how they relate to each other and to groups from outside the region, is vital—particularly given the rapid pace with which they are expanding their control across the continent, across the hemisphere, and beyond. Developing a predictive capacity can be done based only on a more realistic understanding of the shifting networks of actors exploiting the pipelines; the nature and location of the geographic space in which they operate; the critical nodes where these groups are most vulnerable; and their behaviors in adapting to new political and economic developments, market opportunities and setbacks, internal competition, and the countering actions of governments.

In turn, an effective strategy for combating TOC must rest on a solid foundation of regional intelligence which, while cognizant of the overarching transnational connections, remains sensitive to unique local realities behind seemingly ubiquitous behaviors. A one-size-fits-all policy will not suffice.

It is not a problem that is only, or primarily, a matter of state or regional security, narcotics, money laundering, terrorism, human smuggling, weakening governance, democracy reversal, trade and energy, counterfeiting and contraband, immigration and refugees, hostile states seeking advantage, or alterations in the military balance and alliances. It is increasingly a combination of all of these. It is a comprehensive threat that requires analysis and management within a comprehensive, integrated whole-of-government approach. At the same time, however expansive in global terms, a strategy based on geopolitics—the fundamental understanding of how human behavior relates to geo- graphic space—must always be rooted in the local.

ENDNOTES

1. “Fact Sheet: Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime,” Washington, DC: Office of the Press Secretary, the White House, July 25, 2011.
2. On the lower end, the United Nations (UN) Office of Drugs and Crime estimate transnational organized crime (TOC) earn- ings for 2009 at $2.1 trillion, or 3.6 percent of global gross domes- tic product (GDP). Of that, typical TOC activities such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting, human trafficking, weapons traffick- ing, and oil smuggling, account for about $1 trillion or 1.5 per- cent of global GDP. For details, see “Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug Trafficking and other Transnational Organized Crimes,” Washington, DC: UN Office of Drugs and Crime, September 2011. On the higher end, in a speech to Interpol in Singapore in 2009, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Ogden cited 15 percent of world GDP as total annual turnover of TOC. See Josh Meyer, “U.S. attorney general calls for global effort to fight organized crime,” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2009, available from articles.latimes.com/print/2009/oct/13/nation/na-crime13.
3. This definition is adapted from the 1998 UN Conven- tion on Transnational Organized Crime and Protocols Thereto, UNODC, Vienna, Austria; and the 2011 Strategy to Combat Trans- national Organized Crime, available from www.whitehouse.gov/ administration/eop/nsc/transnational-crime/definition.
4. The self-proclaimed “Bolivarian” states (Venezuela, Ecua- dor, Bolivia, and Nicaragua) take their name from Simón Bolivar, the revered 19th-century leader of South American independence from Spain. They espouse 21st-century socialism, a vague notion that is deeply hostile to free market reforms, to the United States as an imperial power, and toward traditional liberal democratic concepts, as will be described in detail.
5. One of the most detailed cases involved the 2001 weapons transfers among Hezbollah operatives in Liberia, a retired Israeli officer in Panama, and a Russian weapons merchant in Guatema- la. A portion of the weapons, mostly AK-47 assault rifles, ended up with the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidads de Colombia [AUC]), a designated terrorist organization heavily involved in cocaine trafficking. The rest of the weapons, including anti-tank systems and anti-aircraft weapons, likely end- ed up with Hezbollah. For details, see Douglas Farah, Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror, New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
6. For a detailed look at this development, see Antonio L. Mazzitelli, “The New Transatlantic Bonanza: Cocaine on High- way 10,” North Miami, FL: Western Hemisphere Security Analy- sis Center, Florida International University, March 2011.
7. The FARC is the oldest insurgency in the Western hemi- sphere, launched in 1964 by Colombia’s Liberal Party militias, and enduring to the present as a self-described Marxist revolu- tionary movement. For a more detailed look at the history of the FARC, see Douglas Farah, “The FARC in Transition: The Fatal Weakening of the Western Hemisphere’s Oldest Guerrilla Move- ment,” NEFA Foundation, July 2, 2008, available from www.nefa- foundation.org/miscellaneous/nefafarc0708.pdf.
8. These include recently founded Community of Latin Amer- ican and Caribbean States (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños [CELAC]), and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América [ALBA]).
9. James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, “Un- classified Statement for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” January 31, 2012, p. 6.
10. For the most comprehensive look at Russian Organized Crime in Latin America, see Bruce Bagley, “Globalization, Ungov- erned Spaces and Transnational Organized Crime in the Western Hemisphere: The Russian Mafia,” paper prepared for Internation- al Studies Association, Honolulu, HI, March 2, 2005.
11. Ruth Morris, “China: Latin America Trade Jumps,” Latin American Business Chronicle, May 9, 2011, available from www. latinbusinesschronicle.com/app/article.aspx?id=4893.
12. Daniel Cancel, “China Lends Venezuela $20 Billion, Se- cures Oil Supply,” Bloomberg News Service, April 18, 2010. By the end of August 2011, Venezuela’s publicly acknowledged debt to China stood at some $36 billion, equal to the rest of its out- standing international debt. See Benedict Mander, “More Chinese Loans for Venezuela,” FT Blog, September 16, 2011, available from blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/09/16/more-chinese-loans-4bn- worth-for-venezuela/#axzz1Z3km4bdg.
13. “Quito y Buenos Aires, Ciudades preferidas para narcos nigerianos” (“Quito and Buenos Aires, Favorite Cities of Narco Nigerians”), El Universo Guayaquil, Ecuador, January 3, 2011.
14. Louise Shelley, “The Unholy Trinity: Transnational Crime, Corruption and Terrorism,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. XI, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2005.
15. National Security Council, “Strategy to Combat Trans- national Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security,” Washington, DC: Office of the President, July 2011. The Strategy grew out of a National Intelligence Estimate inititated by the Bush administration and completed in December 2008, and is a comprehensive government review of transnational organized crime, the first since 1995.
16. “Fact Sheet: Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime,” Washington, DC: Office of the Press Secretary, the White House, July 25, 2011.
17. Ibid.
18. Stewart Patrick, Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats and International Security, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.
19. The phrase “dangerous spaces” was used by Phil Williams to describe 21st-century security challenges in terms of spaces and gaps, including geographical, functional, social, economic, legal, and regulatory holes. See Phil Williams, “Here Be Dragons: Dan- gerous Spaces and International Security,” Anne L. Clunan and Harold A. Trinkunas eds., Ungoverned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority in an Era of Softened Sovereignty, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010, pp. 34-37.
20. For a more complete look at Transnistria and an excellent overview of the global illicit trade, see Misha Glenny, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
21. For a complete look at the operations of Taylor, recently convicted in the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague for crimes against humanity, see Douglas Farah, Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror, New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
22. For a look at the weapons transfers, see “Los ‘rockets’ Venezolanos” Semana, Colombia, July 28, 2009. For a look at doc- umented financial and logistical support of Chávez and Correa for the FARC, see “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Secret Archives of ‘Raúl Reyes,’” An IISS Strategic Dossier, Wash- ington, DC: International Institute for Strategic Studies, May 2011. To see FARC connections to Evo Morales, see Douglas Farah, “Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS,” Alex- andria, VA: International Assessment and Strategy Center, 2009.
23. Douglas Farah, “Iran in Latin America: Strategic Security Issues,” Alexandria, VA: International Assessment and Strategy Center, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Advanced Systems and Concept Office, May 2011.
24. Rem Korteweg and David Ehrhardt, “Terrorist Black Holes: A Study into Terrorist Sanctuaries and Governmental Weakness,” The Hague, The Netherlands: Clingendael Centre for Strategic Studies, November 2005, p. 22.
25. Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1990. Jackson defines negative sovereignty as freedom from outside interference, the ability of a sovereign state to act in- dependently, both in its external relations and internally, towards its people. Positive sovereignty is the acquisition and enjoyment of capacities, not merely immunities. In Jackson’s definition, it presupposes “capabilities which enable governments to be their own masters” (p. 29). The absence of either type of sovereignty can lead to the collapse of or absence of state control.
26. Anne L. Clunan and Harold A. Trinkunas eds., Ungov- erned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority in an Era of Softened Sovereignty, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010, p. 19.
27. Moises Naim, Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copy- cats are Hijacking the Global Economy, New York: Anchor Books, 2006, p. 33.
28. Robert Killebrew and Jennifer Bernal, “Crime Wars: Gangs, Cartels and U.S. National Security,” Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, September 2010, available from www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_CrimeWars_ KillebrewBernal_3.pdf.
29. Max G. Manwaring, Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, March 2005.
30. As is true in much of Central America and Colombia, in Mexico there are centuries-old sanctuaries used by outlaws where the state had little authority. For a more complete explanation, see Gary Moore, “Mexico, the Un-failed State: A Geography Lesson,” InsightCrime, November 9, 2011, available from insight- crime.com/insight-latest-news/item/1820-mexico-the-un-failed-state-a- geography-lesson.
31. For a look at the factors that led to the rise of the Bolivarian leaders, see Eduardo Gamarra, “Bolivia on the Brink: Center for Preventative Action, Council on Foreign Relations, February 2007; Cynthia J. Arnson et al., La Nueva Izquierda en América Latina: Derechos Humanos, Participación Política y Sociedad Civil (The New Left in Latin America: Human Rights, Political Participation and Civil Society), Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2009; Farah, “Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS”; Farah and Simpson.
32. See “Iran to Help Bolivia Build Peaceful Nuclear Power Plant,” Xinhua, October 31, 2010; Russia Izvestia Information, September 30, 2008; and Agence France Presse, “Venezuela Wants to Work With Russia on Nuclear Energy: Chávez,” September 29, 2008.
33. Author interview with IAEA member in November, 2011. The official said the agency had found that Iran possessed enough uranium stockpiled to last a decade. Moreover, he said the evidence pointed to acquisition of minerals useful in missile production. He also stressed that dual-use technologies or items specifically used in the nuclear program had often been shipped to Iran as automotive or tractor parts. Some of the principal investments Iran has made in the Bolivarian states have been in a tractor fac- tory that is barely operational, a bicycle factory that does not seem to produce bicycles, and automotive factories that have yet to be built.
34. “Venezuela/Iran ALBA Resolved to Continue Economic Ties with Iran,” Financial Times Information Service, July 15, 2010.
35. Manwaring.
36. These typologies were developed and discussed more completely, including the national security implications of their growth, in Richard Shultz, Douglas Farah, and Itamara V. Lo- chard, “Armed Groups: A Tier-One Security Priority,” USAF Academy, CO: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, Occasional Paper 57, September 2004.
37. Louise I. Shelley, John T. Picarelli et al., Methods and Mo- tives: Exploring Links between Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism, Washington, DC: Department of Justice, September 2005.
38. Ibid., p. 5.
39. While much of Operation TITAN remains classified, there has been significant open source reporting, in part because the Colombian government announced the most important arrests. For the most complete look at the case, see Jo Becker, “Investi- gation into bank reveals links to major South American cartels,” International Herald Tribune, December 15, 2011. See also Chris Kraul and Sebastian Rotella, “Colombian Cocaine Ring Linked to Hezbollah,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2008; and “Por Lavar Activos de Narcos y Paramilitares, Capturados Integrantes de Or- ganización Internatcional” (“Members of an International Orga- nization Captured for Laundering Money for Narcos and Parami- litaries”), Fiscalía General de la Republica (Colombia) (Attorney General’s Office of Colombia), October 21, 2008.
40. Among the reasons for the increase in cocaine trafficking to Western Europe is the price. While the cost of a kilo of cocaine averages about $17,000 in the United States, it is $37,000 in the EU. Shipping via Africa is relatively inexpensive and relatively attractive, given the enhanced interdiction efforts in Mexico and the Caribbean. See Antonio Mazzitelli, “The Drug Trade: Africa’s Expanding Role,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, presentation at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, May 28, 2009.
41. Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum, “Liberian Of- ficials Worked with U.S. Agency to Block Drug Traffic,” New York Times, June 2, 2010.
42. For a history of AQIM, see “Algerian Group Backs al Qaeda,” BBC News, October 23, 2003, available from news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/africa/3207363.stm. For an understanding of the relation- ship among the different ethnic groups, particularly the Tuareg, and AQIM, see Terrorism Monitor, “Tuareg Rebels Joining Fight Against AQIM?” Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 8, Issue 40, November 4, 2010.
43. Evan Perez, “U.S. Accuses Iran in Plot: Two Charged in Alleged Conspiracy to Enlist Drug Cartel to Kill Saudi Ambas- sador,” The Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2011.
44. “La Amenaza Iraní” (“The Iranian Threat”), Univision Documentales, aired December 8, 2011.
45. Sebastian Rotella, “Government says Hezbollah Profits From U.S. Cocaine Market via Link to Mexican Cartel,” ProPubli- ca, December 11, 2011.
46. For an examination of the “cultures of contraband” and their implications in the region, see Rebecca B. Galemba, “Cultures of Contraband: Contesting the Illegality at the Mexico-Guatemala Border,” Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University Department of An- thropology, May 2009. For a look at the use of traditional smug- gling routes in TOC structures in Central America, see Doug- las Farah, “Mapping Transnational Crime in El Salvador: New Trends and Lessons From Colombia,” North Miami, FL: Western Hemisphere Security Analysis Center, Florida International Uni- versity, August 2011.
47. For a more complete look at that conflict and other con- flicts over plazas, see Samuel Logan and John P. Sullivan, “The Gulf-Zeta Split and the Praetroian Revolt,” International Relations and Security Network, April 7, 2010, available from www.isn.ethz. ch/isn/Security-Watch/Articles/Detail/?ots591=4888caa0-b3db-1461- 98b9-e20e7b9c13d4&lng=en&id=114551.
48. Mazzitelli.
49. “Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa,” New York: UN Office on Drugs and Crime, October 2008.
50. For a look at the chaos in Guinea Bissau, see “Guinea- Bissau president shot dead,” BBC News, March 2, 2009, available from news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7918061.stm.
51. Patrick.
    52. See, for example, Robert I. Rotberg, “Failed States, Collapsed States, Weak States: Causes and Indicators,” Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Washington, DC: Brookings In- stitution, January 2003.
52. Rotberg.
53. Rem Korteweg and David Ehrhardt, “Terrorist Black Holes: A Study into Terrorist Sanctuaries and Governmental Weakness,” The Hague, The Netherlands: Clingendael Centre for Strategic Studies, November 2005, p. 26.
54. “The Failed States Index 2009,” Foreign Policy Magazine, July/August 2009, pp. 80-93, available from www.foreignpolicy.com/ articles/2009/06/22/2009_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_ rankings.
55. Julio A. Cirino et al., “Latin America’s Lawless Areas and Failed States,” in Paul D. Taylor, ed., Latin American Security Chal- lenges: A Collaborative Inquiry from North and South, Newport, RI: Naval War College, Newport Papers 21, 2004. Commercial insur- gencies are defined as engaging in “for-profit organized crime without a predominate political agenda,” leaving unclear how that differs from groups defined as organized criminal organiza- tions.
56. For details of Taylor’s activities, see Douglas Farah, Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror, New York: Broadway Books, 2004.
57. Hannah Stone, “The Comeback of Suriname’s ‘Narco- President’,” Insightcrime.org, Mar 4, 2011, available from insight- crime.org/insight-latest-news/item/865-the-comeback-of-surinames- narco-president.
58. Simon Romero, “Returned to Power, a Leader Celebrates a Checkered Past,” The New York Times, May 2, 2011.
59. “Wikileaks: Chávez funded Bouterse,” The Nation (Barba- dos), February 2, 2011.
60. Harmen Boerboom, “Absence of Chávez a blessing for Su- riname,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, August 12, 2010.
61. For a look at the Zetas in Guatemala, see Steven Dudley, “The Zetas in Guatemala,” InSight Crime, September 8, 2011. For a look at Los Perrones in El Salvador, see Douglas Farah, “Organized Crime in El Salvador: Homegrown and Transnational Dimen- sions,” Organized Crime in Central America: The Northern Triangle, Woodrow Wilson Center Reports on the Americas #29, Wash- ington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 2011, pp. 104-139, available from www.wilsoncenter.org/ sites/default/files/LAP_single_page.pdf.
62. Louise Shelley, “The Unholy Trinity: Transnational Crime, Corruption and Terrorism,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. XI, Issue 2, Winter/Spring 2005, p. 101.
63. See Bill Lahneman and Matt Lewis, “Summary of Proceed- ings: Organized Crime and the Corruption of State Institutions,” College Park, MD: University of Maryland, November 18, 2002, available from www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/organizedcrime.pdf.
64. Author interviews with Drug Enforcement Administra- tion and National Security Council officials; for example, two aircraft carrying more than 500 kgs of cocaine were stopped in Guinea Bissau after arriving from Venezuela. See “Bissau Police Seize Venezuelan cocaine smuggling planes,” Agence France Presse, July 19, 2008.
65. “FARC Terrorist Indicted for 2003 Grenade Attack on Americans in Colombia,” Department of Justice Press Re- lease, September 7, 2004. available from www.usdoj.gov/opa/ pr/2004/September/04_crm_599.htm; and Official Journal of the European Union, Council Decision of December 21, 2005, available from eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2005/l_340/l_ 34020051223en00640066.pdf.
66. “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raúl Reyes’,” Washington, DC: International Institute for Strategic Studies,” May 2011.
67. The strongest documentary evidence of Chávez’s support for the FARC comes from the Reyes documents, which contained the internal communications of senior FARC commanders with senior Venezuelan officials. These documents discuss everything from security arrangements in hostage exchanges to the possibil- ity of joint training exercises and the purchasing of weapons. For full details of these documents and their interpretation, see Ibid.
68. “Treasury Targets Venezuelan Government Officials Sup- port of the FARC,” Washington, DC: U.S. Treasury Department, Office of Public Affairs, September 12, 2008. The designations came on the heels of the decision of the Bolivian government of Evo Morales to expel the U.S. ambassador, allegedly for support- ing armed movements against the Morales government. In soli- darity, Chávez then expelled the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. In addition to the citations of the Venezuelan officials, the United States also expelled the Venezuelan and Bolivian ambassadors to Washington.
69. “Chávez Shores up Military Support,” Stratfor, November 12, 2010.
70. “Venezuela: Asume Nuevo Ministro De Defensa Acusado de Narco por EEUU” (“Venezuela: New Minister Accused by the United States of Drug Trafficking Takes Office”), Agence France Presse, January 17, 2012.
71. Robert M. Morgenthau, “The Link Between Iran and Ven- ezuela: A Crisis in the Making,” speech at the Brookings Institu- tion, Washington, DC, September 8, 2009.
72. Colombia, Venezuela: Another Round of Diplomatic Fu- ror,” Strafor, July 29, 2010.
73. The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raúl Reyes’.”
74. The Colombian decision to extradite Makled to Venezu- ela rather than the United States caused significant tension be- tween the two countries and probably means that the bulk of the evidence he claims to possess will never see the light of day. Among the documents he presented in prison were his checks cashed by senior generals and government officials and videos of what appear to be senior government officials in his home dis- cussing cash transactions. For details of the case, see José de Cór- doba and Darcy Crowe, “U.S. Losing Big Drug Catch,” The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2011; “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Indictment of one of World’s Most Significant Narcotics Kingpins,” United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, November 4, 2010.
75. “Makled: Tengo suficientes pruebas sobre corrupción y narcotráfico para que intervengan a Venezuela” (“Makled: I have Enough Evidence of Corruption and Drug Trafficking to justify an invasion of Venezuela”), NTN24 TV (Colombia), April 11, 2011.
76. For a more comprehensive look at the history of the FARC; its relations with Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador; and its involvement in drug trafficking, see “The FARC Files: Ven- ezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Archives of ‘Raúl Reyes’”; Doug- las Farah, “Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS,” Alexandria, VA: International Assessment and Strategy Center, June 2009; Douglas Farah and Glenn Simpson, “Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and the ‘Citizens’ Revolution,” Alexandria, VA: International Assessment and Strategy Center, January 2010.
77. Farah, “Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS.”
78. Martin Arostegui, “Smuggling Scandal Shakes Bolivia,” The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2011.
79. Farah, “Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS.”
80. “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raul Reyes’’’; Farah and Simpson; and Francisco Huer- ta Montalvo et al., “Informe Comisión de Transparencia y Verdad: Caso Angostura” (“Report of the Commission on Transparency and Truth: The Angostura Case”), December 10, 2009, available from www.scribd.com/doc/24329223/informe-angostura.
81. Farah and Simpson.
82. For details of the relationships among these officials the president’s sister, and the Ostaiza brothers, see Farah and Simpson.
83. “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raúl Reyes’.”
84. See, for example, Farah and Simpson; Huerta Montalvo; Arturo Torres, Juego del Camaleón: Los secretos de Angostura (The Chameleon’s Game: The Secrets of Angostura), 2009.
85. “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raúl Reyes’.”
86. Farah, “Into the Abyss.”
87. Eugene Roxas, “Spiritual Guide who gave Evo Baton caught with 350 kilos of liquid cocaine,” The Achacachi Post (Bo- livia), July 28, 2010.
88. “Panama arrests Bolivia ex-drugs police chief Sanabria,” BBC News, February 26, 2011.
89. “Las FARC Buscaron el Respaldo de Boliva Para Lograr Su Expansión” (“The FARC Looked for Bolivian Support in Order to Expand”).
90. The MAS is the coalition of indigenous and coca growing organizations that propelled Morales to his electoral victory. The movement, closely aligned with Chávez and funded by the Ven- ezuelan government, has defined itself as Marxist, socialist, and anti-imperilist.
91. It is interesting to note that Peredo’s brothers Roberto (aka Coco) and Guido (aka Inti) were the Bolivian contacts of Che Gue- vara, and died in combat with him. The two are buried with Gue- vara in Santa Clara, Cuba.
92. A copy of the founding manifesto of the EMP and its adherents is available from bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/osal/ osal10/documentos.pdf.
93. Prensa Latina, “President Boliviano Anunica Creación de Estado Mayor Popular” (“Bolivian President Announces the For- mation of a People’s High Command”), February 2, 2006.
94. “Estado Mayor del Pueblo Convoca a Defender Al Gobi- erno de Evo” (“People’s High Command Calls for the Defense of Evo’s Government”), Agencia Boliviana de Informacion, April 17, 2006, available from www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2006041721.
95. The situation has changed dramatically with the election of Juan Manuel Santos as President of Colombia in 2010. Despite serving as Uribe’s defense minister during the most successful operations against the FARC and developing a deeply antagonis- tic relationship with Chávez in that capacity, relations between Santos and the Bolivarian heads of state have been surprisingly cordial since he took office. This is due in part to Santos’ agreeing to turn over copies of the Reyes hard drives to Correa, and his ex- pressed desire to normalize relations with Chávez. A particularly sensitive concession was allowing the extradition of Walid Mak- led, a designated drug kingpin by the United States, to be extra- dited to Venezuela rather than to stand trial in the United States.
96. “The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Ar- chives of ‘Raúl Reyes’.”
97. March 11, 2005, e-mail from Iván Ríos to Raúl Reyes, pro- vided by Colombia officials, in possession of the author.
98. April 1, 2006, e-mail from Raúl Reyes to Aleyda, provided by Colombia officials, in possession of the author.
99. Following Ortega’s disputed electoral triumph in No- vember 2011, the FARC published a congratulatory communiqué lauding Ortega and recalling their historically close relationship. “In this moment of triumph how can we fail to recall that memo- rable scene in Caguán when you gave the Augusto Cesar San- dino medal to our unforgettable leader Manuel Marulanda. We have always carried pride in our chests for that deep honor which speaks to us of the broad vision of a man who considers himself to be a spiritual son of Bolivar.” Available from anncol.info/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=695:saludo-a-daniel-orteg a&catid=71:movies&Itemid=589.
100. Reyes was killed a few days after the CCB assembly when the Colombian military bombed his camp, which was in Ec- uadoran territory. The bombing of La Angostura caused a severe diplomatic rift between Colombia and Ecuador, but the raid also yielded several hundred gigabytes of data from the computers Reyes kept in the camp, where he lived in a hardened structure and had been stationary for several months.
101. Farah and Simpson.
102. “U.S. Counternarcotics Cooperation with Venezuela Has Declined,” Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, July 2009, GAO-09-806.
103. Ibid., p. 12.
104. For a more detailed look at this debate, see Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance? in which the author has a chapter arguing for the view that Iran is a significant threat.
105. “‘Jackal’ book praises bin Laden,” BBC News, June 26, 2003.
106. See, for example, Associated Press, “Chávez: ‘Carlos the Jackal’ a ‘Good Friend’,” June 3, 2006.
107. Raúl Reyes (trans.) and Hugo Chávez, “My Struggle,” from a March 23, 1999, letter to Illich Ramirez Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” from Ven- ezuelan president Hugo Chávez, in response to a previous let- ter from Ramirez, who is serving a life sentence in France for murder. Harper’s, October 1999, available from harpers.org/ archive/1999/10/0060674.
108. In addition to Operation TITAN, there have been numer- ous incidents in the past 18 months in which operatives being directly linked to Hezbollah have been identified or arrested in Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Aruba, and elsewhere in Latin America.
109. Verstrynge, born in Morocco to Belgian and Spanish parents, began his political career on the far right of the Spanish political spectrum as a disciple of Manuel Fraga, and served in a national and several senior party posts with the Alianza Popular. By his own admission he then migrated to the Socialist Party, but never rose through the ranks. He is widely associated with radical anti-globalization views and anti-U.S. rhetoric, repeatedly stating that the United States is creating a new global empire and must be defeated. Although he has no military training or experience, he has written extensively on asymmetrical warfare.
110. Verstrynge., pp. 56-57.
111. Bartolomé. See also John Sweeny, “Jorge Verstrynge: The Guru of Bolivarian Asymmetric Warfare,” September 9, 2005 available from www.vcrisis.com; and “Troops Get Provocative Book,” Miami Herald, November 11, 2005.
112. “Turkey holds suspicious Iran-Venezuela shipment,” Associated Press, June 1, 2009, available from www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3651706,00.html.
113. For a fuller examination of the use of websites, see Doug- las Farah, “Islamist Cyber Networks in Spanish-Speaking Latin America,” North Miami, FL: Western Hemisphere Security Anal- ysis Center, Florida International University, September 2011.
114. “Hispan TV begins with ‘Saint Mary’,” Tehran Times, December 23, 2011, available from www.tehrantimes.com/arts-and- culture/93793-hispan-tv-begins-with-saint-mary.
115. For a more complete look at Iran’s presence in Latin America, see Douglas Farah, “Iran in Latin America: An Over- view,” Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Summer 2009 (to be published as a chapter in Iran in Latin America: Threat or Axis of Annoyance? Cynthia J. Arnson et al., eds., 2010. For a look at the anomalies in the economic relations, see also Farah and Simpson.
116. “Treasury Targets Hizbullah in Venezuela,” Washing- ton, DC: United States Department of Treasury Press Center, June 18, 2008, available from www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releas- es/Pages/hp1036.aspx.
117. Orlando Cuales, “17 arrested in Curacao on suspicion of drug trafficking links with Hezbollah,” Associated Press, April 29, 2009.
118. United States District Court, Southern District of New York, The United States of America v Jamal Yousef, Indictment, July 6, 2009.
119. For a look at how the Ecuadoran and Venezuelan banks function as proxies for Iran, particularly the Economic Devel- opment Bank of Iran, sanctioned for its illegal support of Iran’s nuclear program, and the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, see Farah and Simpson.
120. Office of the Spokesman, “Seven Companies Sanctioned Under Amended Iran Sanctions Act,” Washington, DC: U.S. De- partment of State, May 24, 2011, available from www.state.gov/r/ pa/prs/ps/2011/05/164132.htm.
121. Russia Izvestia Information, September 30, 2008, and Agence France Presse, “Venezuela Wants to Work With Russia on Nuclear Energy: Chávez,” September 29, 2008.
122. Simon Romero, “Venezuela Says Iran is Helping it Look for Uranium,” New York Times, September 25, 2009.
123. Nikolai Spassky, “Russia, Ecuador strike deal on nuclear power cooperation,” RIA Novosti, August 21, 2009.
124. José R. Cárdenas, “Iran’s Man in Ecuador,” Foreign Pol- icy, February 15, 2011, available from shadow.foreignpolicy.com/ posts/2011/02/15/irans_man_in_ecuador.
125. The primary problem has been the inability of the Colom- bian government to deliver promised services and infrastructure after the military has cleared the area. See John Otis, “Decades of Work but No Land Titles to Show for It,” GlobalPost, Novem- ber 30, 2009. For a more complete look at the challenges posed by the reemergence and adaptability of armed groups, see Fundación Arco Iris, Informe 2009: El Declive de la Seguridad Democratica? (Re- port 2009: The Decline of Democratic Security?), available from www. nuevoarcoiris.org.co/sac/?q=node/605.