El Centro

The Coming Crime Wars by Robert Muggah and John P. Sullican – Foreign Policy

Wars are on the rebound. There are twice as many civil conflicts today, for example, as there were in 2001. And the number of nonstate armed groups participating in the bloodshed is multiplying. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), roughly half of today’s wars involve between three and nine opposing groups. Just over 20 percent involve more than 10 competing blocs. In a handful, including ongoing conflicts in Libya and Syria, hundreds of armed groups vie for control. For the most part, these warring factions are themselves highly fragmented, and today’s warriors are just as likely to be affiliated with drug cartels, mafia groups, criminal gangs, militias, and terrorist organizations as with armies or organized rebel factions.

This cocktail of criminality, extremism, and insurrection is sowing havoc in parts of Central and South America, sub-Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Not surprisingly, these conflicts are defying conventional international responses, such as formal cease-fire negotiations, peace agreements, and peacekeeping operations. And diplomats, military planners, and relief workers are unsure how best to respond. The problem, it seems, is that while the insecurity generated by these new wars is real, there is still no common lexicon or legal framework for dealing with them. Situated at the intersection of organized crime and outright war, they raise tricky legal, operational, and ethical questions about how to intervene, who should be involved, and the requisite safeguards to protect civilians…

Read on.

No Peace in Our Time in Colombia – Wall Street Journal Editorial

Fewer than three years after Colombia’s oldest guerrilla group signed a peace agreement with the government, the terror leaders have said never mind. In a 32-minute video broadcast last month, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander Iván Márquez called for a “new phase of the armed struggle.” By his side were FARC commanders Jesús Santrich and Hernán Dario Velásquez —better known as the bloodthirsty El Paisa—and gun-toting grunts.

The Colombian government called the statement “very worrying” but President Iván Duque has played down its importance. “Colombians must be clear that we are not facing a new guerrilla, but confronting the criminal threats of a gang of narco-terrorists,” Mr. Duque said. He blamed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro for giving them “safe harbor.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Mr. Duque’s comment: “We strongly repudiate recent calls by some individuals to abandon the FARC’s commitments under the 2016 peace accord.”

The trouble is that Mr. Márquez and Mr. Santrich aren’t “some individuals.” They are top FARC leaders and were key negotiators in Havana when the agreement was sealed with the government of former president Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.

It’s doubtful there was ever a FARC commitment to peace…

Read on.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez Worked to Flood U.S. With Cocaine, U.S. Prosecutors Say by Juan Forero and José de Córdoba – Wall Street Journal

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the mid-2000s ordered his top lieutenants to work with Colombian Marxist guerrillas to flood the U.S. with cocaine in his government’s efforts to combat the Bush administration, according to U.S. documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal that shed new light on the leftist regime’s struggle with Washington.

The documents, prepared by federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York, outline for the first time the possible role of Mr. Chávez, an icon of the Latin American left who died from cancer in 2013, in drug trafficking. They assert that several leaders who served Mr. Chávez and remain in key posts in Venezuela’s regime today wielded cocaine trafficking as a weapon against their ideological adversary, the U.S.

In 2005, Mr. Chávez convened a small group of his top officials to discuss plans to ship cocaine to the U.S. with help from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said a participant in the meeting who, at the time, was a justice on Venezuela’s supreme court, according to the papers…

Read on.

Ex-FARC Mafia: Colombia’s Criminal Army Settling Down in Venezuela by Venezuela Investigative Unit - InSight Crime

The announcement in late August that three important former leaders of the demobilized FARC were returning to war did not only threaten the fragile Colombian peace agreement but raised questions about the power the ex-FARC Mafia have in neighboring Venezuela.

Historically, Colombian guerrilla groups have used Venezuelan territory to regroup and find shelter due to former governments essentially turning a blind eye. But the situation has now shifted with dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) and their leaders being welcomed with open arms. 

While the coca plantations they control remain in Colombia, Venezuela may become the base of operations for the new FARC offshoot led by Luciano Marín Arango, alias “Iván Márquez,” Seuxis Pausias Hernández Solarte, alias “Jesús Santrich,” and Hernán Darío Velásquez Saldarriaga, alias “El Paisa.”…

Read on.

SWJ El Centro Fellow Dr. Max G. Manwaring has a new book out: Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape: Lessons from the Past and Present.

Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape: Lessons from the Past and Present

Max G. Manwaring

Praeger, June 2019: 173 Pages

This book will help civilian and military leaders, opinion makers, scholars, and interested citizens come to grips with the realities of the twenty-first-century global security arena by dissecting lessons from both the past and the present.

This book sets out to accomplish four tasks: first, to outline the evolution of the national and international security concept from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the present; second, to examine the circular relationship of the elements that define contemporary security; third, to provide empirical examples to accompany the discussion of each element—security, development, governance, and sovereignty; and fourth, to argue that substantially more sophisticated stability-security concepts, policy structures, and policy-making precautions are required in order for the United States to play more effectively in the global security arena.

Case studies provide the framework to join the various chapters of the book into a cohesive narrative, while the theoretical linear analytic method it employs defines its traditional approach to case studies. For each case study it discusses the issue in context, findings and outcomes of the issue, and conclusions and implications. Issue and Context sections outline the political-historical situation and answers the "What?" question; Findings and Outcome sections answer the "Who?", "Why?", "How?", and "So What?" questions; and Conclusions and Implications sections address Key Points and Lessons.

Features

• Addresses the changing nature of the contemporary global security landscape in an illuminating introductory chapter
• Clearly demonstrates the evolving nature of global security through case studies
• Takes a linear analytic approach, with a vignette that examines an internal security situation accompanying each chapter
• Addresses the major gaps in the national and international security literature