Colombia is a country of instability, whether it be in terms of politics, society, or their economic situation. Not only instable, the country is riddled with corruption, violence, and significant wage gaps. The discovery and exploitation of cocaine occured while this unrest became the most severe. This drug became the motor of an entire industry. In fact, cartels were formed, factories to refine the drug were constructed, and many people made enormous sums of money from this activity. Then came, as many call it, the drug war, that ripped apart the country in many senses of the term. The drug war was the peak of civilian violence in Colombia, and the reason for the overthrow of any sort of democratic government. As says Joel Gillin in his article Cocaine and Conflict in Colombia, “drug trafficking has played a mayor role in Colombia’s armed conflict as it has been the main source of income for the illegal armed groups involved in the violence”. The war was between the drug lords and the men in government, yet everyday civilians seemed the ones to pay the price. Others outside of Colombia, those who bought the cocaine, suffered as well. The topic is a very popular one with youth today, indeed, the show « Narcos » on Netflix is one of their top viewed, but the mechanics of such a trade are not so much unerstood or analysed, which is why I chose to write about it. Shockingly enough, this whole movement was led in big part by one man, Pablo Escobar and his cartel, the Medellin Cartel, who controlled over two thirds of the cocaine industry. What about cocaine is so appealing, and why did its exploitation run an entire country into the ground? In this paper we will first analyze what were the causes of the drug war, what the drug war within Colombia, and finally its consequences later on, not only on Colombia but the rest of the world.
Colombia has a history of drug trafficking and the discovery of cocaine and crack cocaine would give it world-renowned notoriety. Since the mid-1800’s , Colombia was a dominant player in the Latin American drug circle, but its largest export and product was Marijuana, a more docile and less harmful drug than Cocaine. Cocaine in its various forms is derived from the coca plant, which is native to the high mountain ranges of South America. The coca leaves were used by natives of this region and acted upon the user as a stimulant. The stimulating effects of the drug increase breathing which increases oxygen intake. This afforded native laborers of the region the stamina to perform their duties in the thin air at high altitudes. A supervisor of a marijuana production plant that was attacked by government officials was the sole survivor of this attack; he would go on to discover how to make the “white powder” in the 1960’s, which would become a larger problem than marijuana ever had, especially when the concept of crack cocaine was developed in the late 1970’s. The process of turning cocaine into crack cocaine is not hard, according to cocaine.com, “crack is the hard form of cocaine that develops when the drug is mixed with water and other solvents and then cooked into a hard, rock form. The drug is still highly potent, very powerful and extremely addicting despite the chemical changes that take place when it is cooked. In fact, crack cocaine is actually more powerful than powder cocaine, causes physical dependence to set in more quickly and is far more dangerous than the powder counterpart”. Given its highly mentally and physically addictive properties as well as its sought-out side effects, including bursts of energy or confidence, appetite suppression, a higher ability to concentrate make it a low-cost product at a very high demand. The cultivation of coca plants became therefore very attractive to Colombian workers. In fact, an urge to get involved in drug trafficking was a common one in the people of Colombia, because the political climate was full of turmoil, and as a result the few jobs open to the general people were not ideal and low paying. The drug industry before cocaine provided an income nearly five times higher than the average Colombian, but when cocaine was introduced, the gap was doubled. Many Colombians did not see any other way to acquire currency and lead a better life than by participating in illegal activities, because all other sections of their government and consequently their job market was corrupt. Politically, the Liberals and Conservatives opposed not only eachother but also faced many violent and dangerous enemies: the many guerrilla groups formed over the years such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (EPL), and left-wing M-19 guerrilla group. Assassinations of political men become regular occurrences as well as massive urban riots and, subsequently, periods of civil strife. The guerrilla groups performed these assassinations and went so far as to seize the Justice Court. These structural problems mean that, as Joel Gillin says in his online article “Cocaine and Conflict in Colombia”, the government was formed of “weak institutions failed to adequately respond to the phenomenon. They were unable to provide sufficient economic opportunities for those eventually drawn into the trade nor law enforcement to combat it”. Earning an honest living seemed painful and unfair, when the difference in income and levels of power was so significant. The sanctions on the production and trade of marijuana were not heavy or frequent enough to dissuade starving civilians to join, and the drug lords at the top remained unpunished. There was therefore a sort of subliminal encouragement to join the prominent and affluent world of the drug trade, as government intervention was minimal and only performed in displays of violence. The people, starving, struggling to support their families, would do nearly anything to earn money. Underlying unrest in the structure of the country, such as political and governmental corruption and economic recession all but promulgated the popularity of the drug industry, and when a new product arrived on the market that was said to have a profit nearly ten times as high as marijuana, civilians rushed to participate, either by producing or smuggling. Peru, Bolivia and Colombia became the three largest cultivators of coca plants, as shows the graph below which provides information on the number of hectares dedicated to coca plant cultivation per country in the Andean region from 1988 to 2005, according to the State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports. The specific values are given below the graph. .
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
Colombia 34,000 42,400 40,100 37,500 37,100 39,700 44,700 50,900 57,200
Peru 115,530 121,685 121,300 120,800 129,100 108,800 108,600 115,300 94,400
Bolivia 48,925 52,900 50,300 47,900 45,500 47,200 48,100 48,600 48,100
Total 198,455 216,985 211,700 206,200 211,700 195,700 201,400 214,800 199,700
Values:
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Colombia 79,5000 101,800 122,500 136,200 169,800 144,400 113,850 114,000 144,000
Peru 68,8000 51,000 38,7000 34,100 34,000 36,600 31,150 27,500 38,000
Bolivia 45,800 38,000 21,800 14,600 19,900 21,600 23,200 24,600 26,500
Total 194,100 190,800 183,000 184,900 223,700 202,000 168,200 166,100 208,500
This graph shows the nearly exponential rapidity at which coca cultivation increased in Colombia, beginning in 1993 with 39,700 hectares, representing only 20% of the total number of hectares cultivated, to 169,800 hectares, representing 75% of the total. In less than ten years, Colombia’s cultivation area was multiplied by 4,3. This growing industry gave cartels more power and gravely worsened colombia’s political and social climate.
With the growth of the cocaine industry, violence and dissention in Colombia became worse than ever, as the country was caught in a power struggle between many actors. Indeed, drug cartels were gaining more and more importance, as the amount of money coming in was exponentially higher than at any other time period because of the high demand for cocaine in the world. For example, the Medellin cartel, headed by Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa Vasquez brothers, not only operated in Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Colombia and Honduras, but also in the United States, Canada and Europe. In fact, at the height of its operations, the Medellín Cartel smuggled tons of cocaine per week and brought in more than $60 million per day. At one point, the Medellín Cartel also supplied 80% of the global cocaine market. Therefore, rivalries between cartels became increasingly intense, as more money and more power was up for grabs. These cartels resorted more often to not to violence to resolve their issues. One of the Medellin Cartel’s biggest rivals was the Cali Cartel, and these two groups used spying tactics to intercept each other’s shipments, engaged in shoot outs in the streets of major cities such as Bogota, and plotted to kill each others leaders. These shootouts and plots led to numerous civilian casualties, and as the frequency of these violent acts rose, so did civilian deaths and damages. This is especially true as the cartels began to attack in public areas, such as the car bombing of Antonio Roldan Betancur, governor of Antioquia in July 1989, or the assassination of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Minister of Justice in April 1984 by two gunmen who approached his vehicle in traffic and opened fire. The cartel conducted several hundred similar assassinations and torture plots throughout the country as a means of intimidation. Whoever stood against them was at ris,k along with their families. Some estimates put the total around 3,500 killed, not counting civilians caught in the crossfire, and including over 500 police officers in Medellín. Since judiciary power is so limited in Colombia, there is no way to determine a complete list, which could be much longer. In fact, during Escobar's day, the murder rate in Medellin was the highest in the world. And yet, Escobar maintained an image of "Robin Hood" to many locals by building low-income housing, handing out money in Medellin slums and appearing throughout the city accompanied by Catholic priests. Escobar is voted to hold a seat in Congress but Colombia's Minister of Justice would immediately drive him out in 1983, and later would be executed for this digression by Escobar’s hitmen in 1984. Revenge was common; for example, Escobar also had Superior Judge Myriam Rocio Velez killed by gunmen shortly before she was to sentence Escobar on the assassination of presidential candidate Galan, in September 1992. The cartels therefore had the power to muder and commit atrocious crimes, and then escape punishment. They had many resources, including death squads like MAS (Muerte a Secuestradores or "Death to Kidnappers”) and Los Extraditables ("The Extraditionables"). They also employed British, Israeli, and U.S. military to teach at paramilitary training centers. These death squads were therefore in top shape, and regularly committed kidnappings, murders, and Narco-terrorist actions against mostly community leaders, elected officials, and farmers to preserve the interest of the cartels. It is even believed and still debated today whether the cartels were behind the raid of 1985 by the M-19 guerrilla group into the Colombian Supreme Court in Bogotá, leading to the Palace of Justice siege. The Medellin cartel evidently had enough power to overthrow police forces and even one of the highest political institutions of government. In fact, when talk of extradition began in 1981, Escobar offered to pay off Colombia’s entire foreign debt of 20 billion to avoid extradition, which would allow Colombian criminals to be tried by the United States Justice system. He essentially had enough money to buy out the entire country. Those who supported the implementation of extradition of Colombian nationals to the U.S. were subject to extreme cartel violence. A small victory for the government was forcing the cartels to go into hiding and leaving the country, but this did not even last a year. The cartels returned, and with heightening pressure from the US to persecute the cartels, there came even stronger push back, such as the Medellin cartels public threats to murder five Americans for every Colombian extradition. The country was in complete uproar and chaos, ranking in the top ten most dangerous countries in the world until the early 2000’s according to the Global Peace Index. Colombia was in such a state of urgency that the Cali cartel even teamed up with local police and other groups such as Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), as well as certain U.S. troops to bring and end to Pablo Escobar. Los Pepes was formed in1992, after Escobar murdered Gerardo Moncada and Fernando Galeano, two important figures in the Medellin Cartel. Indeed, the violence was not only between cartels, but also within these cartels. The violence in Colombia is also due to guerilla movements such as the FARC who claim to be advocating for the rights of the poor population of Colombia to protect them from government violence and to provide social justice through communism. The Colombian government claims to be fighting for order and stability, and claims to seek to protect the rights and interests of its citizens. The paramilitary groups, often funded by cartels, claim to be reacting to perceived threats by guerrilla movements. Both guerrilla and paramilitary groups have been accused of engaging in drug trafficking and terrorism. All of the parties engaged in the conflict have been criticized for numerous human rights violations.
The severity of this violence in Colombia never reached the same heights abroad, but the effects of the drug are still devastating. Colombian drug cartels began exportaing cocaine in large volumes beginning in the 1970’s. For a time, the Medellín Cartel supplied at least 84%-90% of the United States. By the means of drug mules, who would body pack and risk their lives for the little money they received in return, large amounts of cocaine were transferred into the U.S., starting with Florida, notably Miami. During the 1970’s, Miami and South Florida experienced a significant spike in violence and murders due to the cocaine influx. Outraged by the drug trade's increasing violence in their city, Miami citizens lobby the federal government for help. Reagan responds by creating a cabinet-level task force, the Vice President's Task Force on South Florida. Locals saw the effects of the drugs long before authorities recognized the problem. It took a deadly shootout between Colombian traffickers in broad daylight at Miami's Dadeland Mall to bring the savagery of the Colombian cocaine lords to the attention of U.S. law enforcement. FInally, in 1982, the largest cocaine seizure ever is made from a Miami International Airport hangar. 3,906 pounds of cocaine, valued at over $100 million wholesale, is seized. This permanently alters U.S. law enforcement's approach towards the drug trade, as the shipment is so large that it is evident that drug lords are working together, and that the operation is at a very advanced stage. The U.S. handled this situation in a negative way mostly as their reaction came too late. The problem of cocaine was only affecting the population, killing more people and encouraging violent crime on U.S. territory, but the U.S. only begins to truly notice the problem when discrepancies begin to show in their economic reports. The term is “ghost money”, and the reports showed that a significant part of the United States population’s expenditures were not reflected in U.S. territorial economy. The money was not flowing back into the U.S. economy, so there was a slow down in growth. The government knew the money had to be flowing elsewhere; and that elsewhere was to Colombian drug lords. This is the final straw that makes the U.S. react in a sizeable way. Many people critize the United States for this late reaction as it seemed as though they valued economic growth over the safety of their citizens, since it was money, not violence, that triggered the government. In 1971, Nixon declares the war on drugs in general, and finally in 1982, headed by George Bush, the South Florida Drug Task Force combines agents from the DEA, Customs, FBI, ATF, IRS, Army and Navy to mobilize against drug traffickers. Undercover operations began as agents were sent to infiltrate cartels, and the crackdown on drugs in general became more intense as security measures in airports and penalties for those caught in possession of drugs become more severe. However, agents risk their lives, and in 1985, DEA agent Enrique Camerena is kidnapped and murdered in Mexico on orders of the Guadalajara and Medellin Cartel. The United States must respond to this violence, especially after crack cocaine begins to become popular in New York that same year. As a response, in 1986, Reagan signs an enormous omnibus drug bill, which appropriates $1.7 billion to fight the drug crisis. $97 million is allocated to build new prisons, $200 million for drug education and $241 million for treatment. The bill also calls for the creation of mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses. Possession of at least one kilogram of heroin or five kilograms of cocaine is punishable by at least ten years in prison. In response to the crack epidemic, the sale of five grams of the drug leads to a mandatory five-year sentence. This response is set to contain the issue at home, but the United States now takes action abroad, on the territory of Colombia. They push the idea of extradition, and invade Panama, one of colombia’s drug trafficking allies, in 1989. All shipments through this area are therefore intercepted. The action taken toward the territory of Colombia is under the name of Plan Colombia, which Colombian President Andres Pastrana agrees to. Plan Colombia is the name of a United States military and diplomatic aid initiative aimed at combating Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups in Colombian territory. This plan originated with a $7.5 billion dollar budget, but U.S. brought $1 billion in aid to Colombia. In all, the United States will have spent trillions of dollars on this war on drugs that many consider a failure. Indeed, one measure was to have helicopters spray toxic herbicides across rural regions attempting in Colombia to destroy coca plants, with unintended consequences. "It was bad for health outcomes in the places where they were spraying, creating skin diseases and rashes," Vargas told website Al Jazeera. "It increased violence where there were eradications because the rebels didn't want to lose their sources of finance." 14 years and $9.3 billion after the inception of Plan Colombia, the production of cocaine still remains quite prevalent, as in 2015, Colombian coca farmers use approximately an accumulated area of between 69,000 hectares (266.5 mi2) and 112,000 hectares (432 mi2) to produce the country’s cocaine, which in 2014 potentially around 487 tons, more than half of what is consumed globally. Additionally, The United States of America is still the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs. Colombian drug lords and producers are finding ways around the measures put in place by Plan Colombia, resorting to smaller shipments by submarine, for example. They also recover lost or fumigated territory quite quickly, notably because of the lack of state control over these spaces. Colombian drug traffickers of today are not focused solely on the US market, which is dominated by the Mexicans. Indeed, the problem did not go away, it just switched countries, as now the U.S. is faced with Mexican cartels and drug lords such as the Juarez Cartel and El Chapo. Colombian drug lords have been developing new markets in Europe, once again taking their problematic business elsewhere, transferring the problem elsewhere. Many work with the Italian mafia, or have set up operations in other Latin American countries, taking advantage of the huge Brazilian domestic market or the growing one of Argentina. According to Business Insider, experts say that Colombian traffickers under the microscope have rerouted the drug trade through Mexico, and have increasingly formed allies within Colombia's government which has made figures harder to report. However, there are some lasting benefits of Plan Colombia, albeit some numbers given by Colombian government officials are suspected to be embellished or doctored.
Since 2002 the violence in Colombia decreased significantly, with some paramilitary groups demobilizing as part of a controversial peace process headed by President Alvaro Uribe and the guerrillas lost control of much of the territory they had once dominated. Colombia achieved a notable decrease in cocaine production, leading White House drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske to announce that Colombia is no longer the world's biggest producer of cocaine, as of 2011. The plan decreased the amount of Colombian land used in coca cultivation, but the price and purity of drugs on US streets – key figures for measuring the effectiveness of counternarcotics operations – remained virtually unchanged.