Non-State Actors & Non-Military Security Guest lecture on Violent non-state actors

1. Non-State Actors & Non-Military Security Guest lecture on Violent non-state actors An Vranckx, University of Ghent - Belgium Conflict Research Group & Third World Studies Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

2. Programme • Classification of Non State Actors (NSA) • Expectations about the violent type • Where to look for the violent type? • Not only in ‘normal armed conflicts’ • Case description of violent NSA encountered in a few such locations Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

3. Programme • Classification of NSA • Expectations about the violent type • Where to look for the violent type? • Not only in ‘normal armed conflicts’ • Case descriptions of violent NSA • Typology of NSAs • Income (‘conflict financing’) • Response by (which) state & NSA? • Ideas for discussion later on Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

4. Programme • Classification of NSA • Expectations about the violent type • Where to look for the violent type? • Not only in ‘normal armed conflicts’ • Case descriptions of violent NSA • Typology of NSAs • Income (‘conflict financing’) • Response by (which) state & NSA? • Ideas for discussion later on Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

5. Analytic suggestion -> classification • NSA as organized groups • Indulge in activities that are • not initiated by a State • not (entirely) financed by a State • not regulated by a State • These come in different types, which we can categorize with respect to • motives: for profit / non-profit • means: legal / illegal -> Obtain a grid or analytic quadrant Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

6. Mapping NSA with reference to their means & motives Non-profit Legal Illegal For profit Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

7. -> Analytic quadrant Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

8. Where to draw the line(s)?~ which legal system defines? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

9. Use this map to • Render explicit one’s expectations about specific NSA types • +/- profit • legality of the means to meet that motive • Compare these type’s expected grid-positions with empirical findings on concrete examples of these NSA types • Plot these NSA’s ‘movement’ or dynamics over time • Can an NSA stretch out over more than one quadrant corner? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

10. Position (in)security-related NSA types on the grid (e.g. from this course programme) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

11. Today’s focus : NSA that undermine state monopoly tend to be illegal PMCs Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

12. Not all illegal NSA are violent • Illegal NSA not necessarily violent • Falung Gong meditation groups are illegal by Chinese Law • Discrete white collar fraud corps don’t do ‘wet jobs’ <-> Today’s contribution does focus on the violent variety • organized crime syndicates • ‘revolutionary acronym groups’ • death squads • Cf. Bruce Campbell & Arthur Brenner: Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability -> excerpt @ UGLA Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

13. Where to find that type nowadays? • Clue from Mary Kaldor (1999) Balkan Wars-informed definition of the global era’s new form of organized violence, that is a combination of • ‘old war’ armed combat • massive violations of human rights • organized crime = Post-Westfalian state context, where armed conflicts are waged for more than political motives, by more than (agents of) the state • State armies supplied by state funds <-> Non-state actors involved in armed conflict live off ...? - Cf. KLA’s drug trafficking financed its part in Bosnian war Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

14. Kosovo Liberation Army ‘in conflict’ Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

15. Kosovo Liberation Army post-conflict trajectory Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

16. Where to find ‘organized violence’ now? • Armed conflict • “> 1000 ‘conflict-related deaths’ / 1 year / location” <-> circular reasoning <-> size of country / population disregarded (we’d have missed the Kosovo war & the KLA!) -> Alternative indicator for (in)security • # intentional violent deaths / year / location / 100000 inhabitants -> where were the globe’s highest annual homicide concentrations being recorded in the past few years? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

17. Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

18. More than the ‘normal armed conflicts’ • Apart from Iraq, no place high on the 2006 graph commonly recognized to endure a ‘real armed conflict’ • Colombian exception (<-> Colombian government) • What about other ‘real war’ countries? • No accurate data after 2002 on conflict areas in Africa, such as Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola • Graph comparative overview for 2002 -> • All data on ‘latest available year’ (2006-2008) compared with last recorded African ‘normal armed conflict’ situations (2002) -> -> Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

19. # homicides/100000 in 2002 Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

20. Latest available data # homicides/100000 = 2006-2008, unless indicatedotherwise Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

21. Observations & assumptions • Apart from Russia, all violent hotspots located in the Global South • Relatively short blibs on the homicide radar in Iraq & African wars <-> Chronic violence epidemics in Latin America (+ South Africa) • peak high(er) as compared to ‘normal conflicts’ blibs • ‘chronic’ Latin American cases include holiday destinations, such as Jamaica, Belize, Mexico, Brazil & Dominican Republic • Causes of violence in Latin America? • Can we rule out agents of the state are agents of violence? • Are agents of the state unable to enforce monopoly on violence & thus ‘leave the door open for all sorts of violent NSA’? • If so: where, since when & how comes? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

22. Rule out the violent state agent hypothesis • Military dictatorships enforced state monopoly on violence rather convincingly: State wolf stops others to bite • South Cone, infamous for state terror, is still the least violent part of Latin America • Unelected military dictators disappeared from area (- Cuba, unviolent) • Violent NSA proliferate were state has grown weakest? E.g. Chile 1973-1991 under Pinochet State-organized forced disappearance of +/- 3000 political opponents Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

23. More hypotheses on Latin American violence • Interstate wars? • Not in Latin America for long time -> modest defence spending • Internal wars? • not recognized to be on in all of the most violent spots: • El Salvador, until 1992 (‘in peace’ yet most violent country)) • Colombia • violence peaked around 2002 (country-wide) • in last ranking among the least violent spots in the area -> ‘Overly-repressive’ state agents involved ‘at best’ nowadays • All remaining violence ‘organized’ by NSA? • Unorganised spouses killed 4000 Guatemalan women 2000-2007 Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

24. Focus on specific locations within Latin America • Have a closer look at & inventorize the violent NSA in • current & former most violent countries in the region • Colombia • El Salvador (& its Central American neighbours) • 2 most populous violent countries, that had no (recent) war • Mexico • Brazil Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

25. What to look for in each of these? • Determine nature of the violence on that ground • Including ‘history of violence’ (if there is one in view) • Identify local violent NSA(s) • Typology • Tease out the funding issue • ‘conflict financing -> plot their dynamics on the NSA quadrant model (+/- profit) • Indicate how (non-)state entities are responding to these NSA -> issues to bear in mind in discussion later on Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

26. Geographical support to Colombian case • North-west of South America • Population concentrated in urban centres, especially north-centre • Less than 5% in > half of territory (south east = jungle) • 7000 km +/- unpopulated frontiers • No paragons of order & control beyond these borders, either • > 3000 km of coast line • 2 oceans • short distance from thriving US market for illicit substances Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

27. Current Colombian violence • Country homicide average > homicide rates in largest cities • (remarkably: Bogotá 18/100000, Medellín 26/100000 in 2006) -> Rural areas & peripheral cities being the more violent, indicate • ‘territory still larger than the state’ • absence of state agents to stop ‘private justice’ in periphery • fight over ‘arable land’ • fight to control narcotics trafficking routes • Victims? • Victimizers? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

28. Victims • Rural homicide epidemics = instrument to a larger whole -> +/- 4 million Internally Displaced People + refugees elsewhere • peasants scared away from certain rural areas -> brought under turf control, e.g. trafficking routes • Rural peasants = main victims of homicides & internal displacements • State agents, such as soldiers, minor proportion of victims • notable exception in don Pablo’s Medellín until 1993 • soldiers began to do bulk of the dying from 2002 onwards • State agents victimizers in ‘not protecting’ rural population against violence committed by NSA -> Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

29. Guerrilla trajectories • Civil war 1948-1953 exodus from cities & uproots rural areas • Uprooted colonize remote peripheral land beyond state presence -> no option but to self-defend & ‘independent’ • Colombian state (+ US urge) ‘crack down’ early 1960s -> Survivors start revolutionary acronym groups • Ejercito de Liberación Nacional (ELN) • ° 1962, inspired & supported by Cuba • Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) • ° 1964, sovjet-style marxism • Ejercíto de Liberación del Pueblo (EPL) °1964 ~ Mao • Second generation guerrilla groups, e.g. M-19, mergers in part Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

30. Timeline on guerrilla ambitions • 1960s - 1980s • plethora of guerrilla groups dispersed over territory (+ cities) • small scale, modest needs, hardly ever appear from jungle turf -> state practically ‘’leaves them alone there’ • 1982 FARC explicitly formulates ‘national agenda’ • take over state & rebuild ~ revolutionary Russia/Cuba/China • Late 1990s • some groups able to move beyond guerrilla warfare, fortify their ‘urban militia’ & seriously undermine state apparatus • Current ambition = survive the state crack-down that began 2002 Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

31. Funding • Modest needs until 1980s, supplied by Moscow, Havana, Bejing • Additional funding from small-time crime: banks, cattle thieving • 1980s expansion of ambitions/agenda yet ideological funding dries -> Bankrolled instead by • setting up an extorsive ‘kidnap industry’ • target expats working for (European) construction companies • contracting services to drug production cartels • enforce space for illegal (trans)actions against state & against competing drug entrepreneurs -> becomming drug producing & trafficking NSA in own respect Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

32. Response • State response to guerrilla abuse unconvincing -> From 1970s, organisation & bankrolling of self-defense NSA by • cattle owners • drug cartels after 1982 Marta Ochoa kidnapping -> Plethora of self-defense groups spread out over territory • all outlawed by 1989 for committing abuses worse than guerrilla • coordinate under Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) umbrella structure from 1994 onwards -> +/- 20000 by 2002 • military-style battle against guerrilla • dirty, outlawed tactics against alleged guerrilla support base • infiltrate state’s powers (corruption, orchestrating votes, ...) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

33. Resolving the conflict - longer term effects • AUC self-defence pressure one among other factors that brought some (sections of some) guerrillas to demobilise in 1984-1994 • End of cold war that dried out funds -> added more motives • State policy of ‘negotiated outcome’ • prospect to participate in 1990-1991 consitituyente in capacity of legal social/political power groups -> More ‘politically geared’ (members of) guerrilla groups demobilised (the ‘doves’) while the ‘falcons’ stayed • brought groups on an ever less politically motivated track • now appear only in it for the money Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

34. Peace accord demobilisation trajectory(e.g. M-19, ‘doves’ from FARC & ELN) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

35. Over-all guerrilla trajectory 1960s- late 1980s current position Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

36. What about the AUC? • Demobilisation deal negotiated with government 2002-2005 • Get all ‘small fish’ out, under ‘alternative penal’ system • 18 month support & ‘vocational training’ • Big fish benefit from Peace & Justice law (voted 2005, open for all NSA), on condition they • confess all crimes • compensate victims financially • stop committing crimes, including drug traffickers • Unmet conditions -> normal criminals & extradited for narcotics • Some groups’ small fish re-emerge to enforce narcotics trade Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

37. (proto) AUC life-cycle pre 1989 current position Emergent groups = remaining frentes guerrilla acronyms Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

38. To conclude on Colombia • State/regime no longer undermined as such • What remains of different sorts of violent illegal NSA dedicated to enforcing ‘pockets of lawlessness’ within overall state structure that is left intact, by way of • violence • targetting unprotected population, especially in rural areas where state control/services/protection remain weak • corruption ($) -> compare to other violent spots in Latin America Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

39. War-torn weak state? Iraq? Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

40. Mexico, very close to the US border • Impressive state force deployment unable to prevent that +/- 5900 died in drug cartel-related executions in 2008 Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

41. Closer look at the place & its history • Violent & established type of NSA recognized in Mexican drug cartels • controlled routes for trafficking illicit South American narcotics to the lucrative US market from 1970s onwards • enforced trafficking turf against Mexican state • no need for alliances with revolutionary acronym groups or other ‘politically motivated’ NSAs • engaged in intra-cartel turf wars over routes control -> occasional executions, +/- 100/year in the early 2000s • +/- stable turf arrangement until 2007 -> Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

42. Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

43. Violence escalates from 2007 onwards • Calderon Administration ‘crack down’ zero tolerance policy • Record seizures & cartel kingpins arrested & extradited to US <-> Violence escalates -> 2700 cartel executed 2007, 5900 in 2008 • Second-in-command impose violently to become new leaders • Trafficking turfs redefined through inter-cartel violence -> ‘violent take-overs’, new alliances & competitors • Cartels target police, magistrates etc. • Indiscriminate violence used as a new ‘tool’ of fear • e.g. fragmentation grenade thrown into crowd in Morelia, 2008 • If ‘temporal violence’ was anticipated, it’s not being contained Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

44. WORLD BRIEFING | THE AMERICAS Mexico: Juárez Police Threatened By THEASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 21, 2009 On Wednesday, cardboard signs appeared taped to the doors and windows of businesses in Ciudad Juárez with handwritten messages warning that at least one police officer would be killed every 48 hours unless the police chief resigned. On Friday, gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard, leaving signs on their bodies saying they had fulfilled their promise. Hours later, the police chief, Roberto Orduña, resigned. More than 1,000 people, including more than 50 police officers, have been killed in Juárez in the past year as drug gangs battle one another for territory and to fight a nationwide crackdown. (Source, NYT) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

45. Ciudad Juarez Mexico Drug fighter killed after less than a day on jobA recently retired Mexican army general whose bullet-riddled body was found Tuesday near Cancun had taken over as the area's top antidrug official less than 24 hours earlier, officials said. (4 February) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

46. Senadores mexicanos piden armas para defenderse en guerra contra el narcotráfico Más de una veintena de legisladores mexicanos le pidieron al ministerio de Defensa que los autorice a portar armas de fuego como última defensa. Algunos de ellos reconocieron que ya van armados. (El Tiempo, 24/2/2009) Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

47. Agents of such violence • Some cartels have own enforcement squad ‘in house’ • East coast cartel(s) around the Gulf subcontract -> specialized illicit enforcement services entity: los Zetas • Recruit from police & army (pay better) -> easy access to arms • Apart from its illicitness, comparable to ‘legal’ PMCs • As of 2008 los Zetas became ‘disloyal’ to premier client (Gulf) -> Now take contracts from whichever cartel pays (best) • Compensate slow market in diversifying activities • Extorsion, kidnapping, arms & humans smuggling (into US) • Calderon’s crack down gets at them too (in Mexico) -> Expand safe houses network & recruit in Central America Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

48. Violence in Central America: Mara Salvatrucha & other street gangs Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

49. Peculiar history of the mara • Born from war-wary Salvadoran diaspora in Los Angeles in ‘80s • ‘small criminals’ in US jails uniting against Mexican ‘real thugs’ • Deported ‘back home’ from late ‘90s • Local security apparatus +/- uninformed, unprepared and incapable to stop deported gang members from transplanting the organisationS -> Generic term for street gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala & Honduras • Proliferation up to 5000 gangs that compete for turf on which to conduct illicit activities (extortion + drugs, arms & humans trafficking) • 35000 members in El Salvador • 80000 members in Honduras • 100000 members in Guatemala Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent

50. Maras as a violent NSA • Violence as a tool to ‘liberate’ space for profitable illicit activity • against state law enforcement • against competing gangs • No doubt about mara members’ involvement in both dying and killing • Central American ‘Hard Hand’ policies from late 1990s • Mara tattoos & dress code enough to get 12 year in Salvador jail <-> Maras respond with indiscriminate violence -> Reinforces view that maras are sole cause for violence epidemic • as no other in view Conflict Research Group | Universiteit Gent