Caption Adopted from SETA: THE PYD/PKK’S DRUG TRAFFICKING & TURKEY’S WAR ON NARCO-TERRORISM ÜMIT TETIK, KUTLUHAN GÖRÜCÜ
By Chen Williams
The definition for Narco-terrorism is essentially the connection between drug trafficking and terrorism, as well as lenses in framing the use of narcotics in geopolitics. Initially, it refers to terrorist organizations involved in or profiting from the drug trade to finance their activities and influence. Obviously, the detrimental receipts would include immense threats to security, governance, international cooperation, and human rights on a global scale.
The desire for globalization without absolute enforcement and competent legislative structures has made it easier for loopholes to form extensions of drug, human, and arms trafficking networks. Almost every country in the world faces security and drug issues, if not both. Historically, Colombia and Mexico are two of the major countries that face these kinds of dilemmas, judging from their role in drug production and arms dealing.
Fentanyl has been an epidemic in the United States that conquered public health emergency. Allegedly much of the fentanyl found in the U.S. is unsurprisingly produced in clandestine labs in Mexico often with precursor chemicals sourced from China. These drugs are then trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border and some theorists suggest a geopolitical agenda at play. Fentanyl is a robust synthetic opioid markedly more potent than heroin and morphine, highly addictive, and dangerous. Often, it is mixed with other drugs, sometimes without the user’s knowledge, leading to a higher risk of overdose, hence the dead zombie state users are consumed in.
Africa of course, is struggling with the same poison. Zimbabwe’s most deadly and abused drug is Crystal Meth (Mutoriro), Sierra Leone’s communities are in dire social situations because much of the youth and adults are getting hooked on Kush, a marijuana joint mixed with different kinds of synthetic drugs and the craziest recipe consisting of sulphur sourced from dry human bones. Yes, graves are being dug up as reverse burial services.
Al-Shabaab, the terror group from Somalia, has been connected to drug trafficking, especially regarding the Khat plant, a stimulant plant widely consumed in the Horn of Africa. They protect drug shipments and tax the Khat trade.
West Africa has become a significant transit hub for cocaine and heroin, with various criminal organizations operating in the region. The porous borders and weak governance in many West African countries facilitate these operations by allowing traffickers to manoeuvre freely and evade law enforcement.
Terrorist groups engage in drug trafficking ventures that manifest in various ways through direct involvement in drug production and distribution or through partnerships with drug cartels. The historical reliance of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on drug profits to fund their insurgency is an example out of many. The U.S. brought narcotics into its national security agenda and linked drug trafficking to the broader issues of crime, disorder, and terrorism.
Traditional state-centric approaches to combating narco-terrorism have often rested on repression and enforcement. Yet these strategies can be one-dimensional in the complex socio-economic dynamics that drive drug production and traffic, which include corrupt government officials, progressing cartels, blackmail, and the growing global demand for narcotics and addictive substances.
A solution to drug trafficking at its roots will honestly take a while with needed competence from international institutions such as the United Nations, African Union, UN-Security Council, BRICS, Peace and Security Council, and standard ICC and ICJ prosecuting systems. It is a serious global infection that needs quick operations and campaigns because, alongside these terrorist groups, stands the global pharmaceutical industry.
The pharmaceutical industry has been high-jacked for the longest, since the silencing of doctors or traditional healers and swindling of patent ownership that pose a threat to their multi-billion, if not trillion, industry. Nearly everyone on earth has either received a vaccination or consumes medication, supplements, or performance enhancers on a daily basis. Alleged conspiracy theorists such as Russell Brand suggest with a fair argument that the medical industry is using people as their guinea pigs and weekly salary vessels.
In a time where the dynamics of illicit networks are being shaped increasingly by globalization, meeting the challenges thrown up by narco-terrorism would increasingly call for innovative policy responses and increased international collaboration because the complex connections among drug trafficking, terrorism, and the security of the state always profit that certain percentage and affect the simple majority.
The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, led by Joseph Kony, has also been accused of various crimes to finance its insurgency against the Ugandan government, including drug trafficking. Such groups have taken advantage of the situation of chaos in northern Uganda and its neighbours to establish networks for drug smuggling, with much relevance to the broader regional instability. The LRA’s activities have entailed kidnappings and forced recruitment, tactics employed to keep their control and garner revenue through illicit activities, including human and arms trade.
The drug trade leads communities into chaos, women and children are drugged, raped, and exploited because of the kind of people that sell and consume drugs, and of course the young boys and men are recruited into savagery and addiction. Human trafficking and arms dealing also become a thing, these are illegal enterprises that complement each other and cause similar if not the same disasters. Powerful drug cartels, such as the Medellín and Cali cartels, Colombia has been long noted for its violence and terrorism related to drugs, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.
Hezbollah a Lebanese militant group, has been linked to narcotics trafficking into Europe and other regions. Drug trafficking in the Middle East involves a variety of criminal organizations that can develop ties with terrorist groups and further complicate the security situation in this region and beyond.
Afghanistan being one of the world’s largest producers of opium, and some Arab states have been linked with narco-terrorism, especially in their relations with Russia and other countries. The Taliban, which has controlled significant portions of Afghanistan, has traditionally funded its operations through the opium trade. This has implications for regional security, including threats to Russia, which has faced rising heroin trafficking from Afghanistan.
Drug trafficking, with the involvement of the Taliban, was interpreted as one of the means of providing financial support to their insurgency against the Afghani government and foreign forces, including those from Russia. The revenue generated from opium production has allowed the Taliban to maintain its military capabilities and influence, where are NATO and the UN when crucially needed?
Visit:
U.S Department of State: Sponsors of Terrorism; Bureau of Counterterrorism-https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/
Angela S. Burger . Conundrum: Illicit Narcotics and Theoretical Approaches in International Politics University of Wisconsin Colleges Marathon, in Wausau
Mexican drug cartels created their own fentanyl crisis https://youtu.be/GYbFc91SJHE?si=RyPoCZrK7hiSTVaY
International Studies Association 40th Annual Convention Washington, D.C. 1999 https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/conf/bua01/