Le rôle des drogues dans les conflits géopolitiques - le cas de la Chine et de la Colombie

Résumé du document

The role of drugs in geopolitical conflicts have always existed. They use drugs for different reasons and motivations but it depends mainly of the goals of the rivalries. The drugs have regularly been one of the main problems in our world. We can observe that even with all the punitions that are made against them such as prison, give money back to the state, and in some countries the death penalty, the result is still the same. They don't decrease, and in some countries it increases dramatically. You will ask me a question:"Why".

There are four main activities in Colombia. The first one, Industry, with a GDP of 36.6%, consists of textiles, garments, footwear, chemical, metal products, cement, beverages, wood products, electrical equipment, and machinery. They are mainly situated near the big cities where the population is abundant so that the workers can reach easily the factories. The second one, Agriculture, which has a GDP of 9.6%, correspond to cut flowers, cotton, sugarcane, livestock, rice, tobacco, potatoes, soybeans, sorghum...

The cultivated land is 8.2% of the total area in Colombia. It is important to note that there are two types of agriculture, the legal one producing cocoa beans, meat cultivation... and the illegal one producing drugs (see figure 7 page 35). The third activity, known as the Services, is essentially the government, personal and other services such as Financial services, commerce. It represents a GDP of 54% and so the most important activity in Colombia. It has no specific areas in Colombia.

The last movement is Trade. It consists of imports and exports to the United States of America, Venezuela, Ecuador, Switzerland, Peru, Chile resulting to a gain of more or less $78 billion (the illegal trade including drug trafficking is not counted into this amount of money).

Colombia is one of Latin America's ancient and most durable democracies, thus the armed conflict is the longest-running in all the America's history, creating Colombia a reputation as one of the most brutal nations in the world. In the last 100 years, Colombian political culture had often been at war. On the April 9, 1948, a turning point occurred.

The presidential candidate, Jorge Gaitàn (see figure 10 page 36-37), popular leader for the Colombian Liberal Party, was assassinated in the capital city, Bogota. This action led to fury and the eruption across the country: riots happened in the metropolitan areas, and through the country liberals and conservatives started to fight each other. This resulted into an undeclared civil war known as La Violencia that killed more or less 200.000 people in ten years.

Extraits

[...] For me, this could not be tolerated. They must invest in military forces to try to destroy those guerilla movements because their goal is to overwhelm the government. Colombia's population suffers from frequent abuses such as robberies, attacks, kidnappings from the guerilla movements. Why can't we stop those rebels? They are just too powerful thanks to their armaments provided by outlaws who see only the profit they can make with this illegal trade and obtained thanks to the huge sums of money made from drug trafficking, kidnappings of popular political members like Ingrid Betancourt, Antonio Guerra, Luis Felipe Villegas, and more (see figure . [...]

[...] They applied terrorist's techniques by separating their members into cells, with small knowledge about the other workers. They began to hire top engineers to design communications equipment that could not be intercepted by the Police and popular lawyers who studied the moves of the DEA and the US prosecutors. A direct consequence is that their business quickly developed. The leaders are said to have vast areas of land in Colombia, along with dozens of very profitable legal businesses. The Cali chiefs became intelligent traders and they put forward their money in political protection. [...]

[...] The general purpose of this confrontation was in the name of free trade. When the news reached London in August 1839, the British decided to assault against the Qing dynasty. They were helped and appointed by industrial capitalists whose goal was to open China's market. This war was the first step to open China's markets and resources3 to the outside world. The orders were slowly executed by the British Army but they eventually attained China in June 1840. For the next two years, armed conflicts happened with periods of peace and negotiations. [...]

[...] The paramilitaries are also suspected to be the armed protectors of drug traffickers. Colombia became again the scene of a colossal violent area. Killings, extortions, kidnappings, from the paramilitaries as well as guerrillas, affected the civilian population who are forced to say nothing under the law of silence. Over people had to abandon their homelands. In this context, political arrangements did not appear to constitute a real solution to the problem The failure of peace efforts True to his campaign promises, the new Colombian leader urges difficult peace talks especially with the FARC. [...]

[...] The AUC also generally avoids engagements with government security forces and actions against U.S. personnel or interests of their operations were financed by drug-trafficking earnings and "drug taxations", and the other 30% comes from "donations" from supporters and government corruption. Most of their operations are mostly nonexistent because of the disarmament of AUC paramilitary groups, even though some individuals are not respecting their demobilization obligations by persisting on criminal activities. The AUC was estimated to have 6000 to 8150 members and their most powerful forces were in the northwest in Antioquia, Córdoba, Sucre, and Bolívar Departments. [...]