Download Illicit Crops and Alternative Development in Colombia

Illicit Crops and Alternative
Development in Colombia
Introduction
Anders Rudqvist
Colombia
• the world’s largest producer of cocaine
• the largest heroin producer in the American
hemisphere
• Coca and poppy cultivation is taking place
in regions or areas where presence of the
State (army, public institutions) is weak
(physically, politically and socially)
Main actors
• Direct producers – small-scale and medium
peasants – ”industrial” producers
• Criminal cartels – from a few large to many
small
• Paramilitary groups – extreme right
• Guerrillas – FARC, ELN
• Army and Police forces
The main actors in the Colombian
narcotics circuit varyingly described as
•
•
•
•
a national political project
an army attempting to take over power
a territorial power
an actor in the local conflicts of the ”Other
Colombia”
• a way of life - rent seekers - groups of
criminals
• actor in context of local degenerated
violence
Territorial control
• Illicit crop cultivation and drug trafficking
require territorial control
• production and trafficking, as well as the
very armed conflict are focused upon
territorial control
• have resulted in drastically increasing
indices of land concentration
Demand and Supply side
• What are consumer
countries doing?
• Terms and conditions
of international trade
• Subsidized exports of
agricultural produce
• Prevention, treatment
and care for drug
addicts and consumers
at risk
• What are producer
countries doing?
• Social, economic
conditions of peasant
producers - land
tenure/reforms
• Measures against
political and economic
corruption
Policies for illicit crop and drug
trafficking reduction
• The US and the Colombian government:
• Repression/interdiction combined with
aerial fumigation and compulsory
alternative development programs
• The UN and EU: interdiction combined
with voluntary alternative development
programs – opposed to aerial fumigation
Common features and patterns
Colombia Afghanistan Laos
• Societies torn by internal warfare
• Role of illicit crops and trafficking for war
efforts
• Weak central State vs. strong local/regional
forces
• Sociological factors - livelihoods approach
• What have we learned from evolution of
IDPs and regional development projects?