By International Crisis Group

Coca stands at the heart of a fierce debate over Colombia’s worsening rural insecurity. The plant’s leaves are the sole raw material from which cocaine, an illegal drug that generates outlandish profits and finances armed and criminal groups, can be manufactured. Colombian President Iván Duque argues that the whole narcotic supply chain – from coca cultivation to global cocaine trafficking – is the scourge behind rising massacres, forced displacement and assassinations of community leaders in Colombia. With cultivation hitting new highs in recent years, Bogotá has vastly expanded campaigns that involve sending in the army and police to pull up or otherwise eradicate coca crops. It also threatens to restart aerial fumigation. Yet an approach based on forceful eradication of coca, which the U.S. has stoutly backed, tends to worsen rural violence, while failing to reduce drug supply. A new strategy is needed that persuades coca farmers to abandon a plant that offers a stable income and an attractive alternative to other legal crops.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2021. 44p.

Edited by Eric L. Olson, Andrew Selee, and David A. Shirk

The clichés describing United States-Mexico relations are well known and well worn. Given the enormity of the geographic, historical, cultural, and economic ties between both countries it’s now a commonplace to say Mexico is the United States’ most important bilateral relationship, and vice-versa. The nature of this critical binational relationship has been dissected and probed from every conceivable angle. Yet as we began to research the security relationship between both countries we realized that there is still much that is not generally known amongst the public and policy communities about how Mexico and the United States are working together to deal with the threats posed by organized crime. For example, the unique nature of money laundering operations taking place across the U.S.-Mexico border; the extent to which high-powered firearms are finding their way from U.S. gun shops into the hands of organized crime and street gangs in Mexico; and the surprisingly limited information about the amount of illegal drugs consumed in the United States are not widely understood. Likewise, the deployment of Mexico’s armed forces is only one aspect of the country’s anti-drug strategy. Police agencies are being reorganized and efforts at professionalization are underway. A major reform of Mexico’s justice system was adopted in 2008 that, if fully implemented, should help greatly strengthen the rule of law and reduce the relative power and impunity of organized crime. Yet, while significant progress has already been made in some of Mexico’s 31 states, many questions remain about the efficacy and sustainability of these reforms. But despite these developments, the extreme violence brought on by conflicts amongst and between organized crime groups still garners the most attention. The horrifying and gruesome details of drug violence are plastered on the front pages of daily newspapers and videos of narco-violence are easily available on public websites and YouTube. In some cases, the criminals themselves are publicizing their actions for their own aggrandizement and to terrorize the public. While understanding the nature and extent of the violence afflicting Mexico in recent times is important, we also recognized that the violence itself is more symptom than cause of the underlying problem. For this reason, we thought it important to focus this project’s research on a series of key issues that are feeding the growth of organized crime and related violence in Mexico. We also found it important to examine several policy areas where reform and action by one or both governments could contribute to a long term sustainable approach to weakening the grip of organized crime and illegal drugs on both countries

Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center and San Diego: University of San Diego, Trans-Border Institute, 2011. 388p.