From Colombia, Peru and Bolivia through Mexico and on to a half dozen West African states, the new cocaine supply route — and the war against it — is leaving a trail of mayhem in its wake.
In Peru, Shining Path guerrillas have revived their movement by trading in Maoist ideology for coca cultivation and links with Mexican cartels, driving cocaine production to its highest level in a decade, according to US figures.
In Colombia, shadowy new groups with names such as the Black Eagles have muscled into the gap left by a government assault on rightwing militias and leftwing guerrillas, the groups that traditionally trafficked cocaine.
Production is increasing after being reined in earlier in the decade. “The trade has gone from the hands of drug lords to the hands of warlords and is now controlled by gang lords,” said Aldo Lale-Demoz, of the UN’s Bogotá office.
In Bolivia coca cultivation increased by 5% in 2007, a much smaller rise than in Colombia. The strategy of President Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer and Washington critic, has been unique: expel US counter-narcotic agents, let farmers grow coca for uses such as tea and medicine and order local security forces to root out the cocaine element. The government will lobby the UN summit in Vienna this week to decriminalise the coca leaf.
The defiance is summed up by Feliciano Mamani, a coca farmer and mayor of Villa Tunari in central Bolivia. Resting a leg on his desk and revealing a bullet wound on his shin, he shrugs: “This was the war on drugs.”
A senior European diplomat in La Paz fears the departure of US agents has left Bolivia vulnerable to drug cartels. “The EU is the main market for Bolivia, and we are worried, but there is not much we can do.” Venezuela also expelled US agents but continues to co-operate with Europeans.
The traffickers are extremely versatile. In drug lord Pablo Escobar’s era cartels relied largely on planes but these days the preferred craft are fast boats, which outrun coastguard patrols, and fibreglass submarines, which evade radar.
Routes evolve to exploit law enforcement gaps. Venezuela has become a hub, with 282 tonnes of Colombian cocaine slipping through in 2007, four times higher than in 2004, according to US officials. West Africa is estimated to be the stop-off point for between a third and half of the cocaine bound for Europe.
Colombia recently dispatched narcotics agents to West Africa and played host to police from seven African countries.
With profit margins of up to 5 000%, cocaine traffickers make fortunes. The cost to Latin America is incalculable. Every stage of the trade inflicts damage.
Armed groups seeking land for coca have cleared rainforest and killed and evicted the people who live there. About 270 00 Colombians were forced to flee their homes in the first half of 2008, according to human rights group Codhes — a 41% jump on the previous year. Every week refugees such as José (35) trek over the peaks of the Sierra de Perijá to seek sanctuary in Venezuela. “Gunmen took the farm; we had to run,” he said. Murder rates in Venezuela have tripled in the past decade.
Smugglers have co-opted coastal communities in the Caribbean by exchanging dollars and white powder for fuel and supplies. Even Panama’s Kuna, an indigenous tribe which resisted outsiders for centuries, has been sucked in.
Further north, Nicaraguan fishermen coyly refer to the “white lobster” which for some transformed shacks into mansions with satellite dishes. But in towns such as Bluefields the effect is corrosive.
“Some sell, some use; the young are anchoring themselves in this business,” lamented Sandra Wilson, a community activist.
State institutions also suffer. “The power of the drug cartels is leading to the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime,” said César Gaviria, Colombia’s former president.
More than a dozen members of Colombia’s congress, including government allies, have been charged with ties to drug-trafficking paramilitaries.
A building boom which saw apartment blocks erected from Rio de Janeiro to Panama City has been linked to money-laundering, prompting jokes about narc-deco architecture.
“Narco-traffickers can’t have that size of market unless they are paying big protection money,” said Terry Nelson, co-founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, who spent 32 years fighting drugs as a US government agent in Latin America.
“All along I knew we weren’t making any progress. But I was just a field commander. The big shots in Washington with their triple PhDs just told me to shut up.” – guardian.co.uk