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The drug problem

(A series of two articles enquiring into the drug problems affecting society in the world and Pakistan and the steps to be taken to eradicate it. This is the FIRST part which examines the drug situation with relevance to Pakistan).

MEDILLIN SYNDROME
Medillin occupies a special place in the annals of corruption, for the first time in history the lawless have tried to take over an entire country on the strength of their ability to purchase anyone. The Un-Godly (as Leslie Charteris’s Saint would say) operate mainly from a city in Colombia called Medillin. This South American city is the Cocaine Capital of the World, with refining laboratories in the distant jungles and mountains, the commerce takes place in utter freedom within the Municipal limits of Medillin, or did so till very recently. Medillin has lost Mayors, Police Chiefs, Judges and various other reformist-minded law enforcers regularly, so much so that you find little or no takers for such high office, normally craved and aspired for, extremely short life-span of the sudden and violent nature being an effective deterrent, those who do not collaborate with the Drug Cartel are ruthlessly eliminated. The electorate regularly votes the brave into office but discretion has become the better part of valour, and the lawless have taken over the entire metropolis lock, stock and barrel by the liberal use of force and/or the fabulous wealth acquired by cocaine smuggling. The drug warlords have now expanded their horizons to Colombia itself. The Federal Justice Minister was the recipient of so many death threats (and assassination attempts thereof) that he resigned from office and became the Country’s Ambassador to Budapest, Hungary, hoping that East Europe would act as a great deterrent for would-be assassins. Walking one day in this supposedly safe sanctuary, a professional hitman caught up with him testifying to the long reach of the Drug Cartel. On a visit to Medillin, his successor’s armed escorts were killed, the Minister was taken prisoner, tortured and then sent the way of his predecessor. The lady who followed lasted for sometime, the whole country in an uproar, the country supported by all nations in the Hemisphere. Ultimately the death threats were too much for her, a tearful nervous wreck, she sent in her resignation once she was safely in Washington on her way to a safe hideaway. Three Justice Ministers, three down, two rather permanently. A whole bunch of Supreme Court Judges were murdered in cold blood as they were about to ratify the Extradition Treaty with the US. The “Un-Extraditables”, as the warlords of the Drug Cartel started calling themselves, launched a campaign to take over the fairly large-sized country, almost too late Colombia awoke to the great danger within. The drug warlords calculated that taking over the organs of the state including the Defence and Police Services would allow them enormous freedom of action, as it is they were using some Latin American countries, primarily Panama as a safe haven and a transit point, supposedly with the connivance of the unlamented General Noriega, now languishing in the basement cell of a Miami Courthouse, awaiting trial in the US on charges of drug trafficking, abetment thereof, money laundering etc, etc. Other Latin American countries, including puritan socialist Cuba (war hero Lt. Gen Ochoa was recently shot on drug related charges) and Nicaragua became links in the drug chain of the Colombian Drug Cartel, the warlords were really coming up in the world.

The President of Colombia declared war on the Drug Cartel in the wake of the brutal assassination of his Chief Drug Eradication enforcer, the Justice Minister. Guess who took the brunt of the grievous casualties ? Even the many storied HQ of the country’s Police Forces was totally destroyed by a bomb, killing hundreds, passenger airliners were knocked out of the sky with further scores of deaths, ostensibly to knock out even one opponent. Some mighty drug-lords have been eliminated, their laboratories and caches seized and destroyed, many of their henchmen caught but the final audacity was breathtaking, almost a narrative out of “Clear and Present Danger” a semi-fiction thriller by Tom Clancy, the Un-Extraditables declared war on the US, vowing to assassinate President Bush. Given the resources of State, the good guys seem to be winning, President Bush even went to Bogota for a “show of force” conference on drug eradication despite rumours of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles etc. Given that each of the four big druglords had more than US $ 2 billion or so in cash, money went a long way for the purchase of the most sophisticated arms, equipment as well as the finance of influence over political and/or administrative forces. Every strata of society has been corrupted, every level of government infiltrated. The Cartel then turned to the financial institutions. Greedy for quick profits based on huge unheard of deposits, almost all international banks in the region became willing mechanisms for money-laundering, almost no international bank operating in the Hemisphere could claim to be innocent as per a list compiled by the US Justice Department. Many key bank executives came onto the bank payroll of the Un-Extraditables, electronic banking was used in setting up a secure money laundering chain. Whoever controls the banks controls the economy, control of the economy means total sway over any country, this is the most dangerous move of the Drug Cartel.

In Pakistan today, we are feeling the first phase of the Medillin Syndrome. It started in the time of late General Zia, the Afghan War saw the advent of Heroin and automatic weapons, fashionably known by the media as the Drug and Kalashnikov culture. In short time Pakistan became a conduit for the safe flow of Heroin to the West, not possible without official patronage down the line. Many drug couriers, some with fine family names or exalted position thereof, have been caught and are languishing in foreign jails, some have been set free only after acting “under control” of agencies like the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to ferret out and uncover bigger sharks. While the present government is pursuing a moderately successful drug enforcement programme, supported by the concerned Western nations, corruption in Pakistan has reached endless limits, the parameters can only be defined as having the portents of the Medillin Syndrome, a state of the nation in a siege within itself, an insurrection by the Un-Godly to overturn the rule of law, the principle being that when criminals function in the name of justice, justice becomes a crime. As the Un-Extraditables have shown in Colombia, many of the law enforcers are within easy reach of liquid cash or likely to be cowed down by vested official disfavour or death threats. Whether money comes from cocaine, heroin, bribes, the selling of undue favours or of political consciences, it has a long reach. As someone once said, we have found the enemy and it is us. A pattern that has been established by the Colombian Drug Cartel is now open for use by any greedy individual or crime syndicate. These elements have now managed over the past few years to acquire political power, they have seriously compromised the financial sector and law-enforcing agencies by moving hand-picked cronies into sensitive administrative and financial positions in the public sector (Kaleem Omer calls it “cronydom”), they may set up investment banks and maybe even private armies, why stop at this sky, the heaven is the limit. With the banks hostage from within and without, unlimited political power can be irretrievably bought, maybe even military power can thus be compromised, one needs to subvert only key military and police figures. A long article has come out in NEWSWEEK claiming that two known drug smugglers have been elected as Members of the National Assembly.

Social strata in any country responds to power and money, ours is no exception. Political power and money is a most dangerous combination. Known (and convicted) criminals have become an accepted part of our society, our posh residential areas are flush with them. If they can adopt a mantle of respectability who will stop this new society from the drawing rooms of our nation or the Board Rooms of our major commercial and industrial enterprises? The media, with honourable exceptions, has been badly cowed, journalists have been threatened, many have been murdered, one even mutilated by acid leading to his death. Given such portents and the easy corruptibility of some of our law enforcing agencies, where will the persecuted go for succour? Either they can leave the country in frustration and fear or fend for themselves, depending not upon the State for protection but rather on their own means, on the age old concept of an eye for an eye, the ability to strike back in surgical fashion in a swift and a ruthless manner. This is the law of the jungle and we are rapidly becoming beasts in a so-called civilized world, that is what rampant corruption fed by unlimited greed does to society, it destroys from within so that ultimately one cannot differentiate between animals and human beings.

Medillin is coming to Pakistan, make no mistake, yet, in many ways more than one the power to stop this monster rests with our elected government. In a democratic country it is the prerogative of the constitutional head of government to uphold and protect the rule of law without fear or favour using all the instruments of state. Decisions must be impartial and courage-oriented, not made out of fear of horses, horse-trading is akin to horse thieving. Failure would release those forces that may not be palatable to democratic government. It is incumbent on all of us to thus pray for the success of the government, while greed can only win a Pyrrhic victory, democracy will be the loser.

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(This is the SECOND part which explores
how the world is coping with the crisis).

WAR WITHOUT PARAMETERS  
For the first time since 1946, the Super Powers do not find themselves in conflict any more, as the consensus of international condemnation of Iraq’s predator actions against Kuwait has shown, a responsible world order as envisaged by the formation of the United Nations is possible. In this situation, where the Defence Forces of major countries have no immediate enemies, their correct utilisation would be against the Drug Syndicates in the world which are threatening to take over entire nations and destroy civilized society.

The Golden Triangle at the confluence of Thailand, Burma, Laos and China was once the best known territory infested by drug warlords and their private armies. For many years the vast profits of the heroin (white powder) trade compromised the efforts of the Armed Forces of Thailand and Burma in their attempt to root out the recalcitrants. This was further complicated by the presence of various separatist and/or rebel movements which relied on the heroin to pay for their sustenance and, therefore, had tacit cooperation with the Drug Traffickers. While the menace has not been completely eradicated, “General” Khun Sa, once the acknowledged leader of the drug trade in the Golden Triangle, does not openly live and move around as he once did. Trafficking is punishable by death in Burma, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia etc, stiff government action may have dampened widescale proliferation but the drug revenues are too vast to completely emasculate the business of the drug dealers. As the going got tough in the mountain areas of the Golden Triangle, the Heroin Syndicates started looking for other suitable areas, in the vacuum of the strife torn areas of Afghanistan and the bordering tribal belt of Pakistan they found a new home. Traditionally the fiat of Pakistani authorities does not extend into the Tribal Territories, this was a God-sent opportunity for the Bad Guys (or the “Drug Mafia” as the Pakistani media started to call them). With the Afghan Mujahideen keeping the borders open, a cross-trade supply in heroin developed. Conflict brings breakdown of law and order, heroin money intensified it in the main port city of Karachi, which became a major transient point. During the long decade of the continuing Afghan War, the heroin trade has force-multiplied till the Afghan Guerrilla movements have themselves started to rely on the profits to sustain their existence, giving the drug trade an extension of life on its own. Gradually, the exit points has spread over the whole Mekran Coast, with nary a law enforcer to oppose them. From time to time some law enforcing agency stumbles onto some drug carrying vessel or a cache or a truck, the hauls are few and far between. The connivance in the Drug Trade by the personnel of agencies enforcing anti-smuggling and drug eradication laws is now accepted as a matter of course in Pakistan, partly the application of less than strict laws allow absolute freedom to the Drug Smuggler. With the development of the heroin trade in Pakistan and Afghanistan, South and Latin America got into the act with Marijuana and Cocaine. Since the harvesting fields and the refining laboratories were closer to mainland USA and Europe, better logistics and sophisticated planning resulted in a major Drug infested area in the region. With the leaders of some Latin American countries susceptible to large bribes, a vicious breed of new Drug Warlords was created. With a bevy of them having more than a billion US$ or so each to play with, unheard of luxuries were transported into the castles in the jungles and the mountains. Realizing that they would be better served by not competing but complementing each other, Drug Cartels were created, one operating out of Mexico, the other out of Colombia. Whereas the profits in South Asia are meagre compared to that in South America, the relative danger they pose to law-abiding society is the same. Money buys influence, that ensures that the Lawless become Untouchables. If Pablo Escobar of Colombia has hit international headlines, our Black Prince has not been so far behind. Money also buys weapons, in Pakistan the status symbol being the AK-47, the Kalashnikov, an excellent weapon, its reputation is associated with the worst in mankind. The wages of sin are inordinately high, given the number of expensive residences belonging to known drug smugglers and members of the law enforcing agencies in the posh residential areas in the cities of Pakistan.

A lot of people criticised the United States when they invaded Panama to capture General Noriega. Given that Noriega was allowing Panama to be used as a main staging point for Cocaine smuggling into the United States as well as for laundering of drug money, his thumbing of the nose at the US was creating a psychology wherein respect for law and order was seen to be dissipating at the State level. Here was a man who was running a country openly allowing crime syndicates to function. Intermingled with his former CIA connections, he tread of a world of shadowy crime figures countenanced in his country, the surprising thing is not that the US is bringing Noriega to trial but that it is taking so long. He was simply a common criminal who found his way into an army uniform. The Colombians are not doing too well in their war against their Drug Warlords, having given the Cartel any crippling blow. As soon as some refining laboratories, caches, private runways are destroyed, more sprout up. Pablo Escobar even offers US$ 4,000 for every policeman/soldier killed and has recently declared a unilateral ceasefire, the Colombian Government has not reciprocated, neither it seems to have been amused. The Cartels’ operation are multi-national in that area, the Colombian Armed Forces and Law Enforcing Agencies are fighting an elusive enemy that cross borders at will, clearly the intelligence and logistics network of the Drug Cartel are holding upto anything that the Colombians throw at them, with car bombs, downing of aircraft, assassinations, the Drug warlords come back in spades. With the poor peasant recouping in Cash Crops much more than their normal staple, drug fields of cultivation proliferate throughout the area.

Just before the Iraq-Kuwait situation took everything else out of focus, the American General who directed the invasion of Panama, Maxwell D Thurman, Commander US Southern Command, was believed to be planning a multi-nation assault on the Drug Cartel in a teeth to tail campaign wherein US intelligence and logistics would be dovetailed into a US masterminded assault by the combat troops of different nations on suitable targets simultaneously. The targets would be cultivated fields, refining laboratories, drug caches, runways, light aircraft, Cartel hideouts, the principle being that they can run, they cannot hide. By not committing US ground troops, General Thurman was obviously precluding criticism within the US for endangering American lives and within the target nations sensitive to active US presence.

Whenever this operation finally takes place, this is likely to be all out war against an elusive enemy, with US and Allied Forces using state-of-the-art technology inclusive of high-tech intercepts in bringing their quarry to ground. The law enforcing agencies, DEA, US Coast Guards, Border Patrols, etc have been so overwhelmed that the US has no choice but to employ their Defence Services to rid the world of the menace of the Cocaine smugglers. The US nation is being severely eroded from within because of the drug infiltration.

An excellent series of articles had been written sometime ago by Kamran Khan about the staging areas for heroin smuggling on the Mekran Coast. He has brought into focus the sophisticated organisation of the Underground as opposed to the utter helplessness of our woefully inadequate law enforcing agencies. Keeping in mind the fact that we cannot interfere at all in the Tribal Territories, (it would be like disturbing a bee hive) we can certainly intercept all the passage through the length and breadth of Pakistan destroying the logistics network on the Mekran Coast. Pakistan Coast Guards have proved themselves terribly inferior to the task, the Narcotics Control Authority and the Customs have not really done anything of note, the Maritime Security Agency is just getting into the act, its effectiveness unknown at this time. In some cases it is lack of manpower and shortage of equipment, mostly they have been badly compromised by drug money. The largest heroin haul in the world recently in Balochistan remains uninvestigated because none of our officers will conduct the enquiry, recently almost half a dozen Frontier Constabulary men have been kidnapped by drug smugglers after a full scale battle.

Like the realisation in the US that the involvement of the Armed Forces is necessary, we must plan for a war without parameters of our own using all the three Services, the Navy to quarantine the Coast, the Airforce to interdict movement of large scale caches from one place and the other by day and night reconnaissance over the area and Army’s Ground Troops, operating on Cross Country vehicles and on Troop-carrying helicopters to seal off, search and destroy the catchment areas and the logistics network on the Mekran Coast. This has to be an extensive operation conducted simultaneously over a wide area so that recalcitrants do not escape from one area to another.

At the same time troops involved in the operations have to be rotated so that the Drug Mafia do not attempt to compromise their ability and performance. The operations have to be coordinated with simultaneous operations in urban areas to root out the drug smugglers from their safe havens in posh residential areas where they have donned a garb of respectability by easily mixing with law abiding citizens. Troops have to be deployed in all areas to ensure that diversionary tactics like creating ethnic disturbances (as was done to frustrate the Sohrab Goth operation in Karachi) are precluded. Citizens should be clearly notified that they should refrain from renting out property to suspicious characters, that they would be liable to have their property destroyed and even confiscated if information about their tenants are not provided prior to the launching of the operation.
Like the countries of ASEAN, Pakistan must legislate the death penalty for drug trafficking, unless the cost of commerce in illegal drugs goes up one cannot expect that there will be much deterrence to the Drug Mafia. One sees the effect in places like Singapore and Malaysia. We had (in the Ms Benazir Government) a very articulate Minister for Interior (the equivalent of the Colombian Minister for Justice), Aitzaz Ahsan’s rhetoric emphasized that his commitment was real but so much more could have been done by the PPP Government. Let us hope the IJI Government (and Rana Chandar Singh) fare better.

The Pakistan Narcotics Control Board (PNCB) estimates that there were 5,000 heroin users within Pakistan in 1980, the figure went upto one million in 1988. There are over one million drug users in 1980 and two million drug users in 1988 (charas, alcohol, tranquilizers, tobacco, opium, etc), therefore the whole increase has been because of heroin. Pakistan is paying a heavy price with about 1% of its population addicted to heroin. Only a strict law and a stricter application of the law will reverse these statistics, the future of our children is tied irrevocably to committed eradication of drug proliferation and trafficking. If the visible effects are too horrible to perceive, the residual effects are too terrible to contemplate. Pakistan must initiate an all out war, a war without parameters, where no quarter must be given.

For whatever it is worth Pakistan society must not become hostage to the Medillin Syndrome.

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