The
challenges posed by drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism are so complex
that attempts to simplify them are understandable. In order to gain public support
for increased investment in law enforcement, a military and police intervention,
or an increase in taxes for instance, policy officials often attempt to
describe intricate problems in simplistic terms. This, notably coupled with the
media’s inclination for sensationalist stories, academics’ search for
government funding, and the immediate overreaction that ‘terrorism’ provokes,
has contributed to the emergence of the term ‘narco-terrorism’ and related
policies and analysis amalgamating terrorism and the drug trade.
However,
this approach often has negative – albeit often unintended – consequences, including:
skewing policy priorities and neglecting related issues such as arms trafficking,
human trafficking, cigarette smuggling, corruption, state abuses as the focus
remains on terrorism, drug trafficking and the links in between; ignoring local
specificities by drawing on the widely-held assumption of an automatic
relationship between any terrorist and drug trafficker; underestimating the
differences in motives and interests between terrorist organizations and drug
traffickers (e.g. very often, the former look for attention while the latter
evade it), thus misjudging their potential responses to policy and law
enforcement changes; putting in place misguided heavy-handed policies to
respond to problems that are intrinsically political, economic and social; and
ultimately creating a disproportionate sense of fear and causing political
overreaction, thereby playing into the hands of terrorists, with potential counterproductive
effects. Crucially, drug trafficking and other types of illicit trade and organized
crime are important issues in their own right, and should not need the ‘terrorism’
label to attract attention.
Given
the persistence of international challenges related to drug trafficking, other types
of illicit trade, organized crime, corruption, weak governance, and terrorism, developing
a more nuanced understanding of the problems at stake would go a long way in
addressing them more appropriately. The narratives and policies of the War on
Drugs and War on Terror are increasingly recognized as inadequate, but much
remains to be done towards a more balanced, comprehensive, and effective set of
policies. No longer conflating terrorism and drug trafficking would be a first step
in the right direction.
