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Column 091409 Brewer

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Mutation of Crime and Terror in Latin America

By Jerry Brewer

Latin American insurgents, narcotraffickers, organized criminals,

and revolutionary ideologists appear to no longer have empirical
estrangements. A terrorism nexus continues to slowly come
into focus. Transnational criminal groups and terrorist networks
have an ironic need for each other and evidence continues to
emerge, especially in the Western Hemisphere.

As this motley association of misery and destruction merge in

many transparent venues, an overlap of motivation becomes
necessary to achieve some common goals. The manner in
which these criminal, political, and ideological fanatics morph
and mix within their insurgencies is hard to disguise in anything
other than death, violence, and other extremist behavior. This
is how they must be interdicted.

When we speak of the motivating factors within these diverse

elements, the common ingredients are the ability to finance their
operational acts, and the armaments to enforce and elicit
voluntary compliance or inflict their verdict of death.
Narcotraffickers and associated criminal elements have come to
see the “terrorist” label as somewhat of a glamorization
process. This much like many U.S. inner city criminal gangs
that relate to the gangster and mafia movie mystique.

One significant difference from the terrorist is in being driven by

diffuse anger rather than specific anger. However, the anger
factor is a non-mitigating issue in a quest for attaining access to
the strength of other networks in the form of weapons,
manpower, money laundering, and other tactical expertise. The
strength and power that comes with these joint ventures is
therefore obvious from the standpoint of decentralized
leadership, a good and non-threatening nexus between the
terrorists and their new counterparts.

Examples of this terrorist and criminal insurgent bonding for

material gain are crime notorious regions such as the tri-border
area of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and the blood-diamond
conflict zones in Africa such as Sierra Leone and Liberia.
These areas in which criminals and terrorists work side by side
and extend needed cooperation. Resources drive the individual
goal achievement, such as the Afghanistan poppy trade in
financing the Taliban. This form of asymmetric warfare provides
little risk to the counterparts performing as a whole, and allows
elements to survive separately if one element is interdicted.

There is an error in perspective in many preemptive measures

directed against the terrorists and their criminal counterparts.
International terrorism and extremism, especially when
motivated and inspired by radicalized Islamists, becomes an
integrated perspective to the criminal and insurgent. Criminals
generally are the targets of police organizations and similar
military efforts. Thus they face police strategies, tactics, and
police organizational methods.

The sad and sobering truth is that most North, Central, and
South American police forces are ill-equipped, under-funded,
and lack the proper training to handle the continuing growth,
sophisticated weaponry, and strategic tactics and terrorist spy-
tradecraft directed against them. There can be no reasonable
expectation of any “police force” to effectively fight terrorists, as
well as a criminal element that is rapidly becoming so well
armed, trained, and financed.

This enemy, especially when operating in nexus organized

fashion, poses an immediate and critical threat to a homeland
with their bold and resourceful methods. They have clearly and
often demonstrated their intimidation, through kidnapping,
torture, and murder. Examples of this nightmare are clear in
Mexico against the narcotraffickers and their hired paramilitary
trained assassins.

The U.S. Border Patrol has met them tragically along the U.S.
border. The traffickers, influenced and educated through
traditional terrorist modus operandi, have utilized elite
transportation networks, satellite generated electronics, and
military tactical cover and concealment strategies. They have
adopted compartmentalization (small cellular groups) as a
method of survival and to keep themselves, as well as their
contraband, from being infiltrated or eliminated in total. They
exploit every weakness perceived in pursuit of their goals.

The potential to totally destabilize a hemisphere is not

farfetched. Weak economies, scarce resources, and
inadequate training and indoctrination for police to interdict this
enemy, without military involvement, is a reality to be faced.

Mexico is a true reminder that the enforcement methods were

not prepared for such an onslaught, and authorities were forced
to utilize the power of the military in the face of superior
weapons, intimidation, and internal corruption made possible by
the massive wealth and power of the organized criminals.

——————————
Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International
Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami,
Florida. His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.