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Forced Eradication Programs' Unintended Consequences

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Forced Eradication Programs' Unintended Consequences When policies fail – Forced Eradication programs’ unintended consequences and their effect on rebel strength Christoph Grafinger Master's Thesis Spring 2019 Wordcount: 15 276 words Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University Supervisor: Nina von Uexkull 1 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Literature Review: ........................................................................................................................... 4 Natural Ressources: ................................................................................................................. 4 Incentives to join rebel groups ................................................................................................ 5 Rebel Governance: .................................................................................................................. 6 Unintended Consequences: ..................................................................................................... 7 Research gap ............................................................................................................................ 9 Theory ............................................................................................................................................ 10 Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 12 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 12 Assumptions .............................................................................................................................. 12 Research Question: ................................................................................................................... 13 Types of measurement .............................................................................................................. 13 Case selection: ....................................................................................................................... 15 Definitions of Supply Sided Policy: ........................................................................................ 16 Cases: ............................................................................................................................................. 17 Unintended Consequences of eradication programs in Afghanistan: .......................................... 17 Drug eradication in Afghanistan: ........................................................................................... 20 Linking the Taliban to Drug Cultivation: ................................................................................ 22 Troop Sizes of the Taliban ..................................................................................................... 33 Incident reports ..................................................................................................................... 35 Taliban finances through Opium cultivation – the Taliban war economy ............................ 37 Conclusion of the analysis on Afghanistan: ........................................................................... 37 Unintended consequences of coca eradication in Colombia: ....................................................... 38 FARC income from Coca ........................................................................................................ 40 Coca eradication in Colombia ................................................................................................ 40 Rebel Strength of the FARC ................................................................................................... 41 Troop Sizes............................................................................................................................. 52 Incident reports: .................................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion of Colombian eradication effects ........................................................................ 58 Case comparison: .......................................................................................................................... 58 Alternative explanations, limitations, confounding variables: ...................................................... 59 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 60 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................... 61 2 Abstract: Research on supply reducing drug policy shows so called ‘unintended consequences’, following their implementation. This thesis focuses on such consequences, specifically of eradication programs, which show an increase in application in the period of 2005 and 2011. To link drug policy and conflict studies the aim of this thesis is the policies effects on the rebels who control territory, related to the cultivation of drugs. The thesis studies the rebel’s strength before, during and after the increased efforts in eradication in two cases, Colombia and Afghanistan. A connection between the effects of eradication programs and the strength of rebels can be established, although different outcomes in the cases are shown. Additionally, some insight into the underlying mechanism, connecting the means of income for farmers in rebel territory and unintended consequences of eradication programs, is gained. Introduction: The international drug control regime established by the UN in three resolutions, 1961, 1971 and 1988, creates a basis for signatory’s countries approaches to drug policy, with an overall goal of a drug free world. The implications and consequences of the implementations of such policy guidelines have led to numerous “unintended consequences”. Mainly a flourishing global criminal market for illicit substances, linked to drug cartels, international crime and terrorism (CND, 2009, p.14). This global perspective has as much an international impact as it has a national one. This allows for a local perspective on the issues the main drug producing countries encounter. Afghanistan, responsible for roughly 90% of the global opium and heroin production, and Colombia, which produces about 60% of the global demand for cocaine, extracted from the locally grown coca leaf. The impact these drugs have on the local economy and its population are as diverse as they are extreme. Both countries have a history of a long- standing insurgency, Colombia´s Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Afghan Taliban. Both these groups allegedly weren´t involved in the production and trafficking of drugs first, but during the progression of their insurgency encountered numerous problems and benefits of already existing drug cultivation by local farmers, mostly in regions outside the grasp of the local government (Labrousse, 2005, p. 172-173). This, very generally, lead to a form of cooperation between the drug cultivators and the rebel groups. Forms of Rebel Governance established, trading a tax on the drug income for security promises from the rebel groups for physical and economic security of the rural population. When these two realities, an international drug framework with the intention of a drug free world and local realities of drugs as a mean of income as well as insurgency finance collide with each other a conflict of major magnitude seems unavoidable. The so called “War on Drugs” unfolded and a range of policies aiming at the elimination of drug cultivation and counter insurgency were implemented and executed in the specific countries. 3 The aim of this paper is to first showcase the consequences of these policies, focusing on eradication programs, on the drug cultivators and then link these to their effects on the insurgency groups and their strength. This formulates the research question; “How do eradication programs impact rebel strength in countries with high levels of illicit drug production?”. The research gap this thesis aims to fill lies in the connection of drug policy research and conflict studies, by spanning theories of unintended consequences of drug policy further to rebel strength and peasant grievances in connection to selective incentives. Literature Review: To first give an overview of previous research done, this section builds a theoretical basis for the theory this thesis proposes. Each part of the literature reviews topics builds on each other to help understand what this thesis aims to explain, starting with natural resources and conflict. Natural Ressources: Kalyvas contributions to drugs as a resource and the organization of their extraction are portrayed in his work on civil war and organized crime from 2015. By portraying a discussion on organized crime in the context of civil war, Kalyvas explains the changing nature of civil wars and how criminal organisation can be defined and connected to conflict research. The transition of income sources for insurgencies - supported by superpowers during the cold war, into extraction of natural resources - changed the conditions for rebels to survive after their support diminished with the end of the cold war (Kalyvas & Balcells, 2010, p.426-427). A criticism of a model of ‘criminal rebels’
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