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Austin Buben

DEA Briefs & Background, Drugs and Drug Abuse, Drug Descriptions, Drug Trafficking in t... - 0 views

    • Austin Buben
       
      Austin Buben found this first
  • The illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world. As such, it attracts the most ruthless, sophisticated, and aggressive drug traffickers.
  • according to the U.S. Customs Service, 60 million people enter the United States on more than 675,000 commercial and private flights. Another 6 million come by sea and 370 million by land. In addition, 116 million vehicles cross the land borders with Canada and Mexico. More than 90,000 merchant and passenger ships dock at U.S. ports. These ships carry more than 9 million shipping containers and 400 million tons of cargo. Another 157,000 smaller vessels visit our many coastal towns. Amid this voluminous trade, drug traffickers conceal cocaine, heroin, marijuana, MDMA, and methamphetamine shipments for distribution in U.S. neighborhoods.
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  • Criminal groups operating from South America smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States via a variety of routes, including land routes through Mexico, maritime routes along Mexico's east and west coasts, sea routes through the Caribbean, and international air corridors
  • The U.S./Mexico border is the primary point of entry for cocaine shipments being smuggled into the United States. According to a recent interagency intelligence assessment, approximately 65 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the Southwest border.
  • These organizations use a sophisticated infrastructure to move cocaine by land, sea, and air into the United States.
  • Each cell performs a specific function within the organization, e.g., transportation, local distribution, or money movement. Key managers in Colombia continue to oversee the overall operation.
  • Over the past decade, the Colombia-based drug groups have allowed Mexico-based trafficking organizations to play an increasing role in the U.S. cocaine trade.
  • Throughout most of the 1980s, the criminals in Colombia used the drug smugglers in Mexico to transport cocaine shipments across the Southwest border into the United States. After successfully smuggling the drugs across the border, the Mexican transporters transferred the drugs back to the Colombian groups operating in the United States.
  • Colombian drug trafficking organizations increasingly rely upon the eastern Pacific Ocean as a trafficking route to move cocaine to the United States. Law enforcement and intelligence community sources estimate 65 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States moves through the Central America-Mexico corridor, primarily by vessels operating in the eastern Pacific. Colombian traffickers utilize fishing vessels to transport bulk shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the west coast of Mexico and, to a lesser extent, the Yucatan Peninsula. The cocaine is off-loaded to go-fast vessels for the final shipment to the Mexican coast. The loads are subsequently broken down into smaller quantities to be moved across the Southwest border.
  • However, cocaine continues to be transported through the Caribbean; Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti are the predominant transshipment points for Colombian cocaine transiting the Caribbean. Because of lawlessness and deteriorating economic conditions, Haiti is a growing transshipment point for Colombian cocaine destined for eastern U.S. markets. Haitian drug traffickers, utilizing maritime shipments to transport cocaine to South Florida, are becoming a major threat. Law enforcement reporting indicates that Jamaica is an increasingly significant transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States since it is located midway between South America and the United States. Cocaine is primarily smuggled into Jamaica by maritime methods, and the cocaine transshipped through Jamaica often is destined for the Canadian, European, and U.S. markets. Cocaine destined for the United States is usually smuggled from Jamaica to the Bahamas aboard go-fast boats. The cocaine is subsequently smuggled to the Florida coast using go-fast boats, pleasure craft, and fishing vessels.
    • Austin Buben
       
      A lot of various different facts potentially useful in my presentation.
  • Cocaine is readily available in nearly all major cities in the United States. Organized crime groups operating in Colombia control the worldwide supply of cocaine.
Caroline Yevak

Sinaloa Cartel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The Sinaloa Cartel (Pacific Cartel, Guzmán-Loera Cartel) (Spanish: Cártel de Sinaloa) is the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico[2] and considered by the United States Intelligence Community as "the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world."
  • Guzmán-Loera
  • Organization and the Pacific Cartel
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  • The 'Federation' was partially splintered when the Beltrán-Leyva brothers broke apart from the Sinaloa Cartel
  • The Sinaloa Cartel is associated with the label "Golden Triangle" as the regions of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua in which they operate the most form a 'triangle' when their capital cities are looked at on a map. The region is a major producer of Mexican poppy and marijuana.
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      * Remember Class notes
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      Beltran-Leyva cartel was once a major part of the Sinaloa Cartel. Split off and is still a major cartel on it's own.
  • into the United States and distributing nearly 200 tons of cocaine and large amounts of heroin between 1990 and 2008.
Caroline Yevak

Mexico - ProQuest Research Library - ProQuest - 0 views

  • IV. Mexico's Drug War Mexico continued its war on drug trafficking that Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched against drug cartels in 2006.
  • President Calderón announced that his administration would reform civilian law enforcement and the courts, and that "the Mexican army would continue to lead the fight until local and state police forces are free of corruption."20
  • These are but a handful of die murders reported in Mexico's drug wars. The level of violence attributable to die war on drugs and die organized criminal activity that precipitated it cannot, however, be measured simply by counting corpses. Kidnappings, carjackings, extortion, and other forms of crime and aggression infect the quality of daily life.
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  • Local and state politicians have increasingly become targets of violence by the drug cartels, which have also attacked rival gangs. Some murders are particularly vicious, intended to gain media attention and frighten both rival drug gangs and law enforcement officers. "Prosecutors, police chiefs, and thousands of others have been killed," and entire families sometimes come under attack.
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      Similar to what the journalist wrote in the article about Columbia.
  • Mexico's drug cartels started recruiting more teenagers and young people to replace those killed or arrested.40 These young people serve as "expendable foot soldiers" for the cartels in battles over drug trafficking routes to the United States and local drug using markets in Mexico.
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      Child Soldiers
  • Oil revenue accounts for more than one -third of die Mexican government's annual income.1 In 2009, after oil revenues declined during the recession, Mexican lawmakers looked for alternative revenue sources.2 As part of the 2010 budget, Mexican legislators increased several taxes in 2009:
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      *Class discussion about how drop in oil value caused gov debt & made the poor poorer etc.
  • In the past two years, at least eighty U.S. border officers have been convicted of corruption and it is estimated that there are almost as many investigations each year involving border officers who have accepted bribes so diat illegal drugs could be trafficked into the United States.
alessandro Lannes

Drugs, Violence, and State-Sponsored Protection Rackets in Mexico and Colombia/Drogas, ... - 2 views

    • alessandro Lannes
       
      Alessandro Lannes
  • Some authors have argued that high violence was the result of Escobar's excessive political ambition (Camacho and López 2001), which made traffickers unnecessarily visible
  • Colombian traffickers faced in penetrating and making stable connections with the political establishment, the event does not by itself explain the highly violent methods of Escobar's organization, which preceded his brief transit through Congress and persisted well after it. The relative centralization and coherence of Escobar's organization were also crucial factors that help explain its employment of highly organized and brutally violent methods.
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  • Pablo Escobar was arrested for the first time for drug trafficking. By 1978 Carlos Lehder had consolidated a network of cocaine trafficking both with us and Colombian citizens, and by the early 1980s two organizations, based in the cities of Medellin and Cali, controlled most cocaine exports (Camacho and López 2001). Since the early 1980s the Medellin traffickers began to employ increasingly violent methods. This violence was the result of three interrelated factors: (1) the inability of Medellin traffickers to successfully penetrate the political establishment, (2) the government's decision to confront traffickers by approving an extradition treaty with the United States, and (3) the relative centralization and internal coherence of Medellin traffickers under the leadership of Pablo Escobar.
  • Escobar was elected to represent Medellin in the Lower Chamber of Congress. Escobar's election generated a strong negative reaction among a wide range of political elites, who opposed the public presence of a trafficker in Congress and successfully pushed for Escobar's loss of political immunity and expulsion from Congress in 1983 (Camacho and López 2001). These events motivated Escobar to react violently against political "oligarchs", who in turn publicly declared war on traffickers by approving an extradition treaty with the us that included narcotics offences. As a reaction to this policy, traffickers led by Escobar created the group "Los Extraditables," responsible for initiating the period of "narco-terrorism" by engaging in strategic violence against the state, targeting high level politicians and carrying out terrorist attacks against the civilian population in an effort to push the government to refrain from making extradition effective
  • sign of Escobar's war against the state was the assassination of the Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984, and, as of 1990, the violence of Medellin traffickers had claimed the lives of some 500 police officers in Medellin, hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks in Bogota and Medellin, and prominent politicians, including presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galá
    • alessandro Lannes
       
      Pablo Escobar was desperate to get into Congress, when he was kicked out he took drastic measures to get revenge on the people responsible
Mckenzie Hudson

The Wars in Chechnya and Their Effects on Neighboring Regions - 0 views

  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced migrations.
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  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced migrations.
  • 178 Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2007, 48, No. 2, pp. 178–201. Copyright © 2007 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved. The Wars in Chechnya and Their Effects on Neighboring Regions Olga I. Vendina, Vitaliy S. Belozerov, and Andrew Gustafson1 Abstract: A team of Russia- and U.S.-based geographers presents and discusses the eco- nomic and demographic consequences of the conflicts in Chechnya on that republic, on the neighboring ethnic republics of the North Caucasus, as well as on the adjoining region of Stavropol’ with a majority of Russian inhabitants. Formal economic indicators, which gener- ally exhibit negative trends since 1991, are contrasted with the large, diverse shadow econ- omy that tends to absorb federal development funding diverted from the formal sector to the benefit of local elites. The authors explore the extent to which economic activity once based in Chechnya is dispersed to contiguous regions, discuss changes in the ethnic composition of the republics (“de-Russification”), and consider whether Chechnya and the adjoining repub- lics will ever regain the close economic, political, and social ties with Russia that prevailed during the Soviet period. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O18, R12. 3 figures, 1 table, 73 references. Key words: North Caucasus, Chechnya, Russia, terrorism, Kabardino-Balkaria, jihadists, Dagestan, Ingushetia, shariat, corruption, Stavropol’ Kray, clans, shadow economy, Russo-Chechen wars, money laundering. he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these deva
  • flicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced migrations. Chechnya occupies a unique and somewhat paradoxical position in a distinctly unstable region. Most of the Republic’s conventional ties with the outside world have been severed. Until recently, the region has been a “no-go” zone for the world’s press. Human rights groups and humanitarian organizations have long been forced out of the region. Economic and trans- portation networks once focused on the republic have been relocated over the past decade and a half to avoid crossing Chechen territory. Yet, while persistent brutal violence has con- 1Respectively, Senior Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetnyy pereulok 29, 119017 Moscow, Russia (dnkoiv@comtv.ru); Vice-Rector and Professor of Geography, Stavropol’ State University, Ulitsa Pushkina 1, 355009 Stavropol’, Russia (vbelozerov@hotmail.com); and Graduate Assistant, Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Campus Box 260, Boulder, CO 80309 (gustafaf@colorado.edu). Detailed comments on the paper were received from John O’Loughlin, Vladimir Kolossov, and Gearóid Ó Tuathail. The survey data reported in the paper were collected with the support of the National Science Foundation (grant 0433927) and the fieldwork in the North Caucasus was supported by the Committee for Exploration and Research of the National Geographic Society (John O’Loughlin, PI on both grants).
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the
  • 178 Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2007, 48, No. 2, pp. 178–201. Copyright © 2007 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved. The Wars in Chechnya and Their Effects on Neighboring Regions Olga I. Vendina, Vitaliy S. Belozerov, and Andrew Gustafson1 Abstract: A team of Russia- and U.S.-based geographers presents and discusses the eco- nomic and demographic consequences of the conflicts in Chechnya on that republic, on the neighboring ethnic republics of the North Caucasus, as well as on the adjoining region of Stavropol’ with a majority of Russian inhabitants. Formal economic indicators, which gener- ally exhibit negative trends since 1991, are contrasted with the large, diverse shadow econ- omy that tends to absorb federal development funding diverted from the formal sector to the benefit of local elites. The authors explore the extent to which economic activity once based in Chechnya is dispersed to contiguous regions, discuss changes in the ethnic composition of the republics (“de-Russification”), and consider whether Chechnya and the adjoining repub- lics will ever regain the close economic, political, and social ties with Russia that prevailed during the Soviet period. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O18, R12. 3 figures, 1 table, 73 references. Key words: North Caucasus, Chechnya, Russia, terrorism, Kabardino-Balkaria, jihadists, Dagestan, Ingushetia, shariat, corruption, Stavropol’ Kray, clans, shadow economy, Russo-Chechen wars, money laundering. he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced migrations. Chechnya occupies a unique and somewhat paradoxical position in a distinctly unstable region. Most of the Republic’s conventional ties with the outside world have been severed. Until recently, the region has been a “no-go” zone for the world’s press. Human rights groups and humanitarian organizations have long been forced out of the region. Economic and trans- portation networks once focused on the republic have been relocated over the past decade and a half to avoid crossing Chechen territory. Yet, while persistent brutal violence has con- 1Respectively, Senior Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetnyy pereulok 29, 119017 Moscow, Russia (dnkoiv@comtv.ru); Vice-Rector and Professor of Geography, Stavropol’ State University, Ulitsa Pushkina 1, 355009 Stavropol’, Russia (vbelozerov@hotmail.com); and Graduate Assistant, Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Campus Box 260, Boulder, CO 80309 (gustafaf@colorado.edu). Detailed comments on the paper were received from John O’Loughlin, Vladimir Kolossov, and Gearóid Ó Tuathail. The survey data reported in the paper were collected with the support of the National Science Foundation (grant 0433927) and the fieldwork in the North Caucasus was supported by the Committee for Exploration and Research of the National Geographic Society (John O’Loughlin, PI on both grants).
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have
  • 178 Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2007, 48, No. 2, pp. 178–201. Copyright © 2007 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved. The Wars in Chechnya and Their Effects on Neighboring Regions Olga I. Vendina, Vitaliy S. Belozerov, and Andrew Gustafson1 Abstract: A team of Russia- and U.S.-based geographers presents and discusses the eco- nomic and demographic consequences of the conflicts in Chechnya on that republic, on the neighboring ethnic republics of the North Caucasus, as well as on the adjoining region of Stavropol’ with a majority of Russian inhabitants. Formal economic indicators, which gener- ally exhibit negative trends since 1991, are contrasted with the large, diverse shadow econ- omy that tends to absorb federal development funding diverted from the formal sector to the benefit of local elites. The authors explore the extent to which economic activity once based in Chechnya is dispersed to contiguous regions, discuss changes in the ethnic composition of the republics (“de-Russification”), and consider whether Chechnya and the adjoining repub- lics will ever regain the close economic, political, and social ties with Russia that prevailed during the Soviet period. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O18, R12. 3 figures, 1 table, 73 references. Key words: North Caucasus, Chechnya, Russia, terrorism, Kabardino-Balkaria, jihadists, Dagestan, Ingushetia, shariat, corruption, Stavropol’ Kray, clans, shadow economy, Russo-Chechen wars, money laundering. he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced mi
  • for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensio
  • Chechnya has not been continually at war since it declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991
  • he conflicts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the
  • cts that have plagued Chechnya since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have been responsible for a very high cost in human lives, with as many as 75,000 civilians and 14,000 military killed, according to estimates by the Memorial human rights organiza- tion (Abdullayev, 2005). Most attention has been focused on the military campaigns and the impacts of rampant violence, but very little attention has been paid to the non-military dimensions of these devastating wars, both within Chechnya and beyond. Violence can be found in every region of the North Caucasus and the entire region is marked by the historical legacy of forced migrations. Chechnya occupies a unique and somewhat paradoxical position in a distinctly unstable region. Most of the Republic’s conventional ties with the outside world have been severed. Until recently, the region has been a “no-go” zone for the world’s press. Human rights groups and humanitarian organizations have long been forced out of the region. Economic and trans- portation networks once focused on the republic have been relocated over the past decade and a half to avoid crossing Chechen territory. Yet, while persistent brutal violence has con- 1Respectively, Senior Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetnyy pereulok 29, 119017 Moscow, Russia (dnkoiv@comtv.ru); Vice-Rector and Professor of Geography, Stavropol’ State University, Ulitsa Pushkina 1, 355009 Stavropol’, Russia (vbelozerov@hotmail.com); and Graduate Assistant, Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Campus Box 260, Boulder, CO 80309 (gustafaf@colorado.edu). Detailed comments on the paper were received from John O’Loughlin, Vladimir Kolossov, and Gearóid Ó Tuathail. The survey data reported in the paper were collected with the support of the National Science Foundation (grant 0433927) and the fieldwork in the North Caucasus was supported by the Committee for Exploration and Research of the National Geographic Society (John O’Loughlin, PI on both grants).
  • t of the RSFSR, declared a state of emergency in Chechnya in November 1991, dispatching troop
  • hat ensued was a disastrous 21-month campaign that culminated in the encirclement of several thousand Russian troops inside the capital, Grozny, by Chechen rebel forces in August 1996. That same month, a peace deal was brokered at Khasavyurt (Dagestan), which called for the withdrawal of all Russian forces from Chechnya by the end of the year and stipulated that the final status of the republic would be resolved by 2001 (Sakwa, 2005, p. 296). The period from 1996 until the resumption of hostilities in 1999 was one of de facto independence
  • presented above should permit the reader to conclude that the effects of the war in Chechnya on the North Caucasus have been uneven and diverse. Much has been written about the spread of Islamic extremism, interethnic strife, separatist movements, rampant criminality, and other negative aspects of the conflict that supposedly demonstrate the host of social, cultural, and economic cleavages that plague the region. In reality, however, it is possible to identify specific economic processes occurring in a large number of sectors at a variety of scal
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      1996...1999... de facto indepenence
  • A rash of bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and other Russian cities in August–September 1999 helped precipitate the second Chechen war. Although doubts remain about the official blame and convictions of Chechen terrorists for the bombings, they, together with raids into Dagestan (see below), provided an opportunity for the recently appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, to launch a new military campaign against the res- tive region. In August 1999, Basayev and the rebel commander Ibn al-K
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      uses "chechyan terrorist bombings as an excuse to invade chechnya
Daniel Holtzschue

Colombian Criminal Justice in Crisis: Fear and Distrust - ProQuest Research Library - P... - 1 views

  • Colombian criminal jurisdiction not only-and not mainly-as an inefficient and corrupt system but rather as a system driven by fear and distrust.
  • fear also affects the performance of justice by inhibiting and discouraging judges from administering justice
  • These effects of fear relate closely both to a more or less generalized distrust of the Colombia juridical system and state justice and, alternatively, to the prevalence of private justice.
    • Daniel Holtzschue
       
      The main reason why people take matters into their own hands
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  • This is so because, on the one hand, high levels of fear and distrust inhibit the state's capability to provide justice to its citizens. On the other hand, private justice appears as a somehow logical response to the failure of the Colombian state to provide justice. In reality, private justice becomes the main source to further violence and increase people's distrust in the administration of justice
    • Daniel Holtzschue
       
      never-ending cycle
  • The state's failure to provide justice to its citizens and the lack of a reliable criminal jurisdiction are frequent descriptions of the exercise of justice in contemporary Colombia.
    • Daniel Holtzschue
       
      This sums up the entire judiciary problem in Colombia
  • the generalized use of violence has become a powerful way of subverting criminal jurisdiction.
  • Intimidation through violence ensures that the "request" or impositions of these groups are effectively and rapidly carried out. The constant competition within and among these groups and the increasing inability of the state to control them has meant that "private justice" is now available as any other market commodity, and can be bought by most ordinary people, not just those who are involved in armed conflict or drug trafficking
    • Daniel Holtzschue
       
      Daniel Holtzschue
Neha Kukreja

Colombia's Child Drug Assassins - 2 views

  • but also in the society that continues to produce them. Before juvenile violence became so widespread, many dramatic changes had occurred in Colombia. First of all, there are historical factors. The gangs emerged in areas characterized by massive rural migration. By and large, the state had completely forgotten these areas by the 1970s. Residents were condemned to the world of "informality"--a world in which the rights and obligations of citizenship were lacking. The sons of these migrants from the Colombian countryside grew up on the edge of legality. They were treated as second-class citizens, to be dealt with only by the police.
    • Neha Kukreja
       
      Mhmm.... "the state forgot about them." No wonder the youth have gotten involved in Colombia's drug trafficking activities. 
  • The killing of high officials highlights the role of the young paid assassins. Most are just like Chucho--from poor neighborhoods, abandoned by their fathers, school dropouts, and unemployed. Young boys with similar social profiles have assassinated newspaper editors, leftist politicians and state functionarie
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      The inablities of the Colombian Government has allowed Drug Cartels to enforce their own brand of Justice with Sicarios, with almost no fear of consequences
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      This is Neha's article by the way... just says i shared it for some reason.
  • In a poll conducted last year in the schools of the Northeastern District, students were asked whom they considered the most important person in the country. Pablo Escobar was named by 21 percent of those surveyed; 19.6 percent chose President César Gaviria; and 12.6 percent named the goalkeeper of the national soccer team, René Higuita.
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  • efficacy.
    • Neha Kukreja
       
      Look Mrs. Field.... It's yo favorite word!!!!
  • In 1990, after the assassination of Liberal presidential candidate Luís Carlos Galán, the government launched a frontal attack on the Medellín cartel. The security forces began by attacking the youth gangs considered to be the reserve army of the narcotraffickers. This offensive took place without the least respect for human rights. It used the same logic as the counterinsurgency war: classifying entire communities as enemies of society. To be an adolescent in a poor neighborhood meant to be classified as a sicario.
Austin Buben

Timeline: America's War on Drugs : NPR - 0 views

  • October 1986: Reagan signs the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which appropriates $1.7 billion to fight the drug war. The bill also creates mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, which are increasingly criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population because of the differences in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine. Possession of crack, which is cheaper, results in a harsher sentence; the majority of crack users are lower income.
  • Mid-1980s: Because of the South Florida Drug Task Force's work, cocaine trafficking slowly changes transport routes. The Mexican border becomes the major point of entry for cocaine headed into the United States. Crack, a cheap, addictive and potent form of cocaine, is first developed in the early '80s; it becomes popular in the New York region, devastating inner-city neighborhoods.
  • Nixon creates the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to coordinate the efforts of all other agencies.
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  • In the United States, Vice-President George H.W. Bush combines agents from multiple agencies and military branches to form the South Florida Drug Task Force, Miami being the main entry point at the time.
  • January 2006: Authorities announce the discovery of the longest cross-border tunnel in U.S. history, the work of what they call a well-organized and well-financed drug-smuggling group. The half-mile long tunnel links a warehouse in Tijuana, where about two tons of marijuana were seized, to a warehouse in the United States, where 200 pounds of the drug were found.
  • November 1993: President Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which increases the amount of trade and traffic across the U.S.-Mexican border. This makes it more difficult for U.S. Customs to find narcotics moving across the border.
    • Austin Buben
       
      This is a giant summary and the history of the DEA and War on Drugs.
    • Austin Buben
       
      Austin Found This First
Cole Blum

secession footer - 1 views

  • the Russian Federation. For that purpose it was even willing to fight a full- scale war, the first round of which (1994-96) it won, at least militarily.
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      WIlling to fight a full scale war to maintain the illusion of independene
  • All this has called for both a radical re-moulding of Chechen national identi- ty and a thorough revision of its collective past. The Chechen authorities, the national movement, and in fact all the Chechen intelligentsia – that is, both professional historians and (even more so) many other persons with higher edu- cation – have been involved in this revision of their national past and rewriting of their history on both the academic and popular levels. It all began in 1989, when Gorbachev’s glasnost reached the periphery, and has been steadily growing in momentum ever since. The main milestones in its development have been 1) in 1990, the appointment of a Chechen as republican secretary of the party for the first time since the second world war;5 2) what man
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      all good stuff
  • e new Chechen historical narrative is still strongly linked to Soviet narratives, ways of arguing and moulds of thinking. It tries to prove, for example, that its national heroes were ‘progressive’ and ‘popular’, not ‘reactionary’. It tends, like its progenitor, to be openly political, to make value judgements and moralize and to overlook facts inconsistent with its thesis. Moreover, even emo- tionally it is still very much connected to the ex-USSR, and tries, for example, to prove the Chechens’ loyalty and heroism in the ‘Great Patriotic War’, as the Sec- ond World War is still called in the ex-USSR
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      attempt to portray themselves as progressive not reactionary and its loyalty to wwII though trying to de sovietize
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The Chechens (or the Vainakhs) are an ancient civilized nation. They are descendants of the Hurrians, the founders of the ancient Kingdoms of Mittani and Urartu15 and are, therefore, one of the civilizations of the ancient Near East. Since antiquity they were in contact with, and influ- enced, the peoples of the steppes.16 The Soviet narrative is, thus, reversed: the Chechens are the Russians’ elders in age and civilization and, by impli- cation, are also the ones who indirectly civilized them. (2) The Vainakhs have inhabited their present territory continuously since at least the 4th century BC.17 The northern districts, now populated by Rus- sians, had also been settled by the Chechens until Russian colonization dislodged them. This argument aims to counter the Soviet thesis that the Chechens migrated from the mountains into the lowlands only in the 17th and 18th centuries,18 and the possible political implications of this. (3) They have formed states and polities over the ages. A Vainakh state – Durzuketi – existed in the Northern Caucasus in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC and one of its princesses was the first queen of Georgia.19 Other states of which they were part included Serir (5th-9th centuries AD), Alaniya (10th-11th centuries) and Simsim (16t
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      ways they are re-writing history
  • Although Russian ‘robbery raids’ against peaceful Cheche
    • Mckenzie Hudson
       
      important wording- peacful chechnya- Chechnya says armed conflict 94-96 started three hundred years b4 at first gazavat
  • beginning with Moscow’s attempt to depose the newly elected president Jokhar Dudaev by paratroopers in November 1991, and escalating into a full-scale invasion in December 199
    • Cole Blum
       
      This is a good article about how nationalism, while it should be a good thing, can turn into something very harmful.
    • Cole Blum
       
      This is interesting how you can easily get people very excited and get them ready to fight just by getting them loyal to something, as shown in this example. Nationalism is a humongous example of this.
    • Cole Blum
       
      This is actually Mckenzies article.
miller kinlin

Drug use and drug policy - Google Books - 0 views

    • miller kinlin
       
      he organization that it has developed employs up to 120,000 people, including 2,000 to 3,000 in the us. controlled by pablo escobar, who ran it even in prison. primary target of us. Belisario Betancur in 1988: "we are up against an organization that is stronger than the state
    • miller kinlin
       
      ormed in 1982 in response to the kidnapping of a member of the ochoa family by the m-19 guerrillas. rapid increase in profits led to the cocaine wars. as the cartels became more powerful, they expanded into politics, media, private armies, real estate, and international banking
    • miller kinlin
       
      payed bribes to curropt police officials, judges were also paid as well, assassinated people, and offered to pay 10 billion to pay off national debt. and even killed the justice minister in 1984.
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • miller kinlin
       
      argue its good for state: brings in so much money, aids development and keeps down unemployment. the cartels employed huge numbers of different types of workers, from farmers to airplane pilots, to engineers and scientists. they invested heavily in local elections and politicians, and including the presidential election.. and escobar even was elected to the comombian house of reps.
  •  
    Miller Kinlin
Onurcan Tatman

Plan Colombia: Washington's Latest Drug War Failure | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Instit... - 1 views

  • Even as President Andres Pastrana and other leaders boasted of the plan's achievements, reports were leaking out that a new study, funded by the United Nations, indicated that there were more than 340,000 acres under cultivation.
  • hat Plan Colombia has done is increase the animosity of farmers toward the Pastrana government and, indirectly, toward the
  • When Pastrana recently traveled to one drug-producing region to sell the "soft side" of Plan Colombia (economic development), he received a harsh reception. At stop after stop he was greeted by angry demonstrators. And their message ought to trouble U.S. leaders as well as Pastrana. Many of the demonstrators waved signs showing a Colombian flag being subsumed by the Stars and Stripes, with the caption "Plan Colombia's Achievements." Other protestors greeted the president with chants of "Pastrana subservient to the gringos."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Pastrana government already confronts a three-decade-old insurgency being waged by two left-wing guerrilla armies
  • Plan Colombia is ineffectual in achieving its stated objectives, and it produces a number of highly undesirable side effects. The brutal reality is that, as long as drugs are illegal, there will be a huge black-market premium-a lucrative potential profit that will attract producers. Plan Colombia cannot repeal the economic laws of supply and demand. In attempting to do so, the United States is creating even more trouble for an already troubled neighbor.
  •  
    This article shows the failure of president Andres Pastrana and his efforts to end the drug war. It also talks about the misconseption of the whole idea that Plan Colombia actually worked.
Cole Blum

Young Assassins Of The Drug Trade - Research and Read Books, Journals, Articles at Ques... - 6 views

    • Neha Kukreja
       
      This is where I'd say it's the Government's fault... what are they doing to combat this "same poverty, the same unemployment, the same corrupt authority?"
    • Cole Blum
       
      I agree. The Government is making some changes toward helping combat the violence and poverty, but a lot of these things are only hurting the cause.
  • Adolescents from poor neighborhoods were recruited as sicarios
  • from
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Sub- sequently, as the state attempted to bring these gangs under control, these same young boys began assassi- nating policemen and judges.
  • control, these same young boys began assassi- nating policemen and judges. In 1983, a 16-year-old adolescent discharged a sub-
  • President Belisario Betancur immediately enacted a treaty of extradition with the United States -- where traffickers were more likely to be prosecuted -- and an armed bat- tle began in which the young sicarios occupied the front lines for the drug cartels.
    • Cole Blum
       
      This is the most important part about the rise of the sicarios, where a huge armed battle ensued between the poor, the government, and the drug cartels (paired with the sicarios).
    • Cole Blum
       
      This is an example of how the government tried to stop the violence in Colombia, but actually hurt it in a lot of ways. It also made a lot more people dislike them.
  •  
    This article talks about the involvement of youth in the violence of Colombia and how it started.
William Fromm

Expert Witness Details Secrets of a Drug Cartel - New York Times - 1 views

  • Testifying for the prosecution in a Federal drug conspiracy and money laundering trial, Mr. Mermelstein said that from 1981 to 1985 he was one of the cartel's main representatives in the United States. He said that for four years he supervised the distribution of 56 tons of cocaine brought into the country and that he was responsible for transferring about $300 million from drug sales back to Colombia.
  • More Like ThisJackson Heights Streets Familiar to Drug CartelsCOLOMBIANS SEIZE DRUG RING SUSPECT AND 134 AIRCRAFTBanking's Technology Helps Drug Dealers Export Cash . . .Find More StoriesFederal LawDrug CartelMedellin CartelExpert Witness
    • Katy Field
       
      Sticky note on Bill's Stuff
  • ...2 more annotations...
    • William Fromm
       
      Finally gives a testimony about the drug cartels, and it turns out to be the most extensive and most informative about the drug cartels.
  • testimony came at the trial of Carlos Eduardo Restrepo, who is accused of laundering more than $10 million for the Medellin cartel through a currency-exchange company in Greenwich that was an undercover ''sting'' operation set up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Money laundering, under a 1986 Federal law, is the concealment and illegal transfer of money obtained through unlawful acts.The United States Attorney in Connecticut, Stanley A. Twardy Jr., said in an interview that Mr. Restrepo is the first person to be tried under the Federal law. Mr. Restrepo, who is 38 and who has described himself as a businessman, has pleaded not guilty.
  •  
    This New York Times article shows how an eyewitness might have been treated under the colombian government, and how it later on seeked safety in the U.S. Federal Witness Protection Program.
Austin Buben

From smugglers to warlords: twentieth century Colombian drug traffickers - ProQuest Res... - 1 views

    • Austin Buben
       
      Austin Buben Found this First
  • The main suppliers of Cuban traffickers during the 1960s were Colombians. They would buy the coca paste from peasant farmers in Peru and Bolivia, transform it into cocaine in laboratories in Medellin, and then sell it to Cubans for distribution in the United States.
  •  
    From smugglers to warlords: twentieth century Colombian drug traffickers
Onurcan Tatman

Genocide after emotion - 0 views

  •  
    The failure to adequately respond on the part of the major Western superpowers to the atrocities in the Balkans constitutes a major moral and political scandal. InGenocide After EmotionMestrovic and the contributors thoroughly interrogate the war, its media coverage and response in the West.
  •  
    this article talks about how the Serbs may have acted out in fear of a Islamic State developing in Europe. It also talks about how the Serbs used illegal cluster bombs on the people of Bosnia.
Neha Kukreja

Preventing Genocide - Who is at Risk? - Chechnya, Russia - 0 views

  • The Russian republic of Chechnya suffered two conflicts in the recent past: 1994-6 and 1999-2000.
  • The demonization of Chechens as a group within Russian society
    • Neha Kukreja
       
      This follows right alongside our definition of Genocide : an attempt to exterminate a particular group of people
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • but he also voiced concerns about ongoing violations of human rights, including extra-judicial detention centres, disappearances, pressure on witnesses, and house burnings. The U.S. State Department’s 2010 annual human rights report reached similar conclusions.
Mallory Toth

Yugoslavia page - 0 views

    • Mallory Toth
       
      state was created at the end of World War I 
    • Mallory Toth
       
      Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia were all part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes
  •  
    Yugoslavia means the state of the South Slavs. There were the following linguistic and religious groups within its borders: Serbs; Croats; Slovenes; Macedonians (these are all Slavs); Albanians; Hungarians, Romanians. The area owes its ethnic diversity to migrations of Slavs into territory formerly part of the Roman Empire, at that time occupied by the Illyrians (whose descendants are believed to be the Albanians).
Caroline Yevak

NO MAN'S LAND: The Mystery of Mexico's Drug Wars - ProQuest Research Library - ProQuest - 0 views

  • "It's looking more and more like Colombia looked twenty years ago," she said, "where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country."
  • Mexico doesn't even have a viable proclaimed guerrilla force aiming to topple the government. Instead, Mexico has labyrinthine drug gangs murderously fighting it out against each other-while they extort, intimidate, massacre, and conduct firefights with the government.
  • There is no law there," he warned. "They are the law."
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • By "they," he meant an irregular army of drug traffickers, who had created a no-man's-land in a grim little slice of Mexico.
  • Mexico's low-intensity "narco-war" has cast a daunting shadow over many of its backcountry areas, some of them wedged disconcertingly against the 2,000-mile-long border with the United States. The border's southern side is dotted with mysterious conflict zones, emitting rumors of burned houses, fleeing residents, and shadowy pseudo-armies of drug traffickers clashing by night.
  • Beltrán Leyva Cartel, El Gilo, the Zetas, El Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel, the New Federation . . . This one little postage stamp of desert soil sounds like a package tour of "Narco-Mexico."
    • Caroline Yevak
       
      Beltrán-Leyva Cartel is one of the biggest in Mexico
  • There, a rival of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, reportedly runs two large militia camps in the mountains, each with about three hundred men. The Sinaloa Cartel's own force there, orbiting the same general area, is said to number four hundred, in fifty-man squads.
  • Over on the other side of the country, the greener side by the Gulf of Mexico, south of Texas, three of the cartel gunmen arrested in the August massacre were reportedly aged fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen.
  • Such is the typical age spread for an expedition like this: a not-so-clandestine grupo de limpieza, a "cleanup squad" sent by one drug cartel to quash another.
  • Interestingly, no Mexican police or army troops spotted the cleanup caravan that brought Ramón Mesa, though it frightened various small towns en route. The forty-five hundred Mexican Army troops deployed across the country in the drug war have struck some heavy blows against the cartels, and the troops are often more professional than some outsiders might imagine, but mysteries still abide.
Ellen Mischinski

The FARC, the war and the crisis of the state - ProQuest Research Library - ProQuest - 0 views

  • In this context, the FARC has adopted strategies to strengthen its presence at the local level that play upon the weak mechanisms of accountability that exist in local and regional government. For example, by kidnapping or threatening municipal authorities, the group has sought to establish "armed oversight" over the use of municipal funds
  • Based on this information, the insurgents have targeted corrupt politicians in their kidnapping and extortion campaigns, though they often utilize public funds to finance their own activities. L
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      shows who/why they kidnap. 
    • Ellen Mischinski
       
      work to control local gvts
Shana Thomas

Democracy and Plan Colombia - ProQuest Research Library - ProQuest - 1 views

    • Shana Thomas
       
      Shana found this article! :)
  • Its primary stated objective was to end drug trafficking in Colombia. Later on, it was discovered that the plan had the further objective of defeating the guerrilla movement,
  • it reaches $7.7 billion. But despite this investment, the U.S.-supported government of Alvaro Uribe has defeated neither the drug traffickers nor the guerrilla movement. To the contrary, the plan's only success has been to guarantee a majority to the parties that supported Uribe in the Congressional elections of March 2006, and to guarantee Uribe's own re-election last May.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Plan Colombia
  • instituted a one-time war tax
  • U.S. technical assistance to the Colombian air force that allowed it to engage in effective anti-guerrilla bombing campaigns. The guerrillas had also suffered setbacks due to their own political and strategic errors,
    • Shana Thomas
       
      this will help talk about plan colombia and the efforts made by the colombian gov't to aid their drug trafficking issue
  • Plan Patriota, which called for the Colombian armed forces to surround and annihilate the guerrillas in their interior strongholds. But these were locations the guerrillas knew well and where they enjoyed solid popular support, allowing them to soundly defeat the military
  • the agreement with the paramilitaries.
  • which is to allow the legalization of billions of paramilitary narco-dollars. The paramilitaries finance not only their operations, but also their lifestyles with the country's largest drug-trafficking operations.
  • Since negotiations between Uribe and the paramilitaries began, billions of dollars and euros in drug profits have entered Colombia.
    • Shana Thomas
       
      which helps their economy; in a sense, the gov't was trying to end the drug trafficking but now is torn b/c the money helps float their economy. so they're a corrupted gov't
  • Today, however, they openly finance entire electoral campaigns. The government's own statistics acknowledge that in 2005, $3 billion flowed through Colombia, with no record of how the money entered the country. No one planted money seeds and grew the $3 billion; this is just a portion of the billions of dollars and euros that the paramilitaries have laundered.
  •  
    about plan Colombia; the way that Colombia is taking care of its drug trafficking issue
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