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The Ongoing Expansion of Organized Crime in the
Americas
IASW | Monday, July 14th, 2014
By Jerry Brewer
Eroding the power, control and influence of violent transnational extremist
organizations in this Hemisphere, over the last decade, has been at best
a near total failure.
Attributable to this assessment of much more than the intense human
carnage, manifested by record breaking murder rates, is the reality of near
collapse of societies, instability and ineffective/ungoverned regions, and
remaining vulnerable populations demonstrated most graphically in Central
America.
The worlds highest murder rates go to number one Honduras and number
three El Salvador, both in Central America. Farther to the south, Venezuela
holds the number two position. And in Argentina violent deaths among youth
are at a ten-year high.
Yet there are officials who blindly look south and argue that these threats are
not necessarily existential, claiming that they pose no real challenge to borders
or national security.
This organized crime-terror nexus has a nucleus and norm of fear,
intimidation, extortion, kidnapping, murder, political tampering, and torture.
The killing and capturing of journalists, police chiefs, mayors and others, plus
military and government officials in these vulnerable regions, graphically
demonstrates the presence of an out of control insurgency.
What is clear is that demobilizing or disarming these criminal insurgents will
require a united international model, with a goal and methodology to disrupt
and deny these insurgent networks operating flexibility.
This conflict is much more than just drug trafficking. Transnational organized
crime is also entrenched in a myriad of competing high revenue activities that
include human and sex trafficking; kidnapping/extortion; and other acts of
deadly violence that essentially take from the weak and unprotected, leaving
behind greater misery and broken dreams. Equality, dignity and respect for
human life do not exist under this oppressive rule, reminiscent of a dictators
reign.
These acts are committed from Canada to the southern tip of South America,
as well as the Caribbean. Displaced adults and children fleeing their homes for
perceived safer neighboring borders become even greater targets along the
way, to be exploited, robbed, raped, murdered, and discarded in the many
clandestine graves found in Mexico and Central America. Moreover, many of
those that survive are forced into the sex trade in cities throughout the region.
National security interests in all of the affected nations must include an
intense focus on human rights. Functioning justice systems that include
enforcement and a rule of law must prevail to secure a homeland.
Securing land borders in manageable areas, in the face of escalating
undocumented, illegal and unaccompanied minor migration alone is
paramount in order not to exceed the ability of a host nation to provide
essential services to its own populace.
Countering transnational organized crime therefore must be an aggressive and
cooperative world priority. A key component of success in criminal
counterinsurgency doctrine is to cripple the infrastructure with a major focus
on interdicting, seizing and decreasing the massive revenues and related
finances. This must be an inherent and boldly enforced national security and
defense strategy.
According to estimates, the illegal economy accounts for eight to 15 percent of
world GDP. The incredible estimates of this worldwide illicit revenue include
US$32 billion annually just for trafficking in humans.
Transnational organized crime, and its seemingly endless financial resources,
is the lifeblood of corrupting police, the military, government officials,
business leaders and others. Few expenses are spared to undermine the forces
directed against them, as well as the ramifications of what the rule of law
could do to the criminals.
Border security along the U.S.-Mexico border is far less complicated than it
appears or explained in knee-jerk reactions and exhaustive diatribes, as
opposed to nations to the south that lack necessary infrastructures and
expertise.
The U.S. border has an invisible line in the sand that does not necessitate a
ground military component for regional security and stability, short of an
invasion to conquer the U.S.
A recent media tour and interview on the border, with Texas Governor Rick
Perry, prompted the host to say that he learned so much from it this time,
that he now believed that fences and walls were not the real answer as he felt
before.
With the regrouping of similar functions and personnel, redirecting of
resources, coordinating of an integrated policing strategy, deployment of all
law enforcement ground entities that currently exist and have existed along
the border and off jurisdictionally from Texas to California, there could be
strong elements for patrol saturation. This of course supplemented and
supported with the limited numbers of Border Patrol officers that could be
allocated strategically and proactively, as well as other elements of the
military, National Guard and government that contribute as usual.
It is not always about how many people you have, but what those people
actually do or are tasked to do in a coordinated team-oriented effort. Even
with tight financial constraints and when operating in cut-back governing
environments, the mission must be accomplished to the best of their abilities,
regardless. Simply throwing government dollars at the border wont secure it.
Click here for original article.
jbrewer@cjiausa.org

Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice
International Associates, a global threat mitigation
firm headquartered in northern Virginia. His website
is located at www.cjiausa.org
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