1

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE GUERRA

“GENERAL RAFAEL REYES PRIETO”

DANIELA SÁNCHEZ DUQUE

MASTER’S IN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY DEPARTMENT

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE GUERRA

“GENERAL RAFAEL REYES PRIETO”
BOGOTA
JANUARY 2017
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AMERIPOL, REGIONAL SECURITY POLICE COMPLEX: CONFIGURATION OF A

REGIONAL SECURITIZATION PROCESS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST DRUG
TRAFFICKING IN LATIN AMERICA

DANIELA PATRICIA SÁNCHEZ DUQUE

Dissertation presented to obtain the degree:

Master in National Security and Defense

Counseled by:

Juan Carlos Ruiz

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE GUERRA

“GENERAL RAFAEL REYES PRIETO”

BOGOTA

JANUARY 2017
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Abstract

Understanding that drug trafficking is a transnational phenomenon that impacts both state and

regional security, this research studies AMERIPOL, the Police Community of the Americas, as an

essential organization in police integration and cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. In

this sense, this research seeks to analyze the importance of generating police cooperation instances

in the frame of Police Complex of Latin American Regional Security, considered a result of a drug

trafficking securitization process by states of the region. Therefore, the theory of “Complexes of

Regional Security” by Barry Busan and the concept of “securitization” were considered conceptual

bases that allow the analysis of the importance of mechanisms such as AMERIPOL in the removal

of political and legal barriers in order to effectively and efficiently activate police forces in the

fight against drug trafficking in Latin America.

Keywords: drug trafficking, securitization, complexes of regional security, Latin America,

cooperation, integration, AMERIPOL

Synthèse

En comprenant le trafic de drogue comme un phénomène de caractère transnational

qu'impact sur la sécurité des Etats et au niveau régional, cette recherche étudie la

Communauté Policière des Amériques - AMERIPOL comme une organisation clé pour la

coopération policière dans la lutte contre le trafic de drogue. À cet égard, cette recherche

analyse l'importance de générer des instances de coopération policière dans le cadre du

Complexe Policière de sécurité régionale en Amérique latine, que, par suite d'un processus

de titrisation de trafic de drogue par les États de la région. Il est donc considéré la théorie

du complexe de sécurité régionale de Barry Buzan et le concept de titrisation comme une

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base conceptuelle qui permet analyser l'importance des mécanismes tels que AMERIPOL

pour éliminer des obstacles politiques et juridiques pour atteindre actions efficaces et

efficientes de la police en Amérique latine dans la lutte contre le trafic de drogue.

Mots clefs: Trafic de drogue, Securitisation, Complexe de sécurité régionale, Amérique

latine, AMERIPOL.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 6

1. DRUG TRAFFICKING SECURITIZATION IN LATIN AMERICA ................................. 11

1.1 Colombia ............................................................................................................................. 16

1.2 Peru ..................................................................................................................................... 20

1.3 Ecuador ............................................................................................................................... 22

1.4 Brazil ................................................................................................................................... 27

1.5 Dissimilar realities, a common threat, a joint process ........................................................ 29

2. DIFFICULTIES IN THE INTEGRATION AND COOPERATION OF POLICE FORCES IN

LATIN AMERICA ....................................................................................................................... 32

2.1 AMERIPOL as a model of police cooperation and integration .......................................... 37

2.2 Legal limitations ................................................................................................................. 39

2.3 Political limitations ............................................................................................................. 42

3. TOWARDS THE CONSTRUCTION OF A REGIONAL SECURITY POLICE COMPLEX 49

3.1 Regional Security Complexes theory.................................................................................. 49

3.2 AMERIPOL, blurring frontiers: towards the construction of a Regional Security Police
Complex .................................................................................................................................... 57

CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................................... 65

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 70
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INTRODUCTION
Transnational Organized Crime1is one of the current challenges in terms of security in the

world. This phenomenon defies the security conventional dynamics, because given its

nature, it does not recognize the national frontiers, which makes it a transnational threat

with no location.

Transnational criminal organizations are the main agents of the TOC. They have gained

strength in the past 50 years, which weakened the states because of the rise in supply and

demand of illicit services. Their global action and extension affect not only the security of

states (understood in traditional terms) but also the security of their citizens and that of the

region where the phenomenon develops, given the existence of transnational connections

among such organizations (Gerspacher & Dupont, The Nodal Structure of International

Police Cooperation: An Exploration of Transnational Security Networks, 2007).

One of the illicit goods with high demand is psychoactive substances. Their production,

distribution and commercialization gives origin to drug trafficking, which is an

international illegal activity whose purposes are mainly lucrative (Vargas Velásquez,

2011). This activity is one of the typologies of the TOC with greater global extension.

Therefore, it becomes one of the most important international current threats.

Considering the transnational dimension of drug trafficking and its condition as

security threat, counteracting this scourge is a task that supposes a jointly responsible work

among states and different agents from the International System, given the fact that an

isolationist confrontation of such a phenomenon is obsolete, because it demands a

1
From this point onwards, TOC will be used to refer to Transnational Organized Crime.
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coordinated action among agencies. From the existence of such a scourge, different

cooperation models have been developed. The prohibitionist one has been the prevailing

one. However, the effectiveness of such a model has been discussed given its inability of

finishing the phenomenon, which has led to the development of other cooperation

strategies in the fight against TOC and drug trafficking. One of these strategies is

cooperation among police forces.

With this in mind, the guiding question of this research emerges: how does the

construction of a Regional Security Police Complex2 contribute to the fight against drug

trafficking in Latin America? With regards to this question, it is established that the

contribution of an RSPC in the fight against drug trafficking lies in constituting an

integration and cooperation mechanism of different police forces, which generate

securitization processes in the fight against this phenomenon by acting when there is a

common perception of a threat. For this reason, a jointly responsible work among police

forces is determinant in the fight against drug trafficking in the Latin American security

complex.

With the aim of developing and defending the aforementioned hypothesis, this

document is divided in three chapters, each of which seeks to develop the specific

objectives of the research. The first chapter exposes drug trafficking’s securitization

process in some of the Latin American states while showing some of the policies that were

implemented during the past 10 years and their differences in terms of how the

phenomenon was affected and the strategies to do so. Choosing states such as Ecuador,

2
From now on, “RSCP” will be used to abbreviate Regional Security Police Complex.
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Colombia, Brazil and Peru as study cases obeys to: firstly, the differentiated way in which

drug trafficking affects them; secondly, the multiple manifestations of the securitizing

discourse; last but not least, the differences and similarities among the securitization

strategies of the phenomenon.

Throughout the second chapter, the main challenges and difficulties of the regional

cooperation and integration in the Latin American security complex are explained. In order

to do so, the Police Communities of the Americas (AMERIPOL), was taken as a case

study.

Finally, in the third chapter, AMERIPOL is presented as an RSPC. It has to try to blur

the political and legal barriers that exist in the region in order to generate different

mechanisms that facilitate Latin American police cooperation and integration in the fight

against drug trafficking. Such a mission implies approaching the theory of regional

security complexes by Barry Buzan, keeping in mind that this theory constitutes the

conceptual basis of this research.

It is vital to mention that this research has as a precedent the research that the author

conducted during her undergraduate studies in International Relations, scenario in which

the dissertation was entitled Latin American police forces integration difficulties in the

fight against drug trafficking. Study case: AMERIPOL. Therefore, this research is a

continuation of the aforementioned study as well as an advanced stage of it. It responds to

an analysis of the phenomenon from another perspective while it develops a

complementary concept: RSPC.

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It is possible to point that the main contribution of the undergraduate research is

reflected in the second chapter of this study, because it is exactly there where

AMERIPOL’s main difficulties in the fight against drug trafficking are presented. They

are vital when understanding the importance of a strong RSPC in such a fight.

Having reached this point, it must be pointed that, in methodological terms, this

research is framed in a study case. It addresses AMERIPOL as an object of study, an

organization in which the role of Regional Security Police Complexes can be studied.

Moreover, this study is descriptive, as it identifies and develops the importance of RSPCs

in the fight against drug trafficking. In this sense, this research interrelates two variables:

regional security police complex and fight against drug trafficking.

This study is conducted from a qualitative methodological approach. It uses narrative

tools, which prioritize secondary sources such as academic texts, articles, indexed

journals, reports, police officer reports, among other bibliographical resources as a tool to

approach the case of study, the securitization concepts and the Regional Security

Complexes.

With this in mind, it is stated that this research “presents nuances of a research that

follows the institutionalist approach since the police institutions constitute a focal point

through which agents interact with each other, which allows the development of

cooperation to foresee strategies in the fight against drug trafficking” (Sánchez, 2015, p.

14). Consequently, a part of the importance of this research lies in the possibility of

thinking police cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking within the frame of Barry

Buzan’s Regional Security Complexes theory, emphasizing on the securitization process

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that has been developed and which has granted drug trafficking a main role in the Latin

American regional security agenda.

To finish, it must be added that so far, there is no known research that relates the

variables fight against drug trafficking and regional security police complexes. This

feature makes this research academically innovative. Furthermore, it would be necessary

to say that the main contribution of this research is the development of a new concept as

an analysis instrument and a proposal for police cooperation: RSPC. Certainly, throughout

time, such a concept will be modified and improved. In spite of that, stating it is an

appropriate starting point, an evident result of a more advanced stage in the research that

the author developed since her undergraduate studies.

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1. DRUG TRAFFICKING SECURITIZATION IN LATIN AMERICA

To start, it is necessary to understand that during the last decades, the fight against drug trafficking

has had big changes regarding its discourse and, therefore, the policies to counteract. This obeys

to both a securitization process of the phenomenon and its transformation, which affects security

not only from the state view, but also from a multidimensional (social, economic and

environmental) view.

With this in mind, it is important to understand securitization as a “process in which an

issue becomes a threat and is incorporated in the national security agenda” (Jaramillo, 2012, p.

17). In this case, drug trafficking, with its rise in the 80’s and 90’s, started to generate a series of

dynamics that affect national security, public health, human security as well as regional and

international security, given its transnational nature, which supposes that most states are involved

in this phenomenon in different ways.

Drug trafficking’s dimension, as well as its ability to affect regional and domestic security

dynamics and the political understanding of it as a threat, was a determinant factor in the

development of a securitization process in drug trafficking in Latin America. In this sense, it is

essential to understand that “securitization is an intersubjective process, which does not obey to a

confirmed reality but a constitutive one, which creates itself in the interaction of agents

(securitizing agent and audience) and objects (regarding securitization) which inform it” (Tello,

2001, p. 193). Consequently, drug trafficking ascends as a priority issue in the Latin American

states security agenda, mainly (but not only because of it), due to the pressure of the United States

as a main securitizing agent regarding the phenomenon of drug trafficking in the region.
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This way, as Buzan et al. (1998) establish it, the discourse act of a securitization process

requires three kinds of distinction. Firstly, the referent objects must be identified: those agents or

areas that are existentially threatened and that have a legitimate right to survive. Secondly, the

securitizing agents need to be found, who drive the securitization process while defining the

scenarios or issues –referent objects-, whose existence is threatened. Thirdly, the functional agents

need to be identified: those who affect the dynamic of a sector, meaningfully influencing decisions

in the field of security (Buzan et al., 1998). The following graphic concretely shows the units of

analysis that belong to the securitization process as well as examples of each one of these in the

drug trafficking phenomenon.

Figure 1: Securitization analysis units

Source: designed by the author of this research based on Buzan et al., 1998.

Regarding the previous figure, and having drug trafficking’s process of securitization as a study

phenomenon, it is possible to understand analysis units the following way. First of all, population

can be understood as one of the referent objects, because it is affected by different crimes related

to drug trafficking, which have an effect on their security and usually increase violence rates. In
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this context, state borders can also be understood as referent objects, which are increasingly more

porous and are permeated by the phenomenon. Therefore, it affects the capacity of sovereignty

and the states’ monopoly of violence.

Second of all, to understand the securitizing agents of the studied phenomenon, it is

essential to have a clear idea of the nature of drug trafficking. Even if such a nature is transnational,

it also emerges within states. Therefore, it can be thought that securitizing agents can be found

both in the International System and domestic areas. Although at a state level, for example, in

Colombia, the securitization process is developed by agents such as the President of the Republic

(policy makers), local governors, and even members of the legislature, it is essential to understand

that such a process obeys to a macro securitization process developed by the International System.

Such a process obeys to the “understanding of drug trafficking’s dimension, which leads

to the fact that no country can cover the phenomenon in an isolated way, making the development

of interregional and international cooperation mechanisms necessary in order to favor cooperation

in different areas” (Centroamerican Network of Thinking and Incidence Centers, 2011, p. 17).

If one goes deeper in such a reasoning, one will see that the United States of America has

been a country that has developed discourse regarding Latin America, in which drug trafficking is

a direct threat for national, hemispherical and international security. It is to be mentioned that,

besides developing a discourse, it has managed to prioritize the phenomenon in the regional

security agenda. Meanwhile, it has also seeked funding strategies in the fight against drug

trafficking.

With this in mind, one could think of organizations such as the OAS as securitizing agents

according to what was stated in the Conference About Special Security, in which “a process of
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joint reflection about hemispherical security in the light of new global and regional circumstances“

took place (OAS, 2003, p.1). As a result of such a conference, the threats that affect the states of

the hemisphere were defined, and a securitization process in which transnational organized

delinquency and the global issue of drugs (among others) were included could take place. To this

respect, it is convenient to state the importance of:

the multilateral cooperation based on the shared responsibility, integrality, balance, mutual

trust and full respect to the sovereignty of states is essencial to confront the global issue of

drugs and its connected crimes, which constitute a threat to the security of the region. (OAS,

2003, p. 10)

Last but not least, functional agents are the third unit of analysis. They are those with the

ability to influence directly the securitized area. In the case of drug trafficking, it is possible to

identify a variety of functional agents who respond to each of the stages of the drug trafficking

chain. For instance, growers, produces, distributors and consumers. Other functional agents are the

Armed Forces because of their participation and promotion in the securitization of the phenomenon

(Demurtas, 2014).

Continuing with the analysis, as Nuñez (2013) states it, in order for securitization to be

possible, discourses must present a topic as an urgent matter that must be resolved immediately.

In this case, despite the fact that drug trafficking has been securitized for an extended period of

time, the mutation and progression of this phenomenon, as well as the existance of challenges and

difficulties in cooperation, have not allowed this problem to be fully resolved, which validates the

importance of securitization in drug trafficking.

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The way in which the phenomenon is understood can also explain its mutation and the

alternatives that have been generated in the securitization process during the last decade. As López

(2003) states it, the drug issue was initially treated as a matter of public health. Then, it became a

totally criminal issue, excluding the affectations to the Human Security that this phenomenon

generates within states, too.

On one hand, drug trafficking is a “mediatic object with intense moralization, stigma and

social prohibition, but, on the hand, it is a phenomenon that receives nourishment by political statu

quo and its own illegal condition” (Mantilla, 2008, p. 242). That is the paradox of the phenomenon

that has allowed it to be a latent threat for many years. Consequently, the threat of drug trafficking

is not only in terms of state security, it also has a component of social threat. For this reason, it is

possible to affirm that drug trafficking is a threat from the multidimensional security perspective3.

Nevertheless, one of the possible most paradoxical matters of this phenomenon has to do with the

fact that “drug trafficking is parasitically fed by statu quo and the body of captive state. Therefore,

declaring war to organized crime in these conditions could be considered a sucidial act” (Serrano,

2005, p. 58).

In terms of the different effects that have taken place at a regional level by the securitization

of drug trafficking, it can be stated that multiple phenomena have occurred, such as the expansion

of traffic, crops, production, consumption, etc., which causes a balloon effect. As Bagley (2012)

affirms, the balloon effect is the process through which an expansion of crops from a place to

3
Multidimensional security assumes that “besides the military threats, there are other ones (related to economy, the
environment, massive migration, etc.). Such threats also have a global and cross-frontier nature, and therefore,
strategies to examine the new reality cannot be strictly military” (Ortega & Font, 2012, p. 162).
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another one takes place. This phenomenon has alarmingly increased during the last decades.

Therefore, one must consider that:

Production grows for every metric ton in the world, so, can we consider all this as a victory?

No, it is a partial victory. In this sense, the balloon effect does not mean to assume the deterioration

but the blockage of the fight against drugs. Thus, it is counterproductive effect in which country

after country is contaminated with the same issues without resolving those that are already there.

(Bagley, 2012, p. 52)

With the purpose of examining the drug trafficking securitization process in the Latin

American Security Complex, the following section presents how this process has been led with

efforts in different countries of the region. Choosing these countries as an objective sample obeys

to three factors. The first one is the differentiated way in which drug trafficking affects them. The

second one refers to the diverse manifestations of the securitizing discourse. The last one is the

differences and similarities in the securitizing strategies of the phenomenon.

1.1 Colombia

In the past 30 years, drug trafficking has been one of the main topics in the Colombia’s security

and national defense. It is to be understood that this illegal activity is intrinsecally related to the

history of political violence of the country, due to the conflict among state institutions and the drug

trafficking cartels, which had the intention of making illegal drug crops, processing, traffic and

earnings of such activities legal (Bagley, 2012).

In the presence of this scenario, drug trafficking has been determined as a threat to national

interests, which has led to the point of giving it priority in the national security agenda. Meanwhile,

it has forged the development of an exterior policy as well as public ones aimed at counteracting.
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This is how the drug trafficking phenomenon has been securitized in a way that it is possible to

think that the Colombian security agenda has been narcotized. An example of this is the privileged

resources that National Police received, which came from international cooperation and were used

to security and defense. However, “most of this investment was used to fight antinarcotics, having

the police equipped for the attention of programs and strategies to eradicate crops and narcotics

traffic as an aim” (Ruiz, 2006).

It is important to point that narcotizing the agenda is not a phenomenon that was left after

the dismantling of cartels in Medellín and Cali in the 90’s. It was exactly with their end that a

dispute for the control of drug trafficking activities started by agents that had been subsidiarily

involved. This is how the void of power in the criminal field as well as the state’s inability to act

as a sovereign entity in the national territory allowed illegal armed agents such as paramilitary

groups, the FARC, the ELN to adopt drug trafficking as one of their excellent financial sources.

This scenario reconfigured drug trafficking’s securitization process both in Colombia and in the

regional area, because drug trafficking stopped being a criminal isolated activity for the internal

conflict and became a phenomenon able to defy the violence monopoly of the state and its

sovereignty.

In order to understand drug trafficking’s securitization process in Colombia, it is necessary

to have an idea about how it has been articulated in the political field. First of all, it must be said

that during Pastrana’s administration (1998-2002), the bases for Plan Colombia were constructed,

a plan that continued being implemented during Alvaro Uribe Velez’s government (2002-2010).

Plan Colombia consisted on three phrases. The first one was named Plan for Peace (2000-2006).

Such a phase “centered its efforts in strengthening the Public Force, the interdiction and eradication

of illicit crops. It also focused on giving support for the alternative and economic development of
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the regions affected by the conflict (Departamento Nacional de Planeación, n.d., p.1). Nonetheless,

during this first phase, resources were invested mainly in the defense area, which reached figures

near 4.800 million dollars.

The second phase was the strategy of democracy and social development enhancement

(2007-2009). This phase was framed within the phase that took such a name. In it, resources were

“channeled in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking” (Departamento Nacional de

Planeación, n.d., p. 1). During the development of this phase, 2.100-dollar investments were made.

The third phase was the Initiative of Strategic Development for Colombia (2010-2015), a

phase in which programs against terrorism and drug trafficking were continued. In this last phase,

investments reached 2.700 million dollars.

On average, during the last 15 years, 7 out of every 10 dollars from Plan Colombia were used for

police and military help, and for 3 investments for social and economic development. Most resources

for public force (85%) were sent to the fight against drug trafficking. (Departamento Nacional de

Planeación, 2015)

Just like it can be confirmed when verifying the use of the money spent, resources’ main

destination consisted of the attention of threats generated by drug trafficking and terrorism.

Therefore, in spite of the existence of social programs, most funds were used to enhance police

and military capacity, at least, during the first two phases.

72% of Plan Colombia’s resources were used for the component of military and police

support, mainly focusing on professionalizing military forces’ service and the fight against

drug trafficking. 28% was used for humanitarian, social and economic initiatives as well as

justice administration. (Departamento Nacional de Planeación, 2015, p. 2)

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Figure 2. Distribution of social and economic help resources

Source: Departamento Nacional de Planeación, 2015.

The first decades of the fight against drug trafficking were characterized by seeking the

realization of narcotic substances prohibition. Consequently, such a fight depended on the punitive

model through which the dismantling of criminal structures dedicated to producing and trafficking

narcotics was pursued. This was intended to be done through the imposition of force in the hands

of police and military units. The election of Juan Manuel Santos as the President of Colombia

(which coincided with the third phase of Plan Colombia and Barack Obama’s second year of

government) supposed a transformation in the understanding of the fight against drugs.

Regarding this scenario, pointing at the recognition of the intern conflict as a main factor

in the reorientation of politics related to the fight against drug trafficking and its securitization is

a priority. All of the mentioned scenario, as well as the adoption of Smart On Drug program’s
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precepts by the White House (which involves a group of policies and programs that aim at giving

integral attention to the issue of narcotics trafficking), has been a key an element in the

securitization process.

Consequently, drug trafficking is one of the main threats for internal security in the country,

just like illegal armed groups financed by the commercialization of illicit drugs. Unlike countries

such as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala, where drug trafficking is understood as an illegal and

criminal activity with exclusively lucrative aims, drug trafficking in Colombia has the complex

feature of being illegal armed groups’ quintessential financing activity. This characteristic affects

national security and defense directly, which constitutes a more complex scenario that has required

professionalization of the Public Force in an emphatic way than the aforementioned countries.

In addition to the previous scenario, an important part of the state’s resources in the

construction of security policies and strategies that promote the fight against drug trafficking has

been used. It is possible to point that securitizing drug trafficking found American economic and

logistic support as well as important allied multilateral and regional securitization processes with

a similar understanding of drug trafficking as a transnational threat.

1.2 Peru

To start, it is essential to highlight the similarity between Peru’s existent features in terms of drug

trafficking and Colombia’s. Both countries can be located in the chain of the phenomenon as

produces. They exceed 60.000 hectares of cocaine crops, which makes them the first cocaine

producers (McDermott, 2015). It is important to refer to the firm positions by these two states in

the fight against drug trafficking, which has let them to be signing agents in international

instruments such as the United Nations Convention against narcotics traffic and psychotropic
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substances, the United Nations Convention against transnational organized delinquency and the

Declaration about Americas’ Security, among others.

In both cases, drug trafficking’s securitization process has been protected by the United

States, both in economical and political terms. An example of this is the Air Bridge Denial Program

and multiple cooperation agreements with the United States. In addition to this, both countries

share a borderline that is permeated by Colombia’s internal instability (Ramírez, 2015).

The borderline between Peru and Colombia constitutes a risk zone for the Peruvian state’s

internal stability. The Colombian scenario is a risk for the national security of the country, which

evidences drug trafficking’s transnational logic once more. However, such a phenomenon has not

only permeated frontiers, because it has managed to spread to all the Peruvian territory to the point

of becoming, as Sergio Alcayaga (2015) states in the analysis of Peru’s Defense White Book, one

of national security’s main issues.

It must be mentioned that Peru has adopted the term narcoterrorism in the frame of drug

trafficking’s securitization process and the fight against drugs. Such a fact must not be superficially

considered, because it obeys to the same conceptualization with the United States of what drug

trafficking represents as a threat, understanding, then, narcoterrorism as “terrorist actions

developed by criminal organizations to promote drug trafficking’s objectives” (United States

Department of Defense, 2010).

Continuing the analysis, is must be said that the past governments have sought the

generation of strategies headed by the Military Forces to control the Peruvian territory and to

reduce the percentage of existing illicit crops in the country. In such attempts, the law 26247 from

November 1993 “authorizes the Armed Forces to chase and stop whoever is involved in the illicit
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traffic of drugs (del Prado Coll, 1999). Such a fact is coherent with the understanding of drug

trafficking as a highly complex phenomenon, which even reaches terrorism, as stated before. For

this reason, attacking must be done in an integral way and supported by institutions such as the

National Security Council, an entity that was exactly created to promote the fight against drug

trafficking (Soberón, 2012).

As a consequence, giving drug trafficking the priority in the national security agenda in

Peru (just like it was done in Colombia) is a fact that is explained by the threat that such a

phenomenon represents to the national security, because in the drug trafficking securitization

process, American influence has been decisive. Furthermore, antidrugs policies aim at militarizing

the fight against drug trafficking, just like the global tendency seeks to attack drug trafficking’s

supplies by eradicating illicit crops in the national territory and generating more state institutions

presence in drug producing countries like Peru (Mosqueira, 2009).

To finish, it can be evidenced that Peru has been impacted by Colombia’s instability, its

state’s implementation of strategies and the American influence in the fight against drug trafficking

in the continent. As a result, drug trafficking’s securitization process in both countries are very

similar. For this reason, Peru has tried to maintain its internal fight against drug trafficking through

statewide institutions in charge of National Defense and Security policies.

1.3 Ecuador

Unlike the previous cases, Ecuador has been particularly affected by the drug trafficking

phenomenon. Despite the fact that it has been connected with “hot” frontiers such as the Colombian

and Peruvian ones, this country centers its strategies in controlling illicit drug trafficking. As a

consequence, Ecuador’s current situation in the drug trafficking dynamics is that of a country in
 23

which narcotic substances production is not a common denominator. Nonetheless, drug trafficking

is not a distant phenomenon from Ecuadorian security, because the state is currently threatened by

governability issues concerning drug trafficking in the Andean region. Such a scenario can be

explained by the fact that the Ecuadorian territory can be taken as a drug transit route as a result

of its geographical location between cocaine producing and exporting countries (Emmerich, 2014).

With this in mind, Ecuador becomes part of the illicit drug commercializing chain in Latin

America by being located between Peru and Colombia, countries that produce together nearly 50%

of cocaine in the world. Furthermore, the current instability in the northern Ecuadorian frontier,

caused by the presence of armed illegal groups who control drug trafficking in the Colombian

territory, constitutes one of the main threats for the Ecuadorian state’s internal security. Indeed,

Ecuador’s National Defense White Book states that:

the national territory presents the risk of being affected by drug trafficking, by the forceful

destruction of crops, which involves population displacement situations, crops zone

extension and drug processing in jungle areas. Such a risk also entails agrarian and

environmental destruction caused by fumigation, involvement of deprived areas population

in the northeastern zone in informal activities related to the drug business. This risk can also

be produced by the expansion of the inputs business, the trafficking of precursors and the

reproduction of narcolaundering networks in the national financial system (Ecuadorian

Ministry of National Defense, 2006).

Having the above in mind, the state recognizes the drug trafficking activity as one of the

TOC’s typology, which “requires a prudent, organized and well-applied solution due to the fact

that these risk factors do not only affect the state as an institution; they also endanger citizens’ life

and integrity” (Herrera, 2015, p. 66).

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The aforementioned scenario justifies the securitization processes that Ecuador has had

regarding drug trafficking by considering that it is linked to organized crime, which has

counterproductive effects for National Security. Therefore, this country has generated public

policies based on police and military security at the same time that it has been an exclusively transit

country. Such policies aim at patrolling the whole Ecuadorian territory as well as having military

presence in the frontiers that are part of the drug trafficking routes.

If one goes deeper into the Ecuadorian securitization process, one will see that this country

has been a focus for illegal activities. Such a choice can be partly explained by the presence of

guerrilla group members in the region of Putumary since the 70’s, the development of cocaine leaf

crops at the beginning of the 80’s and the intensification of the “agrococalization” process”

(Moreno Uruguien, 2008, p.2) in the 90’s. This scenario became an consequential adverse

phenomenon in the Colombian state’s poor presence and capacity in the zone, which allowed the

proliferation and settlement of illegal and criminal agents, especially those dedicated to drug

trafficking.

In this sense, “the insecurity situation in the borderline between Colombia and Ecuador

comes from the presence of illicit activities and their interactions in both territories, especially the

region of Putumayo. Three military powers coalesce: the Colombian Military Forces, irregular

groups and Ecuadorian Armed Forces” (Moreno Uruguien, 2008, p.6). It must be mentioned that

the Colombian conflict, through its extension, has caused the displacement of drug trafficking

towards the bordering and Ecuadorian territory. This consequence is “one of the causes of the

increase in insecurity and violence” (Moreno Uruguien, 2008, p. 4) in the region.

It is important to mention that actions led since the 80’s under the American fight against

drugs doctrine managed to dismantle great Colombian drug trafficking structures from the 90’s.
 25

However, they “created the convenient conditions for armed groups to take advantage of the drug

industry. This way, subversion found in drug trafficking an economic resource to keep its

hegemonic power in different bordering territories such as the Putumayo” (Moreno Uruguien,

2008, p. 4) given the state’s restricted presence. In this context, the settling of illegal groups in the

Colombian-Ecuadorian bordering zone displaced war against drugs to the area, an event that

stimulated military strategies to attack, which were framed within Plan Colombia since the year

2000.

The previously described context not only caused the displacement of the drug trafficking

phenomenon with its inherent crimes to the bordering territory (Moreno Uruguien, 2008), but it

also “constituted one of the causes of insecurity and violence increase” (Moreno Uruguien, 2008,

p.4) in the region. This situation particularly affected urban centers that were there, and once more,

there was insecurity that not only threatened the sovereignty of states but also directly affected the

civil population who lived there. In this sense, drug trafficking has been a criminal actions and

violence trigger in the bordering zone. Among such actions, one can mention:

the “express” kidnapping, the mobbing of armored money transporting cars, the armed

mobbing, and, particularly, the hired gunmen. All of these are organized crimes that are

mainly related to narcotics and people trafficking and assets laundering. (Moreno Uruguien,

2008, p.5)

Ecuador, being considered by its own authorities as a transit country, aims at minimizing

violence problems that agents of the drugs commercialization, distribution and traffic can cause.

For this reason, police and military authorities implement internal security policies aimed at

identifying drug trafficking routes, shipping areas, means of transportation, consumption and

microtraffic (Gómez, 2010).

 26

In addition to the previous scenario, Ecuador has had social issues. One can easily identify

the consolidation of criminal groups for microtraffic, the presence of criminal networks in the

Ecuadorian territory, violence, murders, forceful displacement of people and asset laundering.

Furthermore, some other connected crimes have been found, such as the existence of corrupt civil

servants, due to the fact that drug trafficking has permeated statewide institutions with the purpose

of having a free entrance and exit of drugs with no Ecuadorian authority inspection problems

(Cadena, 2011).

It can be evidenced that Ecuador, which belongs to the great area in which illicit drugs are

commercialized in Latin America, has sought to minimize the threats that drug trafficking implies.

As a matter of fact, this issue has been considered one of the most important topics for the internal

security of the country given the instability that can generate activities related to the trafficking of

illicit drugs. Therefore, the state has had securitization processes due to the existing conditions in

the region. Rather than being an exclusive problem, it constitutes an external risk for the statewide

stability and national security.

Finally, it can be established that, unlike the countries analyzed aboce, Ecuador does not

possess such a direct influence on the securitization process in the region of the United States.

Moreover, since it is a transit country, the strategies aim at identifying transit routes and

confiscating as many narcotics as possible to hit criminal groups without forgetting the need of

generating presence in all the national territory in order to control and avoid the sowing of illicit

crops.
 27

1.4 Brazil

Regarding this particular case, it is necessary to understand Brazil’s intention of ranking as a

regional power during the past years. This effort has influenced topics such as states’ national

security and the importance of promoting regional security policies specifically related to the

Amazon, a region whose characteristics favor drug trafficking. As Vivian García (2007) states,

this area is:

a bordering zone, with a weak statewide presence that also constitutes a transit zone and a

strategic communication among multiple countries of the region. Given that it is a jungle

zone, it allows a countless number of movements, illegal transactions and presence of

criminals with no control of the authorities. As a result, transnational organized crime,

especially linked to drug trafficking and inherent activities, constitutes a serious threat for

the Amazon. (p. 8)

Another relevant aspect lies in Brazil’s condition as the greatest financial center in Latin America.

This condition “allows the easy circulation of drug trafficking organizers and networks that take

advantage of its geographical goodness and its strategic location in the continent” (AMERIPOL,

2013, p. 42). Brazil started to be seen as the chemical supplier for production, which is basic for

the laundering of money and consumption marketing, not to mention its role as a transit country

for illicit drugs produced in the Andean region and its no less important condition of second

cocaine consumer in the world.

With this in mind, it is possible to state that drug trafficking constitutes a threat for Brazil’s

national security given the sharing of borders with Andean countries such as Colombia and Peru,

which have the deep-rooted drug trafficking issue in their territories. In addition to this, one needs
 28

to consider Brazil’s intention of promoting regional security policies on the Amazon, which aim

at reducing possible existing threats in this Andean bordering zone.

The case of drug trafficking as one of the prioritized threats in the Brazilian agenda obeys

to the development of this phenomenon in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia in the middle of the 80’s.

It “turned Brazil into an exporting hall for Europe and the United States, which, years later, turned

into the creation of an inner narcotics commercialization and cocaine paste production market”

(Jaramillo, 2012, p. 12). Years later, this situation allowed Brazil to aim at using securitization

processes to minimize the drug trafficking threat in order to keep internal security. To this respect,

the National Defense White Book states that “the globalization phenomenon implies the worsening

of different kinds of threats, such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking and sea piracy, which

challenge the abilities of the state” (Brazil’s Ministry of Defense, 2012).

In this context, drug trafficking represents one of the main threats for the Brazilian state

because part of its territory has been used as a hall for illicit drugs commercialization. This

situation generates different social, political and economic issues. To respond to such a situation,

policies and strategies have aimed at implementing a war against drug trafficking:

as a consequence of this fight, this country started of a securitization process of the threats

in order to aim its own control interest and eradicating internal instability factors at the

regional level. With that in mind, the Brazilian initiatives regarding security represent this

country’s quest to transform the Brazilian interest into the South American interest.

(Cárdenas, 201, p.2)

One can conclude that Brazil has intended its national interests to be commonly accepted by

the region, intending the national security issues to be adopted as a priority based on the
 29

understanding that phenomena such as drug trafficking constitute a common threat. Hence, Brazil

promotes cooperation security policies with the aim of minimizing such threats, presenting itself

as a securitizing agent while limiting the role of the United States based, understanding Brazil as

en emerging power with a dominant role in the construction of an international contemporary

system (Brazil’s Ministry of Education, 2012).

To continue with the analysis regarding Brazil’s drug trafficking securitization process as

well as its role as securitizing agent, it is important to consider that this country “is increasingly

immersing in an antidrugs war, which is surprising, because Brazilian politicians used to criticize

aggressive American tactics against drug trafficking. They argued that they were harmful” (Lyons,

2012). Nonetheless, since the year 2011, with Dilma Rousseff’s becoming the President of Brazil,

this country has reconsidered its position regarding the fight against drugs, slowly getting closer

to the American punitive and militaristic model and even going beyond its borders.

1.5 Dissimilar realities, a common threat, a joint process

After briefly reviewing securitization process in the studied countries, it is possible to state that in

spite of the way in which drug trafficking is developed and affects each one of such countries, it

is a priority threat in their security agenda. This is the result of a securitization process both

internationally and domestically. However, as it is possible to abstract from the studied cases, the

factors that lead to securitizing drug trafficking in Latin America can be dissimilar, which implies

that drug trafficking cannot take the threat label.

It can be evidenced that Brazil, being delayed, has associated Military Forces with the fight

against drugs in a similar way that Colombia and Peru did, keeping its distance with Ecuador,

country in which the National Police has had a dominant role. As common denominator of those
 30

states that prioritized military power in the fight against drug trafficking, one can find police

institutions inability to control the phenomenon. In addition to this, one can see the state’s

difficulty to practice the violence monopoly, and, especially, to act as a sovereign entity in the

whole national territory.

It can be established that a common factor shared by the analyzed countries such as

Colombia and Peru refers to the strong presence of the United States in their securitization

processes. This factor leads to a similar understanding of drug trafficking as a threat and the

importance of controlling it. On the contrary, countries like Brazil and Ecuador have showed a

partial distance from the American securitizing discourse, which can be explained in ideological

and political differences. Moreover, these countries showed the development of a discourse in

which statewide sovereignty is a priority, intending to limit the influence of extraregional agents

in domestic and regional processes.

It is possible to see that the studied states share borders with Colombia. For this reason, the

development of drug trafficking in the Colombian territory is not unconnected to their security. As

it has been repetitively stated, drug trafficking has a transnational nature, which supposes a risk

factor for neighbor countries, not to mention the highly porous borderlines. This situation directly

influences their securitization process.

Table 1 – Comparison of securitization processes

Drug Role in Civil Meaningfu Force Member of

the drug war, l presence increase as AMERIPO
trafficking
traffickin interna of guerrilla consequence L
direct and g chain l and of the
conflict insurgent securitizatio
meaningfu
groups n discourse
l
 31

involveme
nt in
political
domestic
processes
Colombia X Producer X X X X
Peru X Producer X X X X
Ecuador Transit X
Brazil Transit X X
and
consumer

Source: designed by the author of this research.

As it has been known, securitization processes obey to different approaches in the fight

against drug trafficking. One of these is the military and punitive model, which has been prioritized

by the United States, a country that defined the problem of drugs as a threat to national and

international security since the 70’s and Richard Nixon’s presidency. As a matter of fact, he

declared war against drugs, labeling it as a global aggression whose main purpose was to confront

and dissolve the responsible agents of the illegal psychoactive substances offer, whose space of

action naturally corresponds to the producing countries.

However, the effectiveness of the described model started to be questioned. The drug

trafficking phenomenon was not managed to be resolved. On the contrary, throughout years, it

expanded and turned into a transnational problem. Confronting it implies the cooperation of states,

because it “disregards the conventional security dynamics. Given its nature, it ignores national

borderlines and becomes a global threat with no localization” (Sánchez, 2015). Therefore,

cooperation is essential in both multilateral organizations and bilateral cooperation among states.
 32

According to this perspective, the involvement of police forces in the fight against drug

trafficking results in another model. It regards, in general terms, cooperation as a priority tool in

the fight against the phenomenon. “However, such cooperation is not developed in terms of war

against drug trafficking; in other words, it does not belong to the military model. On the contrary,

it revolves around integration, cooperation and joint work among police forces from many states”

(Sánchez, 2015, p. 21).

As a result of what has ben covered so far, as well as the understanding of police

cooperation as a model in the fight against drug trafficking, AMERIPOL is presented in the next

chapter as a possible tool for police cooperation and integration in the fight against drug trafficking,

taking into account their objectives, limitations and difficulties.

2. DIFFICULTIES IN THE INTEGRATION AND COOPERATION OF POLICE FORCES

IN LATIN AMERICA

Based on the understanding of the Latin American drug trafficking phenomenon in the previous

chapter, as well as some of the securitization processes that have taken place in the region, it is

convenient to now analyze the difficulties in the integration and cooperation topics, especially,

among police forces. With this in mind, drug trafficking, understood as typology of the TOC,

generates “negative effects within countries such as corruption, violence, human rights violation,

development of complex criminal groups, wrongful use of illegal narcotic substances, among

others, affecting society’s welfare and threatening the state’s role. This scenario constitutes one of

the main challenges in terms of security” (Sánchez, 2015, p. 21).

 33

As it was stated, drug trafficking, in its TOC typology condition, constitutes a challenge in

terms of security because the “criminal groups have managed to expand their presence beyond

their birth countries (…), opening halls that meet the demand of all kinds of illegal products (…),

creating commercial exchanging zones in which local criminal groups abuse the benefits of the

globalized world” (Garzón & Olson, 2013, p. 1).

Figure 3. Main drug trafficking routes

Source: (Rianovosti, 2010)

As shown in the map, drug trafficking does not respond to the states’ political borders,

“instead, its flow ignores such borders and even transcends the region where the phenomenon

develops, boosting its flow to other geographical regions and continents” (Sánchez, 2015, p. 9). It

must be said that, as shown in the map, drug trafficking is spread all over the world. However, the

highest flows are presented in the American hemisphere, where illegal narcotics traffic has taken

a priority place in the American security agenda regardless of the fact that the phenomenon affects

in extents most states of the region.

 34

The Americas face a drugs problem. South America produces almost all-available cocaine

in the world. North America consumes almost half of it (…). The American hemisphere

produces more than half of the world’s cannabis herb (…). Illicit heroine, chemical

precursors and synthetic drugs traffic is predominantly intra-regional. To conclude, the

demand of drugs in the Americas is satisfied by the offer in the Americas. (ONU – Crime

and Drugs Office, 2008, p.5)

Given this situation, considering the possibility of confronting drug trafficking supposes a joint

work among states and different International System agents. Given the nature of confronting this

phenomenon, doing so in an isolated way is inefficient, and in many occasions, counterproductive

regarding the strengthening of criminal networks that adopt such strategies (Sánchez, 2015).

Bearing this in mind, the statement of shared responsibility is validated, “because no country is

immune to the problem. All of them participate, whether because they are the origin of drugs,

transit countries for trafficking, or because they are importers” (ONU – Crime and Drugs Office,

2008, p. 1).

As it was stated in the previous chapter, states’ securitization processes have adopted

multiple models for the fight against drug trafficking. Among them, the prohibitionist one has

prevailed, which “defines a frontal war against consumption and production of narcotic substances

both in origin countries and destination ones” (Guillén, 2009, p. 11).

However, in spite of this model’s primacy, its effectiveness is still debated. It has evidenced

the states’ inability to control the phenomenon in an isolated way as well as the military means’

inefficiency. Consequently, it can be stated that frontal war against drug trafficking “has been a

costly mistake that must be buried as soon as possible. Instead, the international community must
 35

focus on a new model in which political and socioeconomic integration prevails in order to attack

the root of the problem and not its symptoms” (Maseri, 2016).

The previous situation has boosted police cooperation strategies in the fight against not

only drug trafficking, but also all TOC groups’ activities. This way, one can understand that:

Multilateral police cooperation can be developed within international police organizations

where bodies integrate with the intention of jointly fighting transnational delinquency

through cooperation and information exchanging processes (Sánchez, 2015, p. 28).

For this reason, it is necessary to understand what integration consists of, being a process in which

“countries demolish their barriers for free commerce and free people transit through national

borders in order to reduce tensions that possibly lead to a conflict” (Castañeda Garza, 2006, p. 1).

This way, their aim is to counteract transnational and cross-border threats and avoid conflict

situations.

Deepening into integration, it is important to mention that it does not refer to the

elimination of frontiers, because it also implies the development of political projects that allow

managing and leading long-term strategies, aiming at generating results regarding the different

threats that the United States currently face. Hence, authors such as Thomas Gehring (1996) state

that it is important to develop a “progressive increase of the integration instead of developing an

interaction among agents in a relatively stable scenario. Moroever, it is important to recognize the

role of supranational, transnational and subnational agents in the consolidation of integration

processes” (p. 26).

Bearing the above in mind, the theoretical case of states having to establish bonds with

other states that allow the functioning of strategies exists. The possibility of bonds to create
 36

supranational organs that allow the help to satisfy population needs that the state is not meeting or

cannot meet also exists (Mitrany, 1948).

However, different theoretical approaches study integration processes, emphasizing the

existence of agents different from the state based on the understanding of the multiplicity of agents

who intervene in the International System as well as the state’s inability to meet all dynamics.

With this in mind, “both functionalism and neofunctionalism are based on the state’s institutional

inability to meet a group of common needs that have exceeded statewide frontiers and,

consequently, suppose the need to launch joint actions” (Sánchez, 2015, p. 31).

However, in spite of this need of cooperation regarding phenomena that exceed statewide

frontiers, the dilemma about the threat to statewide sovereignty that this kind of integration

processes may imply also exists. In this respect, authors such as Ernst Haast (1958), Joseph Nye

and Keohane (1977) highlight the importance of states ceding part of their sovereignty to get

involved in cooperation processes that allow the joint proposal of a solution to different problems.

Among such approaches, integration starts to be understood by different states, not only

from a bilateral cooperation perspective, but a multilateral one, in which common problems that

affect multiple states are identified. In order to achieve such a goal, in many occasions, they

“strategic and political functions are delegated to supranational organizations to apply real actions

that produce tangible results” (Sánchez, 2015, p. 32).

In the region that constitutes the object of study of this research, it is possible to recognize

an effort of integration by the police forces since 2007, year in which the Police Community of the

Americas – AMERIPOL – was founded, whose objective is to face challenges of the region in

terms of transnational security while facing one of the most latent threats such as drug trafficking.
 37

2.1 AMERIPOL as a model of police cooperation and integration

As it was stated throughout this research, drug trafficking is one of the issues that most affect the

region in terms of transnational organized crime, because:

South America produces almost all-available cocaine in the world. North America consumes almost half of it

(…). The American hemisphere produces more than half of the world’s cannabis herb (…). Illicit heroine,

chemical precursors and synthetic drugs traffic is predominantly intra-regional. To conclude, the demand of

drugs in the Americas is satisfied by the offer in the Americas. (ONU – Crime and Drugs Office, 2008, p.5)

For this reason, the need of cooperation and integration among statewide institutions

becomes an essential task to counteract this kind of crimes, especially institutions, such as police

forces, that have been quintessentially in charge of security issues.

Consequently, as it was deeply explored in the integration matter, it is necessary to now

understand the concept of police cooperation as a cooperation process among different police

authorities that aims at sharing and requesting different kinds of information from foreign police

authorities (Kosovo Police Service School: International Police Cooperation Course, 2006).

This kind of cooperation is based on the need of anticipating threats that have been already

arranged by transnational organized crime, both regionally and in the world. The main purpose is

to coordinate a multilateral fight against delinquency that operates in different regions and that

adapts at an increasing pace (Gerspacher, 2005).

With this in mind, based on the concept of police cooperation, one can identify different

levels and divisions depending on their territorial order such as the Police Cooperation

Organizations (PCO) such as Europol, SIRENE, EAPCCO, AMERIPOL and INTERPOL, which

have worldwide, regional and bilateral characteristics. This way, PCOs are tools that allow police

forces around the world to share information and to access to a high number of databases that allow
 38

the tracking of criminals involved in different crimes related to drug trafficking (Gerspacher,

2005).

Focusing on the case of study of this research, it is important to, first, characterize

AMERIPOL since its creation. It is a cooperation mechanism in the American continent. This

organization was created in the frame of the “III Conference of Directors, Majors and Police Chiefs

in Latin America and The Caribbean”, which took place in Bogotá, Colombia. In such an event,

the Community Statute was born, which establishes the objectives of the organization, its

organizational structure, among other logistic matters. Moreover, such a regulation became the

first police mechanism that constituted a practical, efficient and ongoing cooperation instrument

(AMERIPOL, 2012).

Consequently, AMERIPOL’s main objective is to promote and strengthen all police

cooperation aspects in scientific, technical, training terms to revitalize both the exchange of

information and formation of databases, and make all of them efficient, because they can

meaningfully help intelligence matters (AMERIPOL, 2013).

Another purpose that they have is to coordinate and boost ongoing criminal investigation

and legal assistance actions among the different police forces or equivalent institutions in the

continent so that such actions are translated in the consolidation of a police doctrine and philosophy

as well as the prevention of crime (AMERIPOL, 2013). As a matter of fact, their mission is

centered in:

being the hemispherical cooperation police organization in charge of promoting the police

agencies’ joint work in different areas with the aim of strategically and operationally leading

the work against threats that permeate public and citizen security (AMERIPOL, 2013).
 39

AMERIPOL is made by 30 police forces from states in the American continent. These

exchange information horizontally, in real time, aiming to help police forces from different

countries “to operate simultaneously in order to neutralize crime and make sure that all citizens of

the hemisphere are free from threats” (AMERIPOL, 2013).

Last but not least, it is important to highlight that, within this organization, there is a big

need to develop and progress as a “police cooperation mechanism that aims at unifying efforts to

strengthen the techno-scientific assistance, training, doctrine, the exchange of information to

prevent and neutralize organized crime that affects the interests of the region” (AMERIPOL, 2012,

p. 2).

For this reason, as the Colombian National Police General Direction (2010) states, it is

necessary to generate sensitization and concerned national authorities education to be able to

generate true results. By so doing, it is possible to develop a supranational perspective with an

interventionist tendency among the states that willingly belong to this organization.

To finish, understanding AMERIPOL’s order, mission and vision as a police organization

constituted in 2007, one must analyze the different limitations that impede effective and efficient

actions in this kind of organizations to counteract a transnational crime such as drug trafficking in

the region.

2.2 Legal limitations

To begin with, it is important to state that there is no international regime that has a legal frame

that facilitates cooperation among police forces of the region. Such a fact can be explained by the

existence of legal barriers that do not allow an exchange of information that contributes to the fight

against drug trafficking. Therefore, a legal limitation about the exchange of information emerges,
 40

understanding it as a “process that is developed within bilateral or multilateral cooperation

channels that consists of the transferring of relevant information that any of the parts possesses to

detect, chase and fight against TOC. Agents such as states, institutions, international and even

particular organizations may be involved” (Sánchez, 2015, p. 38-39).

The information exchange process is limited by the existence of legal domestic frames

among others. Such frames classify the information obtained by the police forces and assign them

categories like secret, ultra secret or gentle handling. Such a situation implies that the information

gathered by police forces becomes confidential, given the legal statewide frame that formulates

national classification laws out of the information gathered by the police (Saltor, 2013).

Hence, it is possible to state that “police information and intelligence can be strictly limited

by the laws that regulate the kind of information that the police can possess, the purposes for which

it is at their disposal and how to manage it” (UNODC, 2010, p.5). Consequently, the legal

limitation gets to affect international cooperation, which can exist among the different police

forces, given the autonomy that each police entity has, based on the legal frames of their state.

Bearing the previous statement in mind, legal frames become mechanisms to protect data

collected by police forces. By generating more international police cooperation, a regional legal

frame that interrelates protection and data collection has been intended to be developed in order to

optimize the fight against drug trafficking.

Assuming this, the doctrine of data protection states that information directly or indirectly

related to a person that is alive is confidential and must not be transferred except for the case in

which it guarantees controlled security conditions. Nevertheless, when the gathered information is
 41

necessary to fight a crime, restrictions are minimized and a consent is presented among institutions

in order to transfer such information” (UNODC, 2010).

Nonetheless, the data-protecting frame is not accepted by all countries of the region, which

does not favor the exchange of information among states that accept the data protection doctrine

or those that do not adopt such measures. As a result, a legal conflict emerges, which affects

regional police forces cooperation and integration, which has not had a decisive solution that favors

the data transferring.

Similarly, in terms of individual rights, it is stipulated that people have the right to intimacy,

which cannot be violated by states (Human Rights Universal Declaration). For this reason, each

person’s information is private. It is classified as restricted by statewide institutions. Hence, police

forces cannot have such information at their disposal or act on it upon their will, which increasingly

hinders the flow of information among state police entities that seek the regional or international

integration and cooperation.

As a result, there have been international approaching movements to the integration of

police entities. One of them is the cooperation and regional integration project developed within

AMERIPOL, which is constituted in the institutional frame of the Organization of American States

(OAS). In addition to this, police forces cooperation in the region is established with the aim of

consolidating an integration project, which aims at augmenting the joint effort to strengthen the

fight against drug trafficking through the implementation of scientific and technological support,

training, augmentation of the information flow through the exchange of data to minimize activities

that derive from drug trafficking and that can unbalance the Latin American region (AMERIPOL,

2012).
 42

The exchange of information emerges as one of the main alternatives that the police forces

have in each state to consolidate a mechanism that can prevent illegal armed groups that are

dedicated to drug trafficking activities. They are an essential source to neutralize transregional

criminal organizations.

Accordingly, AMERIPOL, being a regional organization, intends police forces that have

participation in the Latin American regional integration to create efficient tools for the exchange

of data, so that cooperation in such an information flow is easier. However, legal limitations within

each state arise, and they do not allow the consolidation of a facilitator mechanism that can transmit

the necessary information to make the fight against drug trafficking and illegal armed groups that

practice it more efficient (Vargas Hernández, 2008, p. 1).

Consequently, in the analysis of this case, it is evidenced that the law stated by the OAS

mainly refers to people’s right to access to information, which leaves aside the information

exchanging matter among police entities from each state to favor the fight against drug trafficking,

showing the existing flaw for countries’ police forces cooperation and integration.

2.3 Political limitations

As it has been stated throughout this research, phenomena such as drug trafficking have generated

a series of production and trafficking circles that have developed out of the socioeconomic flaws

that exist among different states. A convincing example, and maybe one of the most worrying ones

of the region, is the Colombian case, where poverty, social inequality, political corruption and the

internal armed conflict influence drug trafficking issues that have taken place during the past

decades.
 43

In this case, it is worth mentioning that drug trafficking generates a meaningful profitability

for criminal groups as well as the phenomenon of financing guerrilla groups in the country, such

as FARC and ELC. Therefore, drug trafficking has contributed to the over-50-year prolonged war

among the Colombian Public Force and such guerrilla groups.

As a consequence, as Collier (2000) states, unlike the Public Force of the state, illegal

armed groups are successful in the sense that they can persist through time given their specific

economic viability. In this case, it supplies almost all drug trafficking as well as crimes such as

kidnaps, extortions, arms and people trafficking, and so on. Therefore, one must understand that:

A war cannot be fought only by means of hate or hope. Pillage during the conflict may not

be the objective of the rebel organization, but it is the means to finance it. By pillage, I mean

the use of strength to snatch goods or money from their legitimate owners. The economic

theory of the conflict takes for granted that the displeasures felt and the longing for power

are at the same level in all societies. Groups can keep unconformities more or less outside

their objective circumstances, a social phenomenon that is known as relative privation.

(Collier, 2000)

In spite of the fact that the Colombian case is one of the most problematic ones in the region,

it is convenient to characterize other ones that possess their own antidrug policies as well as their

initiatives’ way of contributing (or not) to the police integration or cooperation.

Particularly, in Brazil’s wide territory, the drug trafficking threat can be translated as the

possibility of reaching ten countries of the region, countries with which Brazil shares borders. For

this reason, it has become a strategic country for drug trafficking groups, because it is a space that

“allows to develop activities that are inherent to drug trafficking, which includes smuggling,
 44

chemical substances deviation, illicit crops and narcotics production, commercialization and

distribution. Such a space takes advantage of the wide jungle areas and the different means of

transportation (waterway or airway)” (AMERIPOL’s Executive Secretary, 2013, p. 42).

Similarly, during the past years, an increase in the chemical production for cocaine refining

has been recorded. For this reason, Brazil starts to become a providing center of such essential

substances so that the cocaine process can finish. This phenomenon is explained by the high levels

of corruption in agents of the state, who are remunerated with drugs, creating big chains of

consumers in the neighbor countries of the region and facilitating traffic (Esnal, 2007).

Despite the fact that Brazil had been characterized as a transit country for narcotics, the

incidence of favelas growth in urban spaces caused drug trafficking groups to establish their

operation center in their territory during the past years (AMERIPOL’s Executive Secretary, 2013).

Such a situation starts to show the overview according to which the influence of drug trafficking

repercussions has increased during the past years in countries that used to be taken only as

countries of transit, such as Brazil, given its wide territory and its geostrategic location. Therefore,

Brazil started to mean a key space for these drug trafficking groups, using routes for regional

distribution as well as trafficking to European and African countries.

Additionally, unlike the Colombian case, drug trafficking’s scourge is not as serious in the

local order given the fact that there are no guerrilla groups that have direct confrontation with

statewide forces. Even then, policies to counteract drug trafficking groups, who, beyond opposing

the state, aim at performing exclusively and successfully their illicit activities for economic

benefits if they have caused great impact in citizen security. Regarding this issue, there is an

increasing number of territorial, routes and providers control, which can be translated in wars
 45

among different drug trafficking groups that affect directly the local order, especially in urban

zones in which this phenomenon has grown.

In the Ecuadorian case, drug trafficking is similar to the Brazilian case given the fact that

there are no guerrilla groups that fuel the war against the state. The drug trafficking phenomenon

has developed in a way that is different from the Colombian case. It can be established that the

“virtual absence of crops (…) freed Ecuador from massive collective violence associated to crops

protected by irregular armies and political pressures from drug trafficking movements” (Espinosa

& De Cordoba, 2009, p. 138). Nonetheless, during the past decades, Ecuador has become:

A way through which coca leaf grown in Peru and Bolivia goes to Colombia, where it is

processed; 2) the origin of multiple trafficking routes towards international consuming

countries markets; 3) a chemical precursors smuggling market that are necessary to the

processing of cocaine and heroine; and 4) a functional economy for asset laundering” (Rivera

Vélez & Torres Forena, 2011, p. 6).

It will be possible to establish that Ecuador has had a similar situation regarding the Brazilian

case unlike the increase of number of groups that operate directly in the zone as it has happened

during the past years in Brazil. This situation has affected citizen security in big cities directly. On

the contrary, in Ecuador, territorial affectation can be found in bordering zones.

It is necessary to understand that in terms of integration and cooperation among states, in

many occasions, these strategies become a political challenge for the current governmental

interests. For instance, one can analyze the different scenarios presented, because there can be a

political and police disparity regarding threats against which it is necessary to counteract in the

multiple situations that states face. To this respect, one can find that police forces are ahead in
 46

terms of strategy, armaments and intelligence. All of them generate disparities in the benefits that

can be obtained in a cooperation and integration system.

Therefore, in the region, one can analyze the fact that there are countries, such as Colombia,

that face daily direct drug trafficking threats, specifically because of the country’s armed internal

conflict. For this reason, it has been necessary to establish different mechanisms in those countries

that exclusively have a narcotics transit issue.

Another political limitation has to do with the governmental guidelines and national interests

that need to be obeyed in every government of the region. In terms of the fight against drug

trafficking, there are different processes and strategies adopted by every state depending on their

level of affectation by the phenomenon even if it is a matter of counteracting hemispherically.

The previous scenario plays an essential role in the understanding of the fight against drug

trafficking as a shared responsibility, which, therefore, requires every single state to face it from a

particular perspective, provided that such a perspective is aligned with other states’ actions.

Otherwise, it will only lead to a fragmentation process. Regarding the case of study,

For example, in countries like Brazil, a transit country of consumption, there is a different

perspective about drug trafficking. It derives in the development of a strategy that focuses

on consumption prevention, arresting distribution networks and the interception of internal

and external drug transiting routes. Unlike Brazil, countries like Colombia, which is a

producing country, not only addresses the previous issues but also has a strategy that works

on preventing production. It does not focus on illegal groups persecution only; it also

controls and guards the elements that can serve as insights for production itself. This factor

is a commonality with the Ecuadorian case. The control of elements such as chemical
 47

insights, as well as other elements, demonstrates that there is a difference in the conception

of the problem, its dimension, compared to other countries’ perspectives regarding

prevention and mitigation of this crime. (Sánchez, 2015, p. 54-55)

As a consequence, this kind of coordination totally depends on governmental leaders’

political will. Based on the political opportunity and the influence of different agents, transnational

strategies were generated in the fight against drugs. A meaningful example of this premise can be

found in the first chapter of this research: securitization processes of this phenomenon take place

due to a statewide agent’s interests such as the United States, which coordinated antinarcotic

policies in the region.

Currently, thanks to the police and military advancements in Latin American states, this

kind of policies and coordination movements do not depend on only one agent anymore. Instead,

there has been the intention of generating territorially closer mechanisms in order to counteract

this phenomenon from internal statewide policies. Consequently, one can conclude that political

limitations decisively permeate organizations’ efforts for police integration and coordination, like

AMERIPOL’s case. The political factors intervene in exchanging processes, the help and

acquisition of information to counteract different threats.

With this in mind, despite the fact that these organizations depend on a specific institution

of the state, like police forces in this case, these do not have political autonomy to lead and perform

actions. In this respect, as Deflem (2000) states, the conditioning of political interests of a state by

police forces is conclusive. They are the ones who determine the kind of cooperation that there can

be between them.
 48

To conclude, it can be established that organizations in favor of police forces cooperation

and integration depend on political wills, which allow whether or not police forces can be part of

this initiative as well as participate in different strategies that seek their state’s interests. Therefore,

one cannot separate this aspect from every state’s political, economical and social matters. On the

contrary, actions in the spectrum between the non-political and the controversial are put into

operation, which includes the fight against drug trafficking and its implications in every state of

the Latin American region (Rodríguez Manzano, 1996).

To conclude this chapter, it was necessary to analyze AMERIPOL’s mission, vision and

limitations to understand the advantages and flaws of police forces counteracting phenomena such

as regional drug trafficking. As a result, next chapter describes the precepts of the Regional

Security Complexes theory4 to get into organizations such as AMERIPOL in the concept of RSPC

with the aim of consolidating a whole police cooperation and integration system without serious

limitations in the quest for results against drug trafficking in the Latin American region.

4
RSC will be used from now on to refer to Regional Security Complexes.
 49

3. TOWARDS THE CONSTRUCTION OF A REGIONAL SECURITY POLICE

COMPLEX

3.1 Regional Security Complexes theory

The new dynamics that are developed throughout the International System have required different

and new theoretical approaches to explain it. For this reason, the RSC theory emerges as a detailed

study process about the phenomena that can make the International System unstable, from a

regional perspective that affects a group of countries in neighbor territories.

As a result, “with the change that is produced on international security dynamics, the

security of a state cannot ignore its neighbors nowadays” (Poveda, 2016, p. 21). One needs to

consider that threats do not belong to a specific area like it did in the past. Instead, they are in

movement in different locations, which affects neighbor states.

Bearing the above in mind, it is evidenced that the drugs issue is present in a group of

countries where it needs to be considered that this activity exists due to an economical,

transnational logic that interrelates the limits of every group of states in terms of the drugs supply

and demand, covering a wide geographical region with a common phenomenon: drugs trafficking

(Grabendorff, 2003).

Consequently, a joint perception among states regarding threats that can affect common

interests of countries within the same region is generated. Thus, integration and cooperation

processes in security matters are shaped with the aim of reducing internal risks that exist in states.

Such a reduction can even permeate neighbor countries, managing to minimize and neutralize

problems such as drugs, people and arms trafficking.

 50

There are national problems that have been acquiring a transnational nature due to the fact

that dynamics of the worldwide context allow the expansion of threats. This fact produces new

security processes that are specific for every regional complex. Besides, the geographical aspect

plays a key role in the dealing and analysis of regional security issues (Flemmes, 2005, p. 225).

Hence, the RSCs are shaped as a channel in which states jointly work to be able to reach

the point of reducing, and even addressing efficiently, the threats that endanger a neighbor

geographical zone’s stability. An example of this is the Latin American states cooperation or even

the European Union. They integrated police forces.

For this research, it is convenient to approach the concept of Regional Security Complexes.

They can be understood as “a group of units whose main securitization or non-securitization

processes are so interrelated that their security issues cannot be reasonably analyzed or resolved

separately” (Buzan & Wæver, p. 44)5.

Regarding this concept, it is necessary to specify that RSC is, per se, a category of analysis

in the understanding of this phenomenon. However, it does not imply its abstraction to the reality

of International System dynamics. Therefore, in this research, RSC is understood both as a concept

and as a process that can be constructed. With this in mind, an RSC can lead to the integration of

agents, who aim at forming a security system that facilitates their action in different issues that

affect a specific region. By so doing, RSCs favor the joint work among statewide institutions in

charge of defending and protecting the components of the nation, such as the Military and Police

Forces.

5
Freely translated by the author.
 51

As Sisco and Chacón (2004) state, in the security approach inquiry, there are 5 levels of

analysis. These are:

Figure 4. Levels of International System analysis.

Source: designed by the author of this research based on Sisco and Chacón (2004).

The International System, relations in the global field; (2) Subsystems, interdependence

relations among some units that can be regional, like the European Union, or not, like the

OPEC; (3) units, agents who have enough coherence and independence to be differentiated

by others, such as states or nations; (4) subunits, groups within the unit that can influence in

the direction of the unit’s decisions, and, 5) individuals, who act by themselves in the system,

not as a representation of a higher level (p. 134).

 52

The RSCs are represented in the subsystems level, due to the fact that units, or in this case,

states, have interests in common that can be violated by different existing threats in the

International System. There is interdependence among countries, because they have the need to

protect and collectively work in the quest of reaching those interests.

The central definition of RSCs is that they are securitization processes 6 that have been

developing in regional clusters. There, geographical aspects represent an essential aspect in the

theory. Besides, they are anarchist structures in which their relations and distribution of power,

friendship and enmity patters, and relations of power with units that are external to the region

represent essential characteristics of the RSCs (Menezes, 2010).

Assuming this, the concept of Regional Security Complexes is constructed by identifying

the main characteristics that allow the understanding of dynamics that these systems have

regarding their functions. By so doing, the intention is to have a statu quo in the specific region in

which different existing threats do not affect or violate the interests of every country. Therefore,

new common interests are constituted with the aim of granting and guaranteeing stability in the

zone.

At the same time, there is a debate among different authors, because, on one side, the

conceptual proposal is considered as a complement to neorealism. It provides an additional

analysis in which subsystem levels can be identified without leaving aside the study of the global

system traditional phenomena. Moreover, this term leans towards the regional development from

a security perspectice (Maihold & Jost, 2014). Nonetheless, other authors state that this is a

6
The discursive process through which an intersubjective understanding is reached within a police community in
order to deal with something like an existential threat for a valuable referent object. The purpose is also to allow a
call for exceptional and urgent measures to confront the threat (Buzan & Wæver, 2003).
 53

constructivist security treatment because the formation of RSCs revolves around patterns of

friendship and enmity, which make regional subsystems to be dependent on other agents’ actions

and behaviors. For this reason, these subsystems cannot be shaped based on the distribution of

powers calculation only (Cujabante et al., 2013, p. 104).

The understanding of the world based on a subsystem perspective has been essential to the

development of new security policies and strategies. These tried to strengthen the police and

military institutions with the capacity of minimizing and neutralizing the different risks in order to

favor world stability. An example of this is the cooperation among Latin American countries’

police forces: AMERIPOL, or the integration of institutions in charge of security and defense: the

European Union.

Moving forward, the theory integrates a series of material factors, which are shaped based

on the “distribution of power among the different world states, which guarantee the permanence

of principles such as sovereignty, territorial integrity and the balancing of power, essential

determining factors of the world political structure” (Otálvaro, 2004, p. 227). For this reason, the

RSCs are strengthened based on the common interests that countries within the same region share,

which makes integration of political and economical aspects necessary for the interstates

cooperation.

However, besides the material structure, there is also a whole organization of social and

cultural interactions. These constitute processes that consolidate and transform states’ joint

interests, modifying “conflictive behaviors in the frame of international security to open space for

cooperation and mutual understanding structures (formed based on not only material elements but

also new ideological and cognitive frames)” (Otálvaro, 2004, p. 227).

 54

With this in mind, in the understanding of the world from a RSC perspective, political and

economical aspects, as well as social and cultural ones, shape the regional identities of states when

constructing regional integration and cooperation systems in Security and Defense matters. These

systems help to identify and give attention to the different threats that are inherent to the

International System from a specifically regional perspective.

Figure 5. Fundamental Levels of Regional Security Complexes

Source: designed by the author of this research based on Riquelme (2011).

The domestic level: vulnerabilities domestically generated in the states of the region. It helps

to define the kind of threats that states perceive. 2) the interstates level: state-to-state

relations. 3) The interregional level: the relation of the region with other neighbor regions.

4) The global level: the role of global powers in the region as well as the relation among

regional and global security structures (p. 105).

 55

Therefore, RSCs are the result of the different interactions among different political, social,

economical and cultural factors as well as the balance of powers and friendship-enmity patterns.

Meanwhile, dynamics of the domestic, interstate, interregional and global levels are those that

shape interdependence among security structures and internal factors of every state in order to

favor regional cooperation.

Assuming this, it is evidenced that the analysis of subsystems such as the theory of RSCs is

an opportunity for researchers and state analysts to have a more controllable object of study unlike

the results obtained by trying to understand the world context as a whole, because it considers a

logical pattern of interdependence from an anarchist and complex International System. Then, it

can be understood that it is a theoretical abstraction based on the empirical observation of regional

phenomena (Bárcena, 2000).

Considering the above, for this research, it is relevant to have an approach of the theory of

Regional Security Complexes, taking into account that it helps to explain better which are the

favoring aspects of having a regional integration and cooperation system in terms of National

Security in order to reduce the risks and minimize the threats that exist in the world context and

that can make a specific region unstable, like the case of drug trafficking in the Latin American

region.

Additionally, such a theory is appropriate to generate definitive scenarios, which can

“structure the study of predictions, stability and change possibilities […] once the structure of a

complex has been identified, it can be used to reduce the possible options for change” (Buzan et

al., 1998, p. 15).

 56

In this point, one must highlight that a security subsystem does not guarantee “the perfect

harmonization among countries from a specific RSC or the absence of conflicts. In this case, states

agree on cooperating to solve conflicts based on the creation of institutions” (Bagley, 2014, p. 47)

as well as strategies and regulations that give attention to the main common threats in the region.

It is evident that the RSCs theory does not solve existing conflicts among states.

Nevertheless, through security institutions cooperation and integration, nations can see the

favorable joint work to conclusively give attention to threats that can violate countries’ sovereignty

and legitimacy in the region.

For this research, it is convenient to also highlight that RSCs, as Buzan and Wæver (2003)

state, can be classified in three variables. These are the Formation of the Conflict, the Security

Regime and the Security Community. These kinds of complexes allow to have a more accurate

analysis of the kind of phenomena to be securitized and how such issues can be attacked through

regional cooperation.

The first variable is the formation of conflicts. It explains how a regional scenario that is

prone to conflict is shaped. In it, the absence or regulations or mechanisms leads to an insecurity

situation among states from a localized geographical area (Buzan & Wæver, 2003). An example

of it is the RSC that exists in the Asian east, where a constant tension among states can be

identified.

The second variable is known as the Regime Security. It presents how an RSC is constituted

based on the integration of states through the creation of institutions, regulations and mechanisms

that favor cooperation to solve regional problems.

 57

Last but not least, the third variable studies the Security Community. It presents a scenario

in which the resource of force is not used to solve issues. For this reason, a stage of absence of

armed conflicts among states prevails just like it is evidenced in contemporary Western Europe

(Wagner, 2010).

Based on these variables, one could explain how to shape an RSC in Latin America. One

understands that, as Tavares (2005) states, the region is located in a scenario in which the absence

of interstates conflicts rules such a complex. Additionally, based on Cepik’s (2009) approach of

the situation, it is evidenced how the interstates non-violence situation favors the apparition of a

regional scenario in which a series of non-statewide threats risk the statu quo of the Latin American

region. Therefore, elements such as drug trafficking and TOC are issues of the non-statewide

threats scenario. These problems generate instability for the whole region, which makes

cooperation in security matters possible, understanding that one moves from the Formation of the

Conflict variable to the Security Regime one, in which the creation of institutions, regulations and

mechanisms, such as AMERIPOL, favor the neutralization and the way to address such threats.

3.2 AMERIPOL, blurring frontiers: towards the construction of a Regional Security Police
Complex

Latin America can be analyzed as an RSC in which states coincide in spite of the threats that affect

them differently and even their multiple interests. An example of it was the search of common

criteria in the Regional Security Conference about Hemispherical Security in Mexico in 2003,

where different states of the region managed to make important agreements in terms of security,

stating a:

new way to conceive security in the Hemisphere, which has a multidimensional scope and includes traditional

and new threats, worries and other challenges for security of the states in the Hemisphere. This new way to
 58

conceive security incorporates states’ priorities and contributes to the consolidation of peace, integral

development and social justice, and is based on democratic values, respect, the promotion and defense of human

rights, solidarity, cooperation and respect to national sovereignty (OAS, 2003, p. 10).

Securitization implies labeling the phenomenon with a more serious category of “threat”,

which requires a different political management and represents a growing social risk (Yepes, 2013)

such as drug trafficking in this case. As analyzed in the first chapter of this research, this

management has provoked a common securitization process of the phenomenon in different states,

leading to the association of many of them in organizations, which, in turn, generate help and

cooperation programs to counteract.

Nonetheless, despite the acknowledgement of a common notion of security, the states’

security agenda presents variations regarding the prioritization of certain threats. For instance, the

Brazilian and Argentinian governments highlighted, in the aforementioned conference, the

importance of overcoming poverty, identifying it as one of the main challenges for regional

security. Chile and Canada prioritized human security while Colombia and the United States kept

their worrying position about security regarding illegal groups, drug trafficking and terrorism in

the region (UNDP, 2011).

As shown in the following image, one can state that there are subsystems that have a different

prioritization of threats in this Regional Security Complex.

Figure 6. Latin American Regional Security Subsystems

 59

Source: designed by the author of this research

In spite of the different way to prioritize threats, security concerns are still connected given

their transnational nature. Therefore, controlling the phenomenon requires interstates cooperation,

which is supported by joint identification of common threats. Furthermore, this kind of cooperation

must watch for integration, which, in turn, must be supported by an international regime that

influences the statewide behavior in terms of expectations and opportunity.

In this sense, it can be stated that adopting an international regime is vital in the

construction of an RSC, understanding that such regimes are a “group of explicit or implicit

decision-making principles, rules, regulations or procedures. Based on them, expectations from

agents regarding a specific area of the International Relations converge” (Krasner, 1993, p. 186).
 60

This is how different cooperation processes are consolidated. They open a space for agreements

or associations that constitute institutions such as NAFTA, MERCOSUR (Southern Common

Market) and AMERIPOL, which create strategies to form an RSC and be taken as such (Buzan &

Wæver, 2003).

The case of Punta del Este in 2003 can be taken as an example. There, the importance of

generating a Reciprocal Assistance and Cooperation Plan for Regional Security was established.

It highlights the importance of creating a uniform legislation that allows the sanctioning of crimes

that affect MERCOSUR’s belonging countries. Such crimes include drugs, arms, bombshells and

people trafficking, terrorism, delinquency, asset laundering and smuggling (Bogado, 2002).

Similarly, there was the intention of the creation and functioning of a regional database. It

would allow the improvement of the fight against crime, strengthening the integrated control of

borders, elaborating a project to constitute an information system about the personal identity in all

MERCOSUR belonging countries. Chile and Bolivia were countries that supported this initiative

(Bogado, 2002).

Another example presented in the European Union, where institutions such as the European

Police Station for Exterior Relations and Neighboring Policies intend to provide a global answer

to confront phenomena that attack regional security. This is done based on the understanding of

threats transnational nature and the impossibility of responding efficiently through merely national

strategies. It is possible to state that, although the European Union constitutes an RSC, its security-

favoring programs transcend its frontiers and even reach the RSC in Latin America (Ahumada,

2007). In this sense:

 61

The European Union and the Police Community of the Americas (AMERIPOL), in the frame

of the Stability Instrument and the European Union’s Global Action Plan in the fight against

the cocaine trafficking route, has concluded a new Information System. It is similar to the

one that Interpol and Europol use. It will make the fight against organized crime more

efficient and quicker. (Lázaro, 2015)

In this sense, in February 2015, the European Union and the Police Community of the

Americas presented the Police Information Exchange System (PIES) for AMERIPOL. It is a

system that is similar to the one used in EUROPOL and INTERPOL with the aim of generating a

mechanism that allows a quicker and more efficient fight against TOC (Lázaro, 2015).

At its beginning, the PIES associated six police forces from the American continent

hemisphere. Such forces were from Colombia, Panama, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. They

aimed at consolidating both a tool to exchange regional information and a mechanism that allows

the “consolidation and widening of AMERIPOL’s national police cooperation, providing clear and

accurate information about different crimes” (Ecuadorian National Police, 2015).

The PIES, besides being a regional cooperation tool, is an intraregional cooperation

instrument that facilitates police, legal and fiscal forces’ action against different transnational

threats that may affect states. Therefore, the PIES favors AMERIPOL, because it allows the

exchange of necessary information to efficiently and quickly fight the different current

transnational threats that derive from drug trafficking. This system is based on a software that

gathers and stores data that the different associated police forces provide, keeping a constant

information flow. Such information specially focuses on drug trafficking threats in the American

continent region, which have the European continent as a destination (European Union Delegation

for Colombia, 2015).

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What has been presented so far allows to confirm that multilateral organizations generate

the development of direct cooperation mechanisms. Regarding the case of study for this research,

AMERIPOL, it acts as a Regional Security Complex and it constitutes an international police

cooperation organization. Such an RSC is the result of a drug trafficking securitization process

that states of the region conducted. Nonetheless, there are still legal and political limitations,

inherent to the member states that make this RSC slow while limiting its efficiency.

In terms of such limitations, AMERIPOL must be constituted as an organization that can

centralize the fight against drug trafficking in the region from a political perspective. Doing so

implies overcoming its own limitations that come from the statewide sovereignty primacy, which

is expressed in its legislature. Unlike the drug trafficking phenomenon, this legislature is not

flexible and is highly limited by domestic factors. As a result, its adaptation process to contextual

situations is very difficult.

It is vitally important to be able to harmonize national legislations regarding drug

trafficking. Doing so allows to provide similar attention to this phenomenon, not only in general

terms, but also in legal and penal terms. In this context, police efforts will find support in the legal

system of the states, avoiding the possibility of police action not being able to have legal effects,

which enacts the phenomenon.

The regional security strategies are not new issues. It can be found that previous

consensuses among states, aiming to provide an answer to different threats that alter peace and

stability. However, realistic strategies have prevailed, which prioritize national security in its most

classical meaning. In other terms, the national defense has not been differentiated from public

security, which directly affects the tools and strategies to counteract issues and threats that escape

the purely realistic logic.

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Consequently, from the matters of securitization and the formation of an RSC in Latin

America, an agenda must be created to establish “the distinction between the national defense, a

mission that was traditionally entrusted to the army, just like public security was entrusted to the

police” (Malamud, 2006). This would imply establishing specific functions that the development

of better cooperation mechanisms among different Latin American statewide institutions with the

aim of effectively counteracting regional security issues.

Nonetheless, the differentiation between national defense matters and public security ones

does not suppose the non-existence of cooperation among institutions of both sectors. An example

of this is the importance of the information obtained by the military intelligence in AMERIPOL’s

actions. Despite the fact that AMERIPOL is a completely military institution, finding support in

different institutions was decisive for the development of not only efficient information

mechanisms but also conclusive strategies in the fight against drug trafficking. Therefore,

multilateralism is a sine qua non condition in the construction of an efficient Regional Security

Police Complex in the fight against drug trafficking.

Finally, it is stated that the Police Community of the Americas is an agent with multiple

conditions. Hence, it is a supranational organization that aims at facing threats that exceed the

individual capacity of states. Similarly, AMERIPOL is an organization that centralizes a RSC,

which, in this case, has a police nature. Such nature is appropriate for the existence of a physical

proximity scenario, joint securitization processes and a common understanding of drug trafficking

as a regional threat that makes joint work among different agents essential.

With the above in mind, coordination of wills among states to face a regional and

transnational issue implies a transformation of traditional cooperation mechanisms by the states.

Therefore, a “multilateral coordination of political wills that aim for common welfare and delegate
 64

strategic and political functions to supranational organizations in order to act and get tangible

results” starts to be a priority (Sánchez 2015, p. 6). This scenario leads to the construction of an

RSC.
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CONCLUSIONS

This research states that the contribution of a Regional Security Police Complex in the fight against

drug trafficking lies in that it constitutes an integration and cooperation mechanism from different

police forces. These follow a common perception of threat and, accordingly, generate security

processes in the fight against this phenomenon. For this reason, the development of a joint work

among police forces is decisive in the fight against drug trafficking in the security complex of

Latin America.

This hypothesis has been supported (among other tools) through the study of different drug

trafficking securitization processes in Latin America. It was found that even if a securitization

process of the phenomenon in the region took place, the factors that led to it might have been

different in every state. This obeys to political matters, especially the way in which drug trafficking

manifests in territories (drug trafficking chain). In this respect, it is decisive to recognize the

influence of extraregional agents such as the United States, a country that has prioritized the fight

against drug trafficking in Latin America from its exterior policies. This was done based on the

understanding of a shared responsibility when counteracting the phenomenon.

Regarding the “need of advancing in the construction of an order based on efficient

multilateralism as a beneficial strategic objective for all countries (Central American Network of

Thinking and Incidence Centers, 2011, p.17), mechanisms such as multilateral organizations allow

the cooperation and integration towards the same aim are decisive. Therefore, AMERIPOL is an

important organization in the joint facing of security challenges in the region (drug trafficking is

the one of the most important ones), as it encourages international police cooperation.

Assuming this, AMERIPOL is a clear example of a Regional Security Complex in which

an issue (such as drug trafficking) is securitized for a geographical zone. Hence, integration and
 66

cooperation systems are created to generate strategies that allow the mitigation of the problem.

One can understand, then, that securitization of the phenomenon has made the development of an

RSC possible, in which agents do not act from a completely realistic optic.

Nonetheless, legal and political limitations still make police forces cooperation and

integration slow. It is the result of the lack of articulation in the international regime against drugs

in the domestic sector. It can be evidenced in the lack of harmony in laws as well as the dissimilar

(and sometimes contradictory) political interests. From this perspective, the national sovereignty

primacy turns to be a difficulty, because states attach to it while drug trafficking agents ignore it.

Its nature even turns to be the opposite.

Emphasizing on the absence of a legal regional frame that facilitates cooperation among

regional police institutions in the exchange of information, one must say that states’ legal frames

consider mechanisms that protect the information gathered by police forces. Doing so conditions

the efficiency of tools such as the Information Exchange System for AMERIPOL. In this respect,

one can conclude that there are legal limitations that restrict regional integration and cooperation,

constraining the flow of information, which is a decisive tool in the police fight against drug

trafficking.

In the political field, the governmental interests can be translated as barriers for cooperation

and integration. Statewide sovereignty matters, issues concerning National Security, dissimilar

capacities in terms of physical and human resources can be also translated as such. This can be

explained by the fact that there can be disparities regarding the need and benefits of an effective

and efficient cooperation system. Some states would have better participation and contribution to

this mechanism. For this reason, in many occasions, it seems to be an unnecessary effort by the
 67

political interests and the benefits for every state of the region. To summarize, political lack of

coordination is one of the identified challenges in this research. It is a:

problem that derives from disparity in the internal situation of states, the different ways in

which drug trafficking affects them and the limited international political (NOTE:

international political will is understood as the states’ intention of making common decisions

to generate the change that is intended. (O’Connell, Burrows & Libby Plumb, 2007, p. 11))

will. These challenges suppose the existence of factors that hinder a joint political

cooperation against drugs, and therefore, the development of isolationist attitudes (Sánchez,

2017, p. 56).

Although Regional Security Complexes are a conceptual tool, they must be understood as

a construction that obeys to cooperation, integration and securitization processes among agents

from a specific geographical space. Bearing this in mind, RSCs are based on a common perception

of threats, which cannot be addressed in an isolationist way. Consequently, securitization as a

process exceeds domestic scenarios to start being conducted regionally with the joint aim of

responding to National Defense Security threats.

As a result, the theory of RSCs helps to provide a better understanding of the integration

that police forces from the Latin American states intend to have. This is done to face one of the

main issues in the region, drug trafficking, which threatens stability, legitimacy and sovereignty

in most countries of such a region. Therefore, it is important to understand the political,

economical, social and geographical dynamics that allow cooperation among regional states in

favor of security itself from a theoretical perspective of the RSCs.

 68

Nonetheless, as it was expressed in the second chapter of the research, there are legal and

political barriers, which must start to be blurred and erased in favor of the police action

strengthening. This fact can be expressed in terms of harmony of local legal frames, allowing

common ways to judge and deal with drug trafficking criminals. Similarly, initiatives such as the

PIES must be enhanced since it is a decisive system not only in the ways to get information to

control from statewide frontiers, but also in the insights for the development of joint work among

police forces in the region.

It is essential to point that this research refers to the fight against drug trafficking from an

international police cooperation position, understanding this phenomenon as a public security

matter that impacts not only national security but also that of citizens. Furthermore, police

cooperation regarding the need of a different way to approach the phenomenon is highlighted,

because recent events show that punitive and military strategies have not been able to resolve drug

trafficking. In this sense, illicit narcotics traffic must stop being addressed as an exclusively

national defense issue so that there is more joint work from a police and military notion that allows

the complementing of the integration and cooperation system with information and mitigation

strategies by different forces from the Public Force.

In conclusion, and according to the hypothesis of this research, one can state that the

contribution of a Regional Security Police Complex in the fight against drug trafficking lies in the

fact that it constitutes an integration and cooperation mechanism of different police forces, which

follow a common perspective of threat, and, therefore, generate securitization processes against

this phenomenon. For this reason, the development of a joint work among police forces is decisive

in the fight against drug trafficking within the Latin American security complex.
 69

It is possible to state that AMERIPOL is an articulating conductor of the RSPC. Meeting

its principles and purposes, it “establishes as a mission: being the hemispherical police cooperation

organization that promotes joint work in police agencies in different areas, aiming at strategically

and operationally directing threats that permeate public and citizens’ security” (AMERIPOL,

2013).

To conclude, a strong enough Regional Security Police Complex must be consolidated to

address the Latin American drug trafficking issue. Accordingly, AMERIPOL, as a police

cooperation organization, has the capacity of establishing lines of action that allow harmony in

police forces’ actions regarding this illegal activity. By so doing, they can establish a functional

integration and cooperation regional system in Latin America.

 70

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