Robert BuddanTHE INTERNATIONAL relations journal Foreign Policy (2003) produced a telling article that happens to be especially relevant to small developing countries and those who study or manage the state. It gives cause for serious thinking about what states are up against under globalisation.
It argues that nation-states, collectively and individually, find themselves in five 'wars' of globalisation and that the inter-state system is losing them all. These are wars against the illegal traffic in drugs, arms, people, intellectual property, and money. The perpetrators of these activities do not face the same constraints as the states fighting against them.
STATES VERSUS STATELESS ACTORS
Constraints such as geography, sovereignty, resources, and democracy (law, transparency, accountability, etc.) limit state action but not the actions of 'stateless' criminal enterprises. Liberalised markets, technology, and informal networking help these 'stateless' and truly global criminal entities and "render obsolete many of the existing institutions, legal frameworks, military doctrines, weapons systems, and law enforcement techniques on which governments have relied for years".
Governments have to cope with tight budgets, bureaucracies, media scrutiny and the rights and conflicting opinions of electorates. The article warns that, "The spread of democracy may also help criminal cartels, which can manipulate weak public institutions by corrupting police officers or tempting politicians with offers of cash for their increasingly expensive political campaigns".
Even the spread of international law may help criminals by providing incentives for them to supply forbidden goods to those facing sanctions and embargoes.
National governments cannot cope with global criminal markets. National bureaucracies cannot match international criminal networks. Sovereign states cannot contain stateless trans-border organisations. Consider this absurdity. The international drug trade is worth US$400 billion a year. But Interpol (the international police), which serves 181 governments, has a staff of 384, of whom just 112 are police officers, working with a budget of US$28 million.
Neither do governments have any way of controlling the traffic in small arms. Of the 550 million small arms that the U.N. estimates to be in circulation around the world only three per cent is in the hands of official police and military personnel. In Haiti, most of the estimated 13,000 small arms in circulation are in the hands of criminal gangs.
'WARS' IN THE CARIBBEAN
Our region is not immune from these threats. Two bomb blasts in Trinidad and Tobago in the last month add to fears of terrorism spreading to the region and Trinidadians have called for a national debate on crime. The people of the U.S. Virgin Islands have launched a campaign to take back their communities from criminals. Haiti is a source of small arms proliferation most of which are in the hands of armed gangs. Gangs and their links with drugs and small arms are a great worry for Central America, and continental CARICOM members like Suriname. Jamaica has recorded 1,000 murders this year so far and along with Guyana, has been identified as a source of human trafficking. Offshore financial centres, including the Cayman Islands, are very vulnerable to international money launderers.
There is growing worry over the increasing number of gangs in Antigua. Bermuda has just begun a crackdown on gangs and a recent seizure of US$44-million worth of drugs was of greater value than the country's police budget. Several Caribbean prime ministers are now raising concerns over the growing number of deportees and the danger they pose.
At the 22nd heads of government Conference of CARICOM, former Antiguan Prime Minister Lester Bird called for two state-of-the-art, maximum-security prisons for the region and a rapid response unit to attack criminals using Caribbean waters.
At CARICOM's 28th Heads of Government Conference, the Prime Minister of St. Lucia, Kenny Anthony bemoaned the scourge of crime, called for zero tolerance, and asked that CARICOM begins to define the crime problem for itself with a view to formulating a plan of action.
At a meeting of regional Superintendents of Prisons in St. Lucia in 2003, the superintendents called for a regional maximum-security prison for dangerous criminals.
CARICOM has endorsed a management framework for crime and security. It makes provisions for a council of ministers responsible for security and law enforcement measures, a security policy advisory committee, and an implementation agency for crime and security.
MULTILATERALISM VERSUS REGIONALISM
The regional approach to crime-fighting is not new but remains underdeveloped. The European Union has its version of Interpol called Europol. However, it is not much better resourced than Interpol. Presidents of Central America (members of the Central American Free Trade Area) have only recently agreed to devise a united policy to deal with Central America's dangerous and numerous armed gangs.
CARICOM must build its regionalism through a regional police intelligence and investigating organisation. Regional governance must extend itself to the area of security so that there is a single market for security, not just trade. We cannot build democracy and free markets without securing their integrity.
CARICOM needs common governance standards so that all governments can clearly separate those who make and enforce the laws from those who break them. At the moment, the line between the interim government in Haiti and criminal thugs is not clear. In Suriname, a recent candidate for president and current Member of Parliament is wanted on drug trafficking charges in the Netherlands.
Cases like these make it especially important for CARICOM countries to establish campaign finance regulations so that powerful private interests, especially criminal interests, do not capture the political process. Stateless groups can capture states by spending money to elect candidates who will do them favours.
The multilateral approach has not been successful. For example, although Trinidad proposed the establishment of an international criminal court, which was accepted by the U.N., the U.S. under George Bush refuses to be a part. And, although Jamaica had proposed the establishment of an international U.N. force to deal with drug traffickers, the idea failed to get support. The World Bank lends billions of dollars except for security-related projects like building more and better police stations.
ADVANTAGE OF REGIONAL APPROACH
CARICOM can only pursue solutions within its own community and hope that the multilateral system will come to its senses. One advantage of a regional approach to security is that it overcomes the problem of sovereignty. It is not the same as when Venezuela objected to U.S. overflight to monitor routes commonly used by drug traffickers, or when Jamaica objected to the U.S. Shiprider agreement that gave the U.S. permissive power on Jamaican territory. Among countries sharing free space and regional governance, sovereignty becomes more flexible.
CARICOM will need to act in concert to address the flow of guns and deportees from other countries and modernise its laws in many of the areas being pursued by Jamaica, such as bail laws and laws relating to fingerprinting, video evidence, and so on.
CARICOM is not just up against large states at the W.T.O. over issues like sugar and bananas. It is also up against powerful stateless players who have been able to effectively exploit democracy and globalisation. The traditional structure of the state and the inter-state systems were never designed to deal with them. Jamaica and CARICOM must find novel ways.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI. You can send your comments to Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or infocus@gleanerjm.com.
