Afghan Children Ensnared in Heroin Trade With Iran

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) published this week an exclusive investigation on the use of Afghan children as drug mules, who take high risks to smuggle heroin into Iran.

The story highlights the risks not only from swalling pellets with heroin, which can burst during the way, but also how children are vulnerable to smugglers who use them to bypass the draconian drug trafficking penalties in Iran.

“Some children are killed, while others have been thrown in prison. In fact, children are attractive to the smugglers because they are not executed in Iran, where drug trafficking is a serious offence that carries capital punishment.”

Most children earn very little in comparison to the high profits made by smugglers. They often don’t know the risks involved or as the report explains, some parents will rent their kids for smuggling.

This highlights the complex situation in Afghanistan, where families depend on the opium trade due to the lack of viable alternative development funding. As one of the children interviewed said “the smugglers exploit our poverty and obligations.” The International Labor Office (ILO) and UNICEF define the use of children for drug smuggling as child trafficking and one of the worst forms of child labour.

The tough choices made by families is also evident in the case of farming families who are coerced into giving away their children to repay a debt to local drug lords. For more on this issue read ‘In the Shadows of the Insurgency in Afghanistan: Child Bartering, Opium Debt, and the War on Drugs’ by Atal Ahmadzai and Christopher Kuonqui, published in Children of the Drug War.

Additional information on child drug mules:

‘The use of children in the production, sales and trafficking of drugs: a synthesis of participatory action-oriented research programs in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand’, by Emma Porio and Christine S. Crisol, published by the International Labor Office (2004). Click here for the report.

Stop the Traffik: End Child Exploitation, UNICEF UK (2003). Read this report on the changing face of human trafficking and children smuggling drugs into the United Kingdom.

Poverty Provides Growing Number of ‘Drug Mules’, by Angel Paez, published by Inter Press Service(2008). Read the story.

Mexico, war crimes and a slippery slope

The war on drugs in Mexico has left thousands of people dead and a country in peril. But how can international law address this situation?

In an article published by Open Democracy, Patrick Gallahue comments on the recent petition made by Mexican human rights activists to the International Criminal Court to prosecute the Mexican government for crimes against humanity. What are the possible consequences of considering the drug war an armed conflict? Gallahue makes a convincing argument that in order to arrive to peace, we need not necessarily call the situation in Mexico a war.

To read the full article, click here

‘Narco-Terror: Conflating the Wars on Drugs and Terror’, P. Gallahue, Essex Human Rights Review, Vol. 8 No. 1, October 2011

The following article is a fascinating insight into the increasing conflation of the wars on drugs and terror and the implications for human rights.

It appears in the current special edition of the Essex Human Rights Review, which focuses on ‘Balancing Counter-Terrorism Efforts with Human Rights a Decade After 9/11′

All article are free to read online.

Abstract

Following 11 September 2001, the United States found itself at war with the Taliban, an enemy that heavily exploits the drug trade, narrowing the divide between the war on drugs and the war on terror  in both rhetoric and tactics, with dangerous implications for human rights. This paper discusses the implications of including drug offenders in the war on terror on fair trial norms, the right to liberty and security of person and the right to life, among other human rights protections. Even before the 2001 attacks on the United States, drug-related offences in countries such as Malaysia and Egypt had been included in emergency legislation meant to deal with threats to the State. Counter-terrorism legislation introduced since launching the  war on terror further blurs the distinction between drug-related offences and terrorism, thus leading to the diminution of human rights protections. The war on terror has presented many challenges to international human rights law. Conflating terrorism with new subjects such as drugs therefore has the potential to do further damage to recognised human rights norms.

Read the full article

‘A worrying front in the war on drugs’ by Patrick Gallahue in the Guardian’s Comment is Free

This article by Patrick Gallahue in the Guardian’s Comment is Free is based on his article published last month in the International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

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Last year, the US embarked on a controversial and ill-advised strategy for dealing with the Afghan drug trade. It placed 50 traffickers with links to the Taliban on a hit list of people who can “be killed or captured” at any time.

In effect, this gave drug traffickers the same legal status as insurgents and blurred the all-important distinction between those who can be legally targeted in an armed conflict and those who cannot.

The American strategy has now come under fire from Professor Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In a report issued at the end of last month, he wrote that the strategy “is not consistent with the traditionally understood concepts” of international humanitarian law: “Drug trafficking is understood as criminal conduct, not an activity that would subject someone to a targeted killing.”

As the Guardian noted at the time, the American decision was “certain to provoke controversy”. For the better part of the last 40 years, the “war on drugs” has largely been considered as a rhetorical fight against narcotics, not as an actual war. While militaries have been engaged to combat the drug trade, people involved in narcotics trafficking have generally been seen as common criminals (ie civilians) rather than “combatants” or “fighters”.

And when it comes to war, the difference between civilians and combatants is a very big deal. In fact, it can be a matter of life and death.

Naturally, these distinctions are difficult in civil wars like that in Afghanistan where insurgents rarely distinguish themselves from the civilian population. However, that hardly means militaries can declare everyone a target. In fact, while still notoriously vague, understanding of the rules on who can and cannot be targeted in conflicts like Afghanistan has developed substantially.

While the regulations remain tricky, pretty much every respected analysis on the issue discounts financiers of an insurgency as a legitimate target – as long as they do not have some additional combat function or are not participating in hostilities in some other way.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the most venerable humanitarian organisation on earth, wrote that recruiters, trainers, financiers and propagandists cannot be said to have combat roles.

Similarly, when the Israeli supreme court tackled the issue of targeted killing in 2005, it ruled that certain members of terrorist organisations could be targeted but it explicitly excluded those who provide “logistical, general support, including monetary aid”.

However, in announcing the new US strategy, a Senate foreign relations committee report stated in 2009: “No longer are US commanders arguing that going after the drug lords is not part of their mandate. In a dramatic illustration of the new policy, major drug traffickers who help finance the insurgency are likely to find themselves in the crosshairs of the military.”

The purpose of the principle of distinction is to protect “civilians” as long as they are not participating in hostilities and, as Professor Alston wrote, “generating profits that might be used to fund hostile actions does not constitute [direct participation in hostilities]“.

This logic of protecting those not “participating in hostilities” is intended to spare civilians on all sides from unlawful military action – be they drug traffickers supporting the Taliban or the New York Stock Exchange on the American side.

There is no dispute that trafficking in drugs is illegal, but those involved in the drug trade are subject to arrest, trial and imprisonment – not to be targeted for death – regardless of what they intend to do with the profits. Professor Alston has essentially reminded the US that targeting people for illegal acts, even in war, is not a desirable means of holding them accountable.

“To expand the notion of non-international armed conflict to groups that are essentially drug cartels, criminal gangs or other groups that should be dealt with under the law enforcement framework would be to do deep damage to the [international humanitarian law] and human rights frameworks,” Professor Alston wrote.

For the sake of a principle intended to protect all civilians in armed conflict – both law-abiding and otherwise – let’s hope they the US is listening.

(c) Guardian 2010

‘Targeted Killing of Drug Lords: Traffickers as Members of Armed Opposition Groups and/or Direct Participants in Hostilities’ by Patrick Gallahue, International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy

From International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy (Vol 1, 2010)

ABSTRACT

In 2009, the United States announced that it had placed fifty Afghan drug traffickers with links to the Taliban on a ‘kill list.’ This controversial proposal essentially weds the counter-narcotics effort with the mission to defeat the Taliban, and challenges a cornerstone of international humanitarian law, the principle of distinction. This article argues that drug traffickers, even those who support the Taliban, are not legitimate targets according to the rules applicable to non-international armed conflict. It explores the notions of membership in armed groups, civilian status and acts that result in the loss of protection, and argues that the US plan violates international humanitarian law.

IYHRDP 2010 Gallahue

First ‘narco-terrorism’ case against al-Qaeda to be tried in US

The wars on drugs and al-Qaeda are being jointly prosecuted in an American courtroom for the first time, following last month’s arrest of three Malians charged with “narco-terrorism” by the US Attorney’s Office.

The term “narco-terrorism” has been used for decades to describe the tactics of drug traffickers in the 1980s – mainly in Latin America.  However, the two concepts were merged in Section 960a of Title 21, US Code, which imposes additional charges on drug traffickers who attempt or conspire to traffic drus while “knowing or intending to provide, directly or indirectly, anything of pecuniary value to any person or organization that has engaged or engages in terrorist activity.”

The first such prosecution of accused associates of al-Qaeda was launched last month against three men who allegedly conspired to transport cocaine with the intent of supporting al-Qaeda and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

According to the indictment, the men told an undercover agent that their association with al-Qaeda could ensure secure transport of the cocaine through selected routes controlled by the organisation and that the profits would go towards “the cause”.

“Today’s arrests are further proof of the direct link between dangerous terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, and international drug trafficking that fuels their violent activities,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart.

The indictment states that the official charge against Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abelrahman, is “narco-terrorism conspiracy.”  The three were arrested in Ghana and transferred to the custody of the US Attorney.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years to life prison.