Marijuana (also known as cannabis, dagga or ganja) is a tobacco-like substance derived from the hemp plant. It is grown and produced throughout the world, including Africa, and can be ingested by smoking, chewing or eating. It is cheap and classified as a ‘soft’ drug, but abuse of the product can lead to disorientation, paranoia and psychosis.



Cocaine, which is extracted from the coca plant of the Andean countries in Latin America, is the most potent stimulant of natural origin with powerful psychotropic properties. It can be administered by smoking, sniffing or intravenous injection. It creates extraordinary dependency with very serious physiological and psychic consequences. Crack - a mixture of cocaine, sodium bicarbonate and water - delivers many times the impact of powdered cocaine.



Heroin, a semi-synthetic narcotic derived from the opium poppy, can be taken by smoking, sniffing or through injection. The principal areas of production are the ‘Golden Triangle’ (the highlands of Burma and the northern regions of Laos and Thailand) and in South-West Asia’s ‘Golden Crescent’ (southern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and parts of Iran). The drug has a high physical and psychological dependency factor. Heroin overdose can be fatal.



Synthetic drugs, for instance amphetamines and the hallucinogen LSD, are mainly produced and consumed in Europe and North America. However, considerable quantities of the depressant methaqualone (‘Mandrax’) are produced and exported from India. South Africans seem to have a craving for Mandrax - a strong tranquilliser often crushed with marijuana and smoked as ‘white pipe’.

TRADE ROUTES

The drug invasion in Africa since the early 1980s has been facilitated by the geography of the African landmass. On the West African coast, the Ghanaian and Nigerian drug barons obtain their consignments of cocaine from Colombia, the Latin American state whose name has become virtually synonymous with a drug mafiosi of truly terrifying regional power and global reach.

On the Horn and in East Africa, the trail originates in the South-East Asian ‘Golden Triangle’ and in South-West Asia’s ‘Golden Crescent’. It is from these regions that much of the world’s illicit opium crops are refined into heroin. By the start of the current decade, one-third of the world’s heroin intercepted in Europe had transited through Africa. The East African region - once viewed as relatively innocent when compared to the West African coast - has now been identified by anti-narcotics agencies as a major transit point for hard drugs. Most of the drugs funnelled through East Africa originate from India and Thailand and are destined for the Gulf, Europe and Southern Africa. Indeed, "[so] alarming is the drugs menace [in the region] that in the case of Zanzibar, the US and Britain have agreed to assist the isles’ authorities with intelligence on traffickers", together with special equipment for Zanzibar’s airport.5

Other known conduits include North Africa, a centre for traffickers in Mandrax, and Central Africa, where the airports of Bangui (Central African Republic), Kigali (Rwanda) and Kinshasa (Zaire) play a decisive and clandestine role in the lucrative onward trade into Western Europe. Further south, the routes into South Africa out of Lubumbashi (Zaire) and Lusaka (Zambia) are facilitated by small networks of mainly Greek entrepreneurs operating out of Johannesburg. With the independence of Namibia in 1990, a new route for illicit drugs through Southern and Western Zambia into Namibia has also opened. It is understood that South African passports are widely used by Nigerian, Zairean and Zimbabwean drug traffickers, with many of the drug couriers arrested in South Africa from these countries. Passports are often stolen from the Department of Home Affairs (often in collusion with departmental officials) and illegally sold on the black market.

Southern Africa is an important conduit to the rest of the world because it is regarded by drug syndicates as a safe transit route to Europe and the US. In addition, the end of apartheid in South Africa has triggered an unprecedented inter-state movement of people in the sub-region, some of whom are unemployed criminals engaged in cross-border drug peddling. As South Africa forms new trade links with other countries, and international flights reach more destinations,6 it has become a larger target for drug syndicates. A US survey of drug movements around the globe has shown that South Africa is becoming a major centre of attraction for international drug cartels as it emerges from its isolation. In August 1994, White House national drug control policy director Dr Lee Brown said, "A few months ago South Africa did not appear on the radar screen - but recently that has changed."7 These points have been succinctly summarised in a speech by the US Ambassador to South Africa, Mr Princeton Lyman: "Narcotics is an international business, as transnational as that of any major corporation or business in the world today. South Africa, while suffering from the trafficking and use of dagga and mandrax, was shielded from much of the growth of narcotics trafficking that has taken place in the rest of the world in the last two decades. But with the explosion of air connections in and out of South Africa - during sanctions few airlines but SAA operated, today fifty international airlines service the country - South Africa beckoned. Connections now exist through South Africa between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North and South America. Narcotics syndicates were quick to move into this virgin territory. They have come from all parts of the world ... We see it in visa requests that bear the mark of traffickers we have seen elsewhere. South Africans see it in arrests of South Africans for drug offences in various parts of the world."8

SOUTH AFRICA

In short, ominous signals that South Africa is being targeted as a major trans-shipment centre for a wide variety of narcotics are increasing. Already, considerable quantities of Mandrax are trafficked from the Indian sub-continent to South Africa (much of it smuggled into the country by ‘mules’, mostly elderly men and women who are travelling regularly between India and South Africa). Cocaine (a stimulant), which until as recently as five years ago had not been a problem in South Africa, could potentially become as serious a threat as Mandrax. Figures released early in 1992 by the then South African Police revealed that the trade in cocaine, both for transit and consumption, had already become a multi-billion rand industry. In the meantime, and according to the South African Association of Retail Pharmacists, ninety per cent of global Mandrax production is sold in South Africa, while 25 per cent of all marijuana seized worldwide is confiscated locally.

During 1993, police confiscated approximately R1 billion worth of drugs, an amount estimated to value a mere ten to fifteen per cent of the South African narcotics trade. One 1994 government document has disclosed that cocaine and Mandrax trafficking - which has seen an increase in arrest rates of some 120 per cent and forty per cent respectively during mid-1993 to mid-1994 - "are showing the most alarming growth rate both in abuse and in appearance in the region. Although SA serves largely as a transit route for heroin, there are already signs that abuse of this substance too will mushroom at an alarming rate during the next five years."9

It is now thought that more than 100 of the estimated 273 crime syndicates operating in South Africa are involved in narco-trafficking. Apart from South African syndicates that focus on the inter-connected crimes of vehicle- and weapons-smuggling, foreign exchange fraud and drug dealing, dozens of international gangster groups have moved in on the scene. These include East European and Russian gangs trading in illegal weapons, illicit gemstones and ivory; Nigerian, Ghanaian and Israeli cocaine smugglers; Chinese operators linked to the infamous Triads; and Zairean passport racketeers.10

From the perspective of international crime syndicates, South Africa has the ‘right profile’ for exploitation, similar in many respects to that of the former communist states: a sudden boom in free trade, the movement (legally and illegally) of much larger numbers of people across its borders and an inadequate bureaucracy ill-prepared to meet the new challenge. Growing drug abuse is also closely correlated to the country’s burgeoning and uncontrolled levels of urbanisation.11 The US, which views Pretoria’s drug problem as a direct threat to Washington’s global offensive against the drug trade, is further concerned about the combination of poverty, lawlessness and a highly sophisticated banking system through which drug funds can be efficiently laundered in South Africa. Their concern about the South African problem has already prompted them to become actively involved in providing advice and technical assistance. For example, at a special briefing to the Transitional Executive Committee (TEC) sub-council on foreign affairs in February 1994, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials painted a picture of, what Harry Schwarz the former Ambassador called "a very frightening situation".12 The sub-council was urged to put pressure on a new government to give the matter top priority and was informed that Washington and the UN were ready to provide the relevant training and co-operation.

SOCIAL AND SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

As well as causing widespread suffering, illness and deaths among addicts, drug racketeers engender corruption and violence, and many users resort to theft and prostitution to support their habits. Drug consumption is ruining the lives of many Africans, who often have already been ravaged by malnutrition and epidemic diseases. It wreaks havoc on the lives of millions of families, being associated with both spouse battering and child abuse. In some African countries, it has the potential of destabilising the entire economy and threatening the very fabric of society - as in Colombia where the authorities have been forced to spend exorbitant sums on detection and security.

"But it is the corrupting nature of this business that is perhaps the most frightening. This is a business that preys upon weakness, upon greed. Poor people are drawn into carrying drugs, demeaning themselves, physically and morally in the process. The ways in which carriers, known derisively in the trade as ‘mules’, debase their bodies to carry drugs is beyond ... imagination. Youth gangs are drawn into trafficking in their neighbourhoods, earning previously unseen amounts of money, becoming warlords dangerous to society, indeed so heavily armed as to be almost beyond the power of police or government. Addiction in the country is key to the syndicates’ needs. Not only does growing addiction offer more people to be used as ‘mules’, but it opens up a domestic market, that in South Africa, with its relative wealth, is very attractive indeed. Every means to spread addiction will be used."13

Drug dealers have already infiltrated government and police ranks in South Africa. Individuals in high public service positions have been placed on illegal payrolls and are currently helping the syndicates by providing legal documents and permits. In some cases, police and customs officers and other law enforcement officials have moved beyond facilitating smuggling by becoming actively involved as couriers. The corruption of politicians and bureaucrats undermines the legitimacy and credibility of government and subverts the political security of the states concerned.14 Indeed, in November 1994, President Mandela warned that drug trafficking could threaten the ability of the Government of National Unity (GNU) to assert its authority and maintain peace and security. A few months previously, a plot to assassinate Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale for his stand against the drug trade was uncovered.

There is also increasing alarm about the growing collusion between the international narcotics trade, terrorist organisations and gun-running. "In this respect the black market in narcotics has for many years provided common ground for both apolitical, entrepreneurial drug traffickers and ideologically motivated revolutionaries."15 In Pakistan, for example, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has charged that drug barons were helping to promote terrorism in retaliation against her government’s tough policy on drug trafficking. In Colombia, where the greatest threat to stability and democracy in recent years has come from the narcotics syndicates, at least thirty people were killed and 247 injured when a large bomb exploded during a music festival in June 1995. The attack came the day after police captured cocaine king Gilberto Orejuela - an arrest that represents Colombia’s biggest blow to its powerful drug syndicates since security forces killed cartel boss Pablo Escobar in December 1993. More widely, the impact of illegal drugs on that country may be appreciated by the fact that, since the late 1980s, 3 400 Colombians have been killed, four presidential candidates have been assassinated and billions of dollars have been poured into security in drug-related incidents.

Violence associated with the narco-business includes coercion, intimidation, blackmail, kidnapping, torture and murder. In fact, "[m]urders related to the drug business have become the primary cause of death among Colombian men between the ages of 20 and 45 ... A whole generation of human capital in the form of educated, skilled people is being eradicated. Out of fear for their lives many study and work abroad."16

ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS

The economic consequences of the narco-trade are equally appalling. On a global level, and according to a UN report released in Vienna in March 1995, drug addiction is costing countries between 0,5 and 1,3 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For instance, the cost of drug abuse to the budget of the US (taking account of medical charges, AIDS-related treatment, the growth of criminal activity and the loss of productivity due to drug abuse) has been estimated at $76 billion, or around 1,3 per cent of GDP in 1991, as compared to $44 billion in 1985. The study, which analyses the economic and social consequences of the abuse and illicit trafficking of drugs, also highlights the considerable growth in recent years in the number of deaths linked to drug addiction. For example, from 1980 to the early 1990s, the death rate was six times higher in Germany, five times higher in Italy and more than double in Britain.17

Moreover, and more ominously, it should be stressed that cocaine, amphetamines and other narcotics can be injected - a practice that presents a particular risk of infections when used with non-sterile needles, especially considering that the spread of AIDS (HIV) has reached almost epidemic proportions in some parts of Africa, not least in South Africa itself.18

The drug trade takes a heavy toll on the already weak economies of African states. Campaigns to eliminate production and curb the trafficking of illegal narcotics cost considerable sums of already scarce state finances. The political and security implications of the narcotics trade as discussed earlier also have additional economic consequences: the high incidence of drug-related violence and crime contributes to domestic capital flight and discourages foreign investment. It has a negative impact on the tourist industry, a key economic sector in many East and Southern African states. Furthermore, and as touched on above, drug abuse contributes to the loss of employment man-hours, hampering the future development of the African continent.

In South Africa there is growing concern that expanding illegal drug consumption, especially in the townships, will further strain the already fragile social and economic fabric of transitional society. However, the abuse of illegal substances is also having a knock-on and negative effect in South Africa’s boardrooms. Although alcohol is the most common form of abuse, there is a growing trend among stressed executives to use cocaine in the mistaken belief that it helps them cope. But once an individual is addicted to cocaine, the problem of funding the dependency assumes paramount importance. As a consequence, there is a direct correlation between escalating levels of white collar crime (computer fraud, stock manipulation and other financial irregularities) and narcotics abuse. As a final economic consequence, the laundering of drug money will be examined under a separate heading, as it plays a highly destabilising role in the domestic economy.

MONEY LAUNDERING

A major problem related to the illegal drug trade is money laundering - "the conversion of profits from illegal activities, in this case drug activities, into financial assets which appear to have legitimate origins."19 It is extremely difficult to gauge how much ‘dirty’ money flows through the global financial system on an annual basis, but there can be no doubt that the sums involved are enormous. According to one (widely accepted) estimate by Albert Pacey, head of the British National Criminal Intelligence Service, some $500 billion may have been laundered worldwide in 1993. Perhaps fifty per cent of that emanates from the illegal narcotics business, the balance from other types of organised criminal activity and terrorism.20

In the view of the South African Law Commission, money laundering schemes - which aim to legitimise dirty money by mingling it with clean - habitually use orthodox financial institutions, shell corporations registered in obscure offshore centres and other investment vehicles to transfer illegally obtained proceeds and convert them into assets of an apparently legitimate origin. In addition, many sophisticated money launderers have mastered the use of electronic payment mechanisms, calling on friendly accountants and legal expertise to design new methods of disguising the source of the money they handle. In this they are abetted by lax regulations, official corruption and newly opened economies that make the masking of illicit transactions easier. This threatens to undermine legitimate business enterprise, particularly in developing financial markets: because the cash is coming from crime, it gives the criminal organisations’ business a competitive edge over legitimate money earned at lower profit margins and which is subject to tax.

Africa remains a major problem area in terms of financial / banking regulations and Nigeria in particular is a centre for laundering the proceeds of drug-trafficking. Keeping an eye on the business of laundering, and implementing measures to control it, demand improved co-operation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies, governments and financial institutions; but the task is not made any easier by the global trend towards financial liberalisation.

CONCLUSION

It should be clear from the above that the multi-dimensional threat of drug trafficking is a serious global problem. Africa continues to be the weakest link in the international war against illegal drug operations. Due to underdevelopment, porous borders, weak detection controls and rampant corruption, crime syndicates have targeted Africa as a major transit route, exploiting expanding transport and communications systems (seaports, airports, etc.) for their clandestine activities.

It is also common knowledge that once a relatively wealthy country such as South Africa becomes a major transit route, it is not long before it becomes a major drug consuming country. And in the view of President Clinton’s chief drug policy co-ordinator, Lee Brown, South Africa has to be "the cornerstone of our overall drug strategy in Africa", adding that the sub-continent’s other key power, Nigeria, "was not fully co-operating with our anti-drug effort."21 Brown’s understated criticism did not make clear that, although Nigeria does not produce heroin or cocaine, Nigerian traffickers are pivotal to the worldwide trafficking of both substances.

The question of counter-measures will be addressed in a subsequent article on the narco-trade. However, the key to the quandary lies in the word ‘co-operation’, a point made unambiguously by an Institute for Defence Policy document cited earlier: "in countering drug trafficking and cross-border crime, regionally-based liaison with similar agencies in other countries must be encouraged. The international nature of the drug scourge requires common regional strategies in training and professional approaches. There is an urgent requirement to harmonise legal instruments and the ratification of protocols to enable law enforcement agencies to act effectively ... Although there is much talk of co-operation, a lack of willingness and capacity to share information / intelligence between the countries of Southern Africa on the issue of drugs and drug trafficking is evident. Some of this may be due to lack of trust ... Through mechanisms such as the OAU, pressure should [also] be exerted on countries which are known as conduits for drugs in Africa, to desist from such actions and institute effective controls."21

Unless Africa and the international community heed these imperatives, a new epidemic of momentous proportions - the "Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse" as it has been aptly described - will be added to the continent’s woes of war, famine and AIDS.

Endnotes 

I.L. Griffith, Drugs and Security in th Commonwealth Carribean, The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 31(2), July 1993, p. 70. On the same page, Griffith goes on to say: "The links between drugs and security are examined ... in the contest of the redefinition of the term ‘security’. This redefinition goes beyond the ‘high politics’ characterisation of security, which emphasises its military dimension, especially in relation to the international arena. It extends the conceptual boundaries of the term to economic and ecological questions, stressing links between security and development. This conceptualisation of security also posits that internal security questions are not only important in their own right, but that they complicate, and sometimes aggravate, external problems. Moreover, the distinction between internal issues and external ones is often blurred." For further discussion on changing notions on the nature of security, see also S. Baynham, Towards peace and security in Southern Africa, Africa Institute Bulletin 34(3), 1994, p. 2.



Agence France Press, 011903 GMT, MArch 1995.



Business Day, 28 February 1995.



Griffith, op. cit., pp. 72-73; Combating drug abuse in the 1990s, Background Brief, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, August 1991, p. 1.



Africa Analysis, 10 February 1995, p. 16.



"Air links are a particularly weak element in border control, which facilitates drug trafficking. Many international airports in the region lack proper security systems and equipment, which makes them susceptible to incidents involving illegal immigrants and drug traffickers. It would also appear as if corruption and inefficiency are rampant." J.K. Cilliers, Report on the seminar on border security in Southern Africa, Institute for Defence Policy, Midrand, 24-25 November 1994, p. 5.



Business Day, 29 August 1994.



P. Lyman, Global problems that confront nations today, address by the Ambassador to the South African Institute of International Affairs (East London branch), USEmbassy, Pretoria, 29 August 1994, p. 6.



W. Grové, The drug trade as a national and international security threat: Where do we stand?, ISSUP Bulletin 7/94, 1994, p. 5; The Sunday Times, 6 November 1994. In an article on organised crime in South Africa, one journal notes: "The US, Italian and Russian mafias, the Colombians and the Triads are alert to the opportunities. They have all initiated moves to exploit South Africa’s weakening criminal justice system. Criminals from many parts of the world have set up operations in the country, and are using Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban as staging-posts for international drugs traffic and money-laundering." Africa Analysis, 25 August 1995, p. 16.



Apart from urbanisation, the South African Drug Advisory Board also blames the rise in drug use on unemployment, family disintegration, lack of religion, peer pressure and family violence. The Citizen, 22 June 1994.



Business Day, 11 February 1994.



Lyman, op. cit., p. 6.



Griffith, op. cit., p. 84. He continues on p. 87: "The corruption of law-enforcement officials ... also has distinct implications for military security: it compromises the agents of national security, with the consequence that (a) their capacity for effective action is undermined, and (b) individuals and groups become inclined to resort to vigilante tactics because of that diminished capacity. Moreover, drugs have precipitated a sharp increase in crime generally and gang warfare n particular."



Grové, op. cit., p. 3. The author adds (pp. 3-4): "The difference between apolitical, entrepreneurial drug traffickers and revolutionaries resides in the divergence of their aims. However, it is not unlikely that these groups may form coalitions in future, although each group will still pursue its own goals. there are several countries where ideologically inspired revolutionaries are presently actively involved in drug trafficking to further their own political goals. A typical example is the Shining Path terrorist movement in Peru ... Narco-terrorism is generally perceived to be the real or potential ability of drug-trafficking impair a government’s ability to enforce and maintain its authority, be it to attain financial gain and/or to further ideologically inspired aims."



UNISA Latin American Report 9(2), September 1993, p. 17.



Agence France Press, 141604 GMT, March 1995.



For details of the distribution of AIDS in Africa, see P. Esterhuysen, Africa at a glance, Africa Institute of South Africa, Pretoria, 1995, p. 38, Figure 20.



Griffith, op. cit., p. 82.



The Economist, 25 June 1994, p. 91.



Business Day, September 1994.



Cilliers, op. cit., p. 5.