The Power of cocaine

Page 9: Daily Graphic, September 28, 2006.
Article: Albert K. Salia
“Traffickers care very little about the sanctions of the criminal justice system. Going to jail is just part of the cost of doing business. It’s a nuisance, not a deterrent” - Kurt Schmoke, one-time Mayor of Baltimore.

MANY Ghanaians are waiting with baited breath for the findings of the Georgina Wood Committee to see whether some officers of the security agencies would be nailed or exonerated.
Indeed, the media expose on the work of the committee had been to discuss the role and complexity of some of these security officials particularly Mr Benjamin Ndego of the Narcotics Control Board, Mr P. K. Acheampong, the Inspector-General of Police, Messrs Kofi Boakye and Patrick Ampewuah and Edward Tabiri, all top police officers.
Until a committee was set up to investigate the loss of five kilogrammes and later the Georgina Wood Committee, hardly was there any meaningful media attention on narcotic issues, which some of us considered as a worry. This was due to the fact that our beloved country was gradually becoming a consuming of hard drugs, especially cocaine and heroin.
The question Ghanaians should be answers to is that what happens after the Attorney-General has advised the government appropriately on the findings and recommendations of the Georgina Wood Committee Report? This is because it still appears to me that many Ghanaians do not appreciate the enormity of the problem facing Ghana.
Although Alhaji Issah Abass, Tagor, Yaw Kessie and the rest have allegedly been described as the drug barons of this country, I dare say that it is only the novice who would assume that these are indeed, the real barons. The closest these people are to the drug trade would just be three or two steps away from the real barons.
Drug barons are never in the middle of transactions. Their agents do. Drug barons allow their money and their agents to work for them. This is to eliminate any traces of suspicion towards them. Period.
I am not suggesting that I know who the real barons are. I am only sharing some knowledge that I have acquired on the drug operations in the last nine to 10 years from my coverage of the issues and also reading from books and information shared with me by knowledgeable people on the drug trade.
The accusations of police complexity in the cocaine scandal to some us is no news at all. There had been times that the Daily Graphic had carried reports of such officers messing themselves up in cocaine deals. As a I write this piece, two policemen who travelled to the United Kingdom on holidays last year are languishing in jail because of this cocaine business while a senior officer is also on interdiction because of his meddling in cocaine money (bribery case).
Operations of the Barons
For those who have read Rensselaer Lee’s book, “The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power”, what is going on in our dear land should not be surprising.
According to him, the most important component of cocaine organisations is a system of protection and intelligence. The Mafia pays the police/military not to raid laboratories, not to make arrests and to block investigations. It pays attorneys not to prosecute, judges not to convict and penal officials to release those traffickers who in spite of everything, do manage to land in jail.
The Mafia consequently need an intelligence network to supplement the protection network and to provide advance warning of planned anti-drug operations such as raids, customs searches and arrests. The network includes informants strategically placed in police organisations, the military and key government ministries such as Justice, Interior or Foreign Relations.
Lee makes the point that “sometimes cocaine traffickers occupy positions of trust and responsibility within the law enforcement bureaucracy”, citing Reynald R. Lopez of Peru, himself a drug trafficker but was an adviser to the Director of Peruvian Intelligence of Police (PIP).
According to Lee; “The police take bribes not to make arrests and seizures. When the police do make successful busts, the confiscated drugs are often resold on the illicit market”.
If these are the real challenges facing the fight against illicit drug trafficking, then Ghanaians must also show keen interest in who occupy our various top security positions. Thus, if for instance, any security officer was to be removed for his alleged complexity in the drug trade, how would the appointing authority know that the people being considered to replace the removed officers were themselves not deeply involved in any underworld operation and forestall the appointment of such an officer to the high position? Traffickers’ most major concern is the security of their business and themselves. Thus, they acquire state-of-the-art radio equipment, scramblers and coding devices and computerised navigation. With the help of corrupt security personnel, they ensure that their operations are protected and so are they themselves.
It is important that Ghanaians appreciate the enormity of the problem facing the country and rise up above partisan interests, since if concerted efforts were not made to rid the nation of the drug canker, then this country is finished!!
Indeed, cocaine traffickers earn friends and supporters within the society by spending money within the society. Lee notes that “in some cases, traffickers have acquired a kind of Robin Hood image by donating vast sums to local development projects by simply giving money and gifts to the poor”.
The Medellin Civico newspaper, founded by Hernan Gavira Berrio, an uncle of Escobar and partly funded by the baron himself, described Escobar as a “gospel of generosity, who was dedicated to redeeming the forgotten class of Antioquia”.
If one recollects the incident at the premises of the Circuit Court when Prince Tsibu Darko was sent there, in which some sympathisers attacked the media in particular, Lee was not wrong in stating that the Robin Hood image of the drug dealers represents an important part of the protection shield as it raises the political costs to governments of arresting these “outlaws”. The traffickers represent a “new illegitimate bourgeoisie”.
Engagement in private welfare activities such as housing projects, sewer repair, medical services, roads and schools are key areas that attract the attention of drug traffickers. For example, Pablo Escobar built between 450 and 500 two-bedroom cement-block houses at a slum in Medellin, Carlos Lehder organised and funded a major earthquake relief effort in the city of Popayan with another baron, Roberto, paving streets, restoring churches and offering scholarships to needy students.
Drug dealers work hard at image building, trying with some success, to pass themselves off as patriotic, progressive and public-spirited citizens. Their charitable and public works reach areas the government cannot reach, earning them popular following. Some dealers champion their image-building agenda by owning publications, radio stations or sponsor media activities. For instance, Carlos Lehder’s Quindio Libre and the Medellin Civico, was owned by the Escobar family.
Ghanaians would have to appreciate some of these challenges and rise up against such influences. In fact, it is to my journalists that I would plead that they remain truly professional and not allow anyone of the underworld to use us clandestinely. For what I know, the underworld operators try to befriend you either through remote contacts or through personal contacts and when they realise you have been won over, then they may begin to open up to you to show you their real businesses. If one does not take care, he or she would be impotent by the largesse of his ‘trusted’ friend and, therefore, would be unable to expose him. Indeed, those who try to be bold, the drug traffickers use largely blackmail to hit back at you. In that case, you are not only silenced but disgraced as well such that no matter what you put out, no right-thinking person would believe you. For those who doubt it, try and watch the film, “The Godfather”, and appreciate how the traffickers operate in the underworld and how journalists are not only won but are successfully put on the payroll of the barons.
When that happens, the journalists fail or refuse to see anything bad about the baron and when an expose is made of the baron, such journalists rise to the defence of the baron. Maybe, Ghana Television can devote some airtime to show “The Godfather” to serve as an eye-opener to all Ghanaians. Maybe then, Ghanaians would appreciate the call by the “Iron Lady”, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood, to resist any individuals or group of persons who through such illegal activities threaten the peace, security and the very existence of the nation.
The greatest obstacle to a successful crackdown on drugs, however, stem from political rather than economic concerns. Powerful constituencies have developed around the various phases of the cocaine traffic and these constituencies have amassed enough money and power to effect major changes in any political landscape. Indeed, drug dealers are known to be funding not only candidates for senatorial positions but political parties and presidential candidates just to compromise the leadership, no matter who won an election. Then they move to pay off politicians in office, law enforcement officials, judges and the military and the maintenance of an informant network in government agencies.
Recently, two people who were facing trial in a drug case were acquitted ad discharged under circumstances that could hardly be explained. Although officials of the Attorney-General’s office indicated they were going to appeal, they never did. It was reported that some journalists who were in court never reported on the acquittal and discharge of the suspects, who were charged for importation and possession of drugs.
Drug traffickers also seek to contribute to political campaigns, public relations and image building, sponsorship of candidates and political movements and running for political office.
It is important to note that traffickers also seek to acquire what in the business of the drug trafficking is dubbed critical services. These cover lawyers, accountants, bank employees, investment counsellors and the like. These are considered critical because they constitute the guiding and shielding guard for the success of their transactions.
Such has been the extraordinary power of the Mafia that Lee acknowledges that they have penetrated and corrupted every important national institution: Police forces, military establishments, legislatures, key government ministries, the judiciary, the churches and the news media. As Parejo said, “Here in Columbia, we see well-known traffickers walking around as if they owned the place.”
This is what Ghanaians must help the nation avoid. For, if we fail to resist the oppressors rule as Justice Wood said, then we should not blame anybody for our future woes.

NB: This article was first published in the Thursday, September 28, 2006, edition of the Daily Graphic in the wake of the cocaine scandals that rocked Ghana’s security services.