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Assessment of the Security Implications of Environmental Crime in Africa

Zachary Lubelfeld is pursuing a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Arts in International Relations at Syracuse University.  He is currently in Maputo, Mozambique on a Boren Fellowship studying Portuguese and the extractive sector in Mozambique.  All opinions in this article are those of the author and do not represent the official positions of Syracuse University or the National Security Education Program.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessment of the Security Implications of Environmental Crime in Africa

Date Originally Written:  January 22, 2018.

Date Originally Published:  April 30, 2018.

Summary:  Environmental crime is a growing component of transnational crime, as well as an increasingly lucrative one. Organized crime, militia groups, and terrorist organizations all profit off the illicit sale of everything from minerals to animals. This criminal activity poses a significant threat, not just to the communities in which it occurs or where these entities commit violence, but to the health and safety of people around the world.

Text:  As globalization continues apace, and the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the benefits, like greater access to goods and information, are matched by the costs, such as the increased space for transnational criminal activity. One of the least discussed aspects of this is environmental crime. Global environmental crime is a burgeoning market, worth an estimated $213 billion annually[1]. This environmental crime includes a wide range of illicit activities, such as illegal logging in rainforests, illegal mining of mineral resources, and poaching elephants and rhinoceroses for their ivory.  The lack of focus on environmental crime allows criminal organizations to wreak havoc with relative impunity, and nowhere is this truer than in Africa. The pernicious effects of wildlife exploitation are felt across all of Africa, the security implications of which are myriad. Regional stability, armed conflict and terrorism, and global health are all impacted by wildlife exploitation in Africa, with potentially dangerous results not just for Africans, but for people worldwide.

Environmental crime is an important driver of violence and conflict across Africa, as it provides integral revenue streams for many violent militia groups and terrorist organizations. Perhaps the most well-known example of this are conflict minerals, which refers to minerals that are sold to fund violence. Diamonds have long been a driver of conflict in Africa, a recent example of which is the ongoing civil war in the Central African Republic[2]. Violent militia groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) profit from the sales of minerals like cassiterite, a tin ore worth about $500/kg that is used in products such as phones, laptops, and cars[3]. The value of the illicit mineral trade in East, Central, and West Africa is valued at $2.4 billion to $9 billion per year, which rivals the value of the global heroin and cocaine markets combined[4].

Another key component of environmental crime is poaching, both for bush meat and for ivory. Armed militia groups as well as military units in Africa rely on poaching for food – for example, one adult elephant can feed an average army regiment. Ivory is the more lucrative reason for poaching, however. Elephant tusks sell for an estimated $680/kg[5], while rhinoceros horn is worth upwards of $65,000/kg. Ivory can be sold, or traded for supplies and weapons, and is a major funding source across Africa, from the Lord’s Resistance Army in eastern Africa to transnational criminal networks operating in Mozambique; there is even evidence that the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab profits from ivory smuggling. The illicit sale of ivory is also an important revenue source for armed militias in the DRC[6] and groups like the Janjaweed, the notorious Sudanese militias responsible for the genocide in Darfur[7].

Lesser known examples of environmental crime are essential to funding the operations of terrorist organizations across Africa, such as illegal logging. One of the primary uses of illegal logging is the production and taxation of charcoal, which is a fuel source for Africans who don’t have access to electricity. Al-Shabab had earned an estimated $56 billion from illicit charcoal by 2014, making it the primary source of funding for their operations.  Additionally, there are reports that the Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram derives funding from the trade[8]. Furthermore, profits from the illegal timber trade are used to facilitate arms smuggling in Africa, arming terrorists, as well as rebel groups such as in Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire[9].

As concerning as it is that terrorist organizations and militia groups derive significant benefit from environmental crime, a potentially even greater danger is the consequences it could have on global health. A variety of animals are trafficked internationally, from rare birds and reptiles to gorillas, as well animal parts like pelts and tusks. This contact between animals and humans increases the risk of transmission of dangerous zoonotic diseases. Zoonotic diseases are transmitted from animals to humans. One example is the Ebola virus, which is thought to come from bats and primates, the latter of which may have spread the disease while being trafficked through cities is western Africa[10].

Increased transport of wildlife internationally increased the chances of the spread of dangerous pathogens, especially in the case of illicit trafficking. Pathogens that may otherwise have been contained in one location are sent around the world, increasing the risk of pandemic. While customs procedures designed to screen for these pathogens exist, wildlife traffickers bypass these to avoid detection, so infected animals are not discovered and put in quarantine. Therefore, wildlife trafficking could lead to the international transmission of a disease like Ebola, anthrax, or Yersinia pestis, otherwise known as the bubonic plague.

It is clear that environmental crime is as lucrative for criminals as it is dangerous to everyone else, and therefore shows no signs of slowing down. Given the potential harm that it could cause, by funding groups who seek to bring violence and chaos wherever they go, as well as by increasing the probability of devastating pandemic, environmental crime will certainly continue if it is not addressed by law enforcement and policy makers.

Endnotes:

[1] Vira, V., Ewing, T., & Miller, J. (2014, August). Out of Africa: Mapping the Global Trade in Illicit Elephant Ivory. Retrieved October 18, 2017, from C4ADS: https://c4ads.org/reports/

[2] A Game of Stones: smuggling diamonds in the Central African Republic. (2017, June 22). Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/central-african-republic-car/game-of-stones/#chapter-1/section-3

[3] Morrison, S. (2015, May 16). ‘Conflict minerals’ funding deadly violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo as EU plans laws to clean up trade. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/conflict-minerals-bringing-death-to-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-as-eu-plans-laws-to-clean-up-10255483.html

[4] Environmental Crime. (n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://www.stimson.org/enviro-crime/

[5] Chen, A. (2016, November 07). Poaching is on the rise – most illegal ivory comes from recently killed elephants. Retrieved January 20, 2018, from https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/7/13527858/illegal-ivory-elephant-radiocarbon-dating-poaching-stockpile

[6] Toeka Kakala, Taylor. “Soldiers Trade in Illegal Ivory” InterPress Service News Agency. 25 July 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/07/soldiers-trade-in-illegal-ivory

[7] Christina M. Russo, “What Happened to the Elephants of Bouba Ndjida?” MongaBay, March 7, 2013. Available at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0307-russo-elephants-bouba-njida.html

[8] Ibid.

[9] ILLEGAL LOGGING & THE EU: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EU EXPORT & IMPORT MARKET OF ILLEGAL WOOD AND RELATED PRODUCTS(Rep.). (2008, April). Retrieved January 17, 2018, from World Wildlife Foundation website: http://assets.wnf.nl/downloads/eu_illegal_logging_april_2008.pdf

[10] Bouley, T. (2014, October 06). Trafficking wildlife and transmitting disease: Bold threats in an era of Ebola. Retrieved January 15, 2018, from http://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/trafficking-wildlife-and-transmitting-disease-bold-threats-era-ebola

Africa Assessment Papers Criminal Activities Environmental Factors Illicit Trafficking Activities Zachary Lubelfeld
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The Impact of Extremists in Civil War: Syria’s Shabbiha

Estelle J. Townshend-Denton is a post-graduate student at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.  She is currently working on a Phd on religion and foreign policy.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  The Impact of Extremists in Civil War: Syria’s Shabbiha

Date Originally Written:  December 9, 2017.

Date Originally Published:  February 12, 2018.

Summary:  Violent extremists frequently emerge when state authority breaks down within civil wars.  Escalatory dynamics are particularly hard to avoid when extremist groups emerge that are embedded in the existing social framework of their identity group.  In Syria the Shabbiha has grown from a trans-border criminal network to sectarian militias fighting for the regime.  The Shabbiha are a significant impediment to the resolution of the Syrian civil war.

Text:  Extremist groups in Syria such as the Shabbiha often emerge from existing social phenomenon.  For instance, prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the Shabbiha were Allawite smugglers and racketeers that primarily operated out of the Allawite heartland in coastal Latakia.  Given the poverty of the Allawite community opportunities were scarce, and Allawite young men saw a way to purchase highly sought after, but banned, Western items in Lebanon, and smuggle them back across the border into Syria.  This smuggling was largely overlooked by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in return for Shabihha loyalty to the Assads[1].

In order to understand the Shabbiha, their place in Syrian society, and their role within the civil war, it is necessary to look into the history of the Allawite sect to which they belong.  The Allawites are a Shia sect whose religion incorporates aspects of Islam, Christianity, Paganism and Zoroastrianism.  The Allawites have been persecuted and marginalised throughout their history.  A Syrian analyst concluded that this persecution has become built into the Allawite identity.  As a result Allawites are highly security conscious[2].

The embattled Assad regime is primarily, but not exclusively, Allawite.  The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War 1 provided an opportunity for the Allawites to climb out of their position at the bottom most rung of Syrian society to control the state and it’s military.  The Ottoman territory had been divided up between the French and the British.  The French received the mandate for the territory that was to become the state of Syria.  The ruling elite in Syria had been Sunni and they were resistant to French rule.  In order to subdue the Sunni resistors, the French employed a strategy of divide and rule.  Thus the French created a military that consisted of minorities, including the Allawites[3].  Soon, joining the military emerged as the key means for Allawites to climb up the social and economic ladder, and over time they came to dominate the officer class.  Eventually the military emerged as what Horowitz identifies as a “significant symbol of ethnic domination[4].”  Later, Druze and Allawite military leaders staged a coup which ultimately led to the Allawite dominated Assad regime.

Syria was relatively stable under the Assads until the “Arab Spring” of 2011, when the protests sweeping the region spread to Syria.  The regimes of Tunisia and Egypt had already toppled, and most of the world predicted that the Syrian regime would be next.  However, unlike the Tunisian officer class which contributed to the toppling of the Tunisian Government, the Syrian military leadership was heavily invested in the Assad regime.  Furthermore the Assad regime took a lesson from the Egyptian experience and dealt decisively with the protests.  As such, the Assads used the military against the protesters, working to turn the peaceful protests into an armed rebellion.  The regime then developed a narrative that denied the unrest was part of the “Arab Spring” but alternatively asserted it was spawned by external actors and led by Islamist extremists.

Soon the Assad regime faced another problem.  Whilst the Syrian army’s officer class was mostly Allawite, the rank and file was predominantly Sunni.  Sunni were more reluctant to fire on what was emerging as a largely Sunni protest movement.  The regime had Allawite crack units, but they needed to expand the loyal Allawite base of their military capacity through encouraging Allawite civilian participation in the fighting.  One of the ways the Assad regime did this was through the Shabbiha, whose networks were developed and expanded into civilian militias who fought for the Assad regime[5].  Since then, the links between the Assads and the Shabbiha have become increasingly apparent.  The European Union imposed sanctions in 2011 on two of Bashar al Assad’s cousins, Fawwar and Munzir, for their involvement in the “repression against the civilian population as members of the Shabbiha[6].”  According to a relation of the President’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, the expansion of the Shabbiha from a regime linked Allawite criminal network into an extremist paramilitary force loyal to the regime, doing the regime’s dirty work within the civil war, was planned by Makhlouf and the President’s brother Maher al Assad[1].  The presence or absence of gangs of violent fanatics such as the  Shabbiha is described by Ethnic Conflict and International Relations theorist Barry Posen as “a key determinant of the ability of groups to avoid war as central political authority erodes[7].”  Thus the Shabbiha were a significant escalatory dynamic within the Syrian civil war.

Rhetoric from the Shabbiha accessed via the internet is sectarian, brutal, and very loyal to Bashar al Assad with mottos like “Bashar, don’t to be sad: you have men who drink blood[8].”  With a corresponding brutality and sectarianism emerging amongst Sunni Islamist fanatics within the rebellion, the violence and rhetoric of extremists on both sides escalated the civil war.  This brutality and sectarianism worked to strengthen the regime’s legitimacy as protectors of Syria’s minority religious groups against repression from the Sunni majority.  The regime’s reliance on extremist sectarian militias such as the Shabbiha to support the security forces was not only responding to sectarian tension within the unrest but also heightening it[9].

Posen identified that extremists on both sides escalate retaliatory violence and drive up insecurity.  He stated that fanatics “produce disproportionate political results among the opposing group – magnifying initial fears by confirming them….the rapid emergence of organized bands of particularly violent individuals is a sure sign of trouble[7].”  The initial fears resulting from the historical persecution of Allawites under Sunni elites, coupled with fears of revenge on the sect as a whole for the violence of both the Shabbiha and the regime within the civil war, has mobilised the sect in defense of the Assad regime.  What began as a grass-roots protest movement for the removal of the autocratic regime has escalated into a sectarian driven civil war intensified by the violent acts of both the Shabbiha and the Sunni Islamist extremists, to the advantage of the Assads.

Endnotes:

[1] Amor, Salwa and Sherlock, Ruth. How Bashar al-Assad created the feared shabiha militia: an insider speaks. The Telegraph. [Online] March 23, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10716289/How-Bashar-al-Assad-created-the-feared-shabiha-militia-an-insider-speaks.html

[2] Worren, Torstein Schiotz. Fear and Resistance: The Construction of Allawite Identity in Syria. Oslo : University of Oslo, 2007.

[3] Whitman, Elizabeth. The Awakening of the Syrian Army: General Husni al-Za’am’s Coup and Rein, 1949: Origins of the Syrain Army’s Enduring Roel in Syrian Politics. Columbia University. [Online] April 4, 2011.

[4] Horowitz, D.L. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. London : University of California Press, 1985.

[5] Salih, Y. The Syrian Shabbiha and their State. Heinrich Boll Stiftung. [Online] December 21, 2012. http://www.lb.boell.org/web/52-801.html

[6] Flamand, H.M. Syria: Brutally Violent Militaia Member tell it like it is. Global Post. [Online] June 15, 2012. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/120614/syria-shabbiha-thug-assad-mafia-guns-smuggling-violence-houla

[7] The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict. Posen, Barry R. 1993, Survival, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 27-47.

[8] Sherlock, H. A. The Shabiha: Inside Assad’s Death Squads. The Telegraph. [Online] June 2, 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9307411/The-Shabiha-Inside-Assads-death-squads.html

[9] Abdulhamid, A. The Shredded Tapestry. Syrian Revolution Digest. [Online] November 9, 2012. https://ammar.world/2012/09/11/the-shredded-tapestry-the-state-of-syria-today/

Assessment Papers Estelle J. Townshend-Denton Illicit Trafficking Activities Syria Violent Extremism
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Assessment of North Korea’s Illicit Trafficking Activities

Paul Rexton Kan is professor of National Security Studies and former Henry L. Stimson Chair of Military Studies at the U.S. Army War College.  His most recent book is “Drug Trafficking and International Security” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).  In February 2011, he served as the Senior Visiting Counternarcotics Adviser at NATO Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan.  He can be found on Twitter at @DPRKan.  Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

Title:  Assessment of North Korea’s Illicit Trafficking Activities

Date Originally Written:  October 12, 2017.

Date Originally Published:  October 30, 2017.

Summary:  As the United Nations and member states have increased the number and variety of sanctions on North Korea for its missile launches and nuclear tests, the regime of Kim Jong Un will likely increase its reliance on illicit international activities to earn hard currency.  The international community must be prepared to respond in kind.

Text:  In an effort to pressure the regime of Kim Jong Un to end its ballistic and nuclear programs, the international community is pursuing a wide-range of sanctions against North Korea.  The newest round of United Nations (UN) sanctions contained in Security Council Resolutions 2371 and 2375 passed in August and September of this year are aimed at the heart of North Korea’s ability to trade with the larger world and earn hard currency for its economy.  In keeping with the UN sanctions, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has reduced its oil trade with North Korea and has ordered all North Korean businesses operating in the PRC to close by the spring of 2018.  Meanwhile, in addition to the UN sanctions, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September that allows the U.S. Department of Treasury to sanction specific individuals and entities that engage in assisting North Korean textiles, fishing, information technology and manufacturing industries.

All of the recent sanctions seek to inflict sufficient economic pain on the Kim regime so that it will relent in its pursuit of improved missile and nuclear capabilities.  However, past economic sanctions have proven to be largely ineffective in changing North Korean behavior due to the regime’s ability to rely on illicit trade to finance itself.

The Kim dynasty has a long-running history of undertaking illicit trafficking activities to earn hard currency for the regime.  In fact, the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, created an entire government bureaucracy dedicated to pursuing criminal schemes for illicit profit.  Central Committee Bureau 39 of the Korean Workers’ Party was established in 1974 to reduce the country’s dependence on massive Soviet subsidies [1]. Also known as Office #39, this shadowy bureaucracy has proven essential for the North Korean government’s ability to weather economic hardships.  Office #39 has allowed North Korea to survive exceptionally perilous moments of potential state instability such as the collapse of its Soviet benefactor in 1991, the famines in the early 2000s and the dozens of international sanctions programs all the while giving the regime enough economic vitality to pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic programs.

The activities of Office #39 include narcotics manufacturing and distribution, currency and cigarette counterfeiting, arms trafficking, automobile smuggling and money laundering.  These illicit activities have earned billions of dollars for the Kim regime [2]. North Korean government personnel from the military and diplomatic corps carry out these criminal schemes abroad while using dummy companies to deposit launder proceeds through banks in China, Italy, Russia, and Africa[3].  Demonstrating the wide-ranging criminal network of Office #39, they have reportedly made arrangements with the Russian mafia to help the Kim regime launder its funds through the Russian embassy in Pyongyang [4]

Office #39 is also referred to as “Kim’s Cashbox”[5] and has been used to pay for the inducements that keep the North Korean elites mollified with the hereditary communist regime.  Consistent with any totalitarian dictatorship is the ability to control the economy, especially for national leaders who rule by force.  Central to the Kim dynasty’s ability to control its totalitarian regime is a “court economy,” akin to that practiced by an absolute monarch.  To prevent coups over the three generations of Kims, Office #39 has provided the funds to reward the regime’s military, government and party elites; as well as the regime’s security agents.  Such a court economy, resting on the illegal operations of Office #39, thereby promotes internal regime stability.

In addition to undergirding internal regime stability, Office #39 acts to promote North Korea’s external security by financing the weapons’ programs of the regime.  This nexus between illicit finances and sophisticated weapons programs appears to have become tighter under the leadership of Kim Jong Un.  In September 2016, the North Korean military’s organization for owning and running overseas companies, Office #38, was merged with Office #39, now operating only as Office Number 39 [6]. An expert on North Korea believes this merger indicates a growing desire to create a more efficient illicit funding stream to achieve two goals: 1) accelerate the regime’s ballistic missile and nuclear considerable advances; 2) feed even more money into Kim’s court economy as a way to strengthen his possible shaky grasp on leadership [7].

If the United States along with other members of the international community seek to bring maximum economic pressure against North Korea, it will also have to tackle the illicit overseas activities of Office #39.  The U.S. and others have previously coordinated their responses to North Korea’s criminal operations with some success [8].  The Proliferation Security Initiative initiated by the George W. Bush Administration demonstrated that regional cooperation can work to put pressure on Pyongyang’s arms trafficking.  Better coordination of these pressuring activities, through the use of fusion centers and ensuring the inclusion of law enforcement organizations, could enhance their impact.

The time appears right to tackle North Korea’s illicit activities.  North Korea’s recent provocative actions have increased the level of alarm among key regional players, providing a greater impetus for cooperation.  In addition, several North Korean officials posted overseas and who colluded with Office #39 have defected in recent months, taking with them not only vast sums of money, but information about the regime’s illicit financial activities [9] that regional players could use to stymie the regime.  North Korea is not a nation-state that is simply misbehaving. North Korea engages in criminality not as a matter of choice, but of necessity.  Finding new ways combat its illicit international activities will be challenging, but policy-makers must adapt their approaches to bring maximum pressure upon an increasingly bellicose regime.

Endnotes:

[1] Eberstadt, N. (2004).  The persistence of North Korea. Policy Review, Retrieved October 13, 2017, from https://www.hoover.org/research/persistence-north-korea

[2] Kan, P. R., Bechtol, B. E., Jr., & Collins, R. M. (2010). Criminal Sovereignty: Understanding North Korea’s Illicit International Activities. Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College.

[3] A. G. (2013, September 16). Q&A: High Level Defector on North Korean Trade. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 6, 2017, from http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/09/16/qa-high-level-defector-on-north-korean-trade/

[4] Kim Jong Un’s Secret Billions. (2013, March 12). Chosun Ilbo. Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/03/12/2013031201144.html

[5] Kim, K. (2007). The Dollarization of the North Korean Economcy. Tongit Yongu (Unification Research), 11(9), 11-34. (In Korean)

[6] N. Korea Combines 2 Units Managing Leader’s Coffers in One: Seoul. (2016, September 29). Yonhap . Retrieved October 3, 2017, from http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/09/485_215017.html

[7] Author interview with Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr. on 4 October 2017.

[8] Asher, D. L. (2011). Pressuring Kim Jong-Il: The North Korean Illicit Activities Initiative, 2001-2006 (pp. 25-52, Publication). Washington, DC: Center for New American Security.

[9] Yi, W. (2016, August 21). N. Korea’s Leader Secret Funds Coming to Light. Korea Times. Retrieved October 2, 2017, from http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/08/485_212381.html

Assessment Papers Illicit Trafficking Activities North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) Paul Rexton Kan