All the countries of the world are protagonists in the fight against drugs. For this reason, the Italian Government encourages the Columbian strategy of “shared responsibility”, according to which the war against narco-traffic, which is the vital lymph for organized crime in every corner of the globe and for international terrorism, can proceed to develop effectively, gaining concrete results, only if a systematic dialogue between drug producing and drug consuming countries, is kept alive: A strategy which aims to combat, simultaneously, the offer and the demand for drugs.
To educate the Europeans who buy drugs produced in his country, to open their eyes to the enormous global danger: this, for Francisco Santos, Vice-President of the Republic of Colombia – former director of the newspaper, ‘El Tiempo’, kidnapped in 1990 and remained, for many months, prisoner of Pablo Escobar, head of the cartel of narco-traffickers of Medellin – is a veritable crusade.
Santos made a recent visit to Italy to make agreements of cooperation, and asked the Italian Government that the European Union support the Colombian effort. Then, as soon as he returned to his own country, like many other politicians of the Uribe Administration, he became the target of the accusations of Salvator Mancuso, the political leader of the paramilitary movement Autodifese Unite of Colombia (AUC) the Colombian United self-defence, giving himself up to the authorities, several months ago, after a long negotiation which aimed at reaching the pacification of areas of the South American Country.
During a lengthy deposition to the Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Bogotá, Mancuso (considered responsible for numerous massacres and colossal drug trafficking), recounted that the Vice-President Francisco Santos had asked him, some time ago, to create a paramilitary groups also in Bagotá, to check the expansion of left wing guerrillas in that zone: a very serious accusation, in a period which, in the dramatic history of Colombia, appears even more delicate than others.
Whether is it a founded accusation or an attempt to raise the price of his collaboration and the underwritten peace agreement, the words of Mancuso create a serious problem for the Presidency of Colombia, which had put so much emphasis on the process of demobilization of the paramilitaries and on the Justice and Peace Law – words which strongly weaken the fight against narco-trafficking, which the Uribe Administration has put among the first points of the programme of its second mandate.
The Colombian Minister of Defence, also called into the picture by Mancuso, commented “If this is true what Mr. Mancuso intends to recount, the Country will be very disappointed”.
Vice-President Francisco Santos has obtained the support of the President of the Colombian Republic, Alvaro Uribe, who declared that he had “absolute faith in the moral structure of the Vice-President and of the members of his Government…”.
The future of Mancuso relies on the position of the Colombian Government, Fracisco Santos emphasized many times during the course of his interview with us, only a few days before the accusations of the paramilitary leader. The position of the Italo-Colombian, Salvatore Mancuso, finishing under investigation in the United States and in Italy, where proof has been found of his involvement in drug trafficking for the ‘ndrangheta (an Italian criminal organization) – for the investigations directed by the Asst. Public Prosecutor of Reggio Calabria, Nicola Gratteri – is a huge internal problem for Colombia … but also a problem of a diplomatic nature, a very delicate case on an international level. A request for extradition by the magistracy of the United States has been hanging over Salvatore Mancuso’s head for four years.
“Mancuso”, explains the Vice-President, “ is in prison and has dismantled his military apparatus, the AUC, a paramilitary organization which has caused an infinite number of disasters and bereavements, and yet he will serve at the most, eight years in prison and, also, the order of extradition towards Italy and towards the United States will be suspended: all this, if he really complies with the peace agreements, if he maintains the conditions of the treaty that was signed, that is, if he consigns all arms, if he tells not only what he has done, but also what persons, above all suspicion, have committed together with him and, then still, if he compensates all victims, …well! Then the result obtained will be such to render the interruption of the extradition procedures possible, which will always remain. Mancuso knows that, otherwise, he will be extradited, independent of what the Supreme Court of Justice can say.
I would also underline that the Salvatore Mancuso business shows very clearly how the narco-traffic tentacles are able to penetrate into the United States, Europe, generating corruption, even at a political level, and a chain of deaths. To negotiate, to discuss the surrender of people like Mancuso was a very difficult choice, carried ahead through a thousand difficulties, however, for now, it is going ahead…”.
The Colombian Vice-President has often launched hard accusations against famous personalities who give bad examples, like those who come from the world of politics and of the institutions: investigating magistrates who, in Colombia, come to agreements with narco-traffickers, with the paramilitaries and, in Italy, with the ‘ndragheta and the other mafia organizations…
“Anyone in power, who has an institutional role”, explains Francisco Santos, “has the duty to give a good example…, the examples must come from public functionaries, above all, those who have a role at high level … therefore, in my opinion, whoever possesses political and judicial power and plays a dirty game, should be pursued no more, no less than other citizens: on the contrary, perhaps more than the others … just because we are convinced of this, in Colombia, we are judging and punishing, in particular, the politicians who have had to do or made business or agreements with paramilitary formations, received financing and have been supported by the narco-traffic cartels”.

To the question on what could be done to combat these evil pacts, the Vice-President of Colombia replied bluntly:
“I believe that to fight this scourge, there exists only one method and it is the best; make them pay for their crimes with prison…”.
During the course of 2005, in Italy, 31,597 kilos of narcotics have been confiscated, an increase of 21.8% compared to 2004.
Information referred for the first six-month period of 2006, compared with the analogous previous period, report an increase of 35,2%. Then, in 2006, the largest quantity of cocaine in 25 years was confiscated. To note a fact: in 2005, 16% of the 20 thousand operations conducted in Italy against drug trafficking was made in Naples and Neapolitan areas.
Specialists report disturbing facts: the number of young consumers is in continual increase; 7 Italians out of 100, between the ages of 14 and 54, admit to have used cocaine at least one or more times during their lives. But one of the most disquieting elements concerns the perception of this phenomenon. The addiction to cocaine is, even today, “undervalued”. A message is still disseminated that seems to attribute a minor danger to cocaine and the institutions in many countries even tend to neglect the problem or, however, to give it only intermittent attention.
And in the meantime, cocaine spreads. One year ago, more than 142 kilos of this drug were confiscated in the southern province of Guangdong, which meant the arrival of the Colombian narco-traffickers also on the Chinese market. This occasion saw the arrest of 9 people: 2 at Hong Kong and 7 at Shenzhen, Chinese Republic, by the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration in South America.
So, cocaine has appeared in China (mostly in parties of the Chinese nouveau riche) together with the “traditional” drugs for that market, derived from opium and synthetics.
Francisco Santos goes as far as to state that celebrities like Kate Moss, who use cocaine, contributes to feed the civil war in Colombia… They do not realize that that cocaine is stained with blood….or if they do know, they pretend they don’t.
“In my opinion, it is enormously important to educate the Europeans”, says the Colombian Vice-President. “Europe is experiencing an epidemic of cocaine consumption and it is immensely serious that cocaine is seen like champagne and not like a dreadful evil, as, for example, heroine, the synthetic drugs …I also had the opportunity to speak to the Head of the French Anti-Drug and he confirmed that cocaine has penetrated the European society to such an incredible extent … and for this, it is necessary to tell the present and future consumers, above all, the young and very young, that this drug is blood-stained, that cocaine finances terrorism in Colombia, the use of anti-man mines in my Country and, finances the environmental disaster which, together with Colombia, plagues the entire South America.
Colombia has lost more than 2 million hectares of humid tropical forest in the Amazon areas … this de-forestation has served to multiply the coca plantations … and, I must note, that I have never, ever heard, even the hardest among the environmentalists, speak of what has happened, to cite this devastation as a disaster strictly connected with the scourge of drugs”.
To have halved the number of hectares of land utilized for the cultivation of coca is considered by the Colombian Government a decisive success in the fight against narco-traffic in the Country: a result achieved by enormous efforts and real ‘campaigns’, such as the natural park of the Macarena: 4,600 cultivated hectares, a 5th with respect to the 20,000 total hectares of the reserve which is located in the district of Meta in South-East Colombia. To protect the wealth of the park, the plantations were destroyed slowly and with great fatigue, cut down by the blows of machetes, by long rows of peasants, one thousand in all, paid around 25,000 pesos per day (a little over 9 euro).
The fumigation method was not used, the spraying of the plantations with weed-killer from small aeroplanes, escorted by a formation of helicopters: a technique used in other zones of the Country, but which raised protests for the serious environmental impact.
The Macarena operation was achieved, but not without tension and clashes, with a contingent of 1,500 police placed in tactically chosen positions to guarantee the security of the operation (the guerrillas reached the point of ordering the workers to evacuate the zone, or otherwise, suffer the treatment of ‘traitors of the Army’, in an area where the presence of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is very strong, which the Government accuses of ‘narco-terrorism’, and also the paramilitaries of the AUC. Besides, President Uribe had decided, counting also on the fact that in one year the technique of manual uprooting had allowed the successful destruction of 32,000 hectares of coca leaves, exactly after the FARC had killed 29 military employed in a previous operation of destruction of plantations in a zone near the park.
For Francisco Santos, operations like the ‘Macarena’, the destruction of the plantation, up to the present, are an important success, but not sufficient.
“What these traffickers have done”, he explains, “Is that in the half of this land, they have been able to double production with plants that can give four or five harvests a year, increasing also, the number of plants per hectare. At the moment, 80 thousand hectares of land cultivated with coca remain … on this land the action to reduce the cultivation will be more incisive and, above all, effective. The Colombian Government”, explains Santos,” are obtaining results not only on this front. It has obtained great successes in many aspects of the fight against crime, recording a drastic reduction of crimes such as kidnapping and homicide and is overcoming the delay of the last 15 years, when the mafia was on the point of defeating the State”.
The number of confiscations of drugs confirms the tendency to the increase in the demand of cocaine.
The drugs arrives in the containers from Spain, Holland and Portugal and, via air, in luggage and sealed packages and continues to be produced entirely in South America, but recently, the Home Secretary of our Country, Giuliano Amato, has called attention to the role of Africa. The Colombian Vice-President strongly emphasizes this point: the gravitational centre of the business and the production of the narco-traffickers are moving towards Africa.
Francisco Santos maintains that there is a radical change in the routes and strategies of the narco-traffickers in course.
“It is impossible not to see the enormous quantities of cocaine which are continually confiscated, above all, in the area west of Africa”, explains Santos, “and the clear direction which the narco-traffic routes have assumed: from Colombia towards Venezuela, towards Brazil and, then, towards Africa and, therefore, from there to Europe, where a kilo of coca costs 50 thousand dollars as against the 30 thousand dollars of the United States.
Very frequently, two or three tons of cocaine are intercepted in countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Benin and Togo. The Colombian narco-traffickers have set up real centres of distributions in these countries…but the most disturbing fact, in my opinion” continues the Colombian Vice-President, “is that countries of equatorial Africa in which exist great institutional weaknesses in matters of justice and of security in organizations of the Police forces, have an identical climate to that of Colombia. The narco-traffickers are realizing that Colombia has become a country in which, for them, it is difficult to do business. Therefore, I am sure that we shall start to see coca production in Africa. A choice tied to the need of not having the continual difficulty that they are having in our Country, and also of lowering the costs, all things for which Africa is the ideal place”.
With regard to the necessary initiatives to trace and launder the immense quantity of money which is cashed by the narco-traffickers, to block the incredible investment opportunities offered by the globalized economy, Francisco Santos calls for assistance and cooperation from the international financial bodies….
“I believe”, he says, “that this is the front: the great task in which must be employed great effort and resources. In the first place, we need the cooperation of the World Bank …it is necessary to make agreements on the fiscal paradises, the places where the recycling of the dirty money from drug trafficking is managed, free-trade areas … this, however, is not up to the producer countries to do”.
There is little recent information to understand completely what we are speaking about and, above all, tied to what is, also on this side, a significant case: the Italo-Colombian, Salvatore Mancuso. The paramilitary leader consigned to the Attorney General’s office of the Republic in Bogotá, goods in an amount superior to 11,000 million pesos, equal to 4 million euro. But the total amount of Mancuso’s wealth is far, far superior to this figure.
It was defined as ‘a first indemnity for the damage suffered by thousands of peasant workers’.
Mancuso clearly admitted having done business with Italian entrepreneur, Giorgio Sale, accused of narco-trafficking – first by the magistracy of Reggio Calabria and then from Rome (which received the dossier from the Attorney General’s office in Calabria) – was arrested with his sons, last December, in the ambit of the Italian and Colombian police operation called ‘Tiburon Galloway’. Sale, with his sons, Christian and Stefano, also both arrested, managed a network of 53 shops of clothing brand-named ‘Gino Pascalli’, and another series of shops (Made in Italy) with Italian products at very low cost.
The Colombian magistracy suspects him of having participated, with Mancuso, in the exportation of more than 8 tons of cocaine.
In a seven-page letter to the Attorney General, Mario Iguaran, Mancuso described the consigned properties, put in the name of his front man, now in prison. Among other things, there are a good six farm holdings with the picturesque names of (El Bongo, El Carare, Villa Amalia, El Chimborazo, San Josè and Las Palmas) with 2,800 hectares of land in the district of Bolivar. Among other goods consigned appears a famous Colombian restaurant (L’Enoteca Atlantico) and a society of multiple activities, from investment companies, money lending to the selling of books.

According to the Vice-President; in Colombia, the confiscation of goods and properties coming from the proceeds of illicit activities, has had much success even though he admits that there are serious difficulties regarding the re-utilization of same, and they are the same difficulties that we meet in Italy, where, often the properties remain totally abandoned or, worse still, if and when they are utilized, they are targeted by the criminal organizations which have had to cede them: the ‘ndrangheta and the mafia revenge themselves and destroy everything…“Yes”, admits Vice-President Santos, “Unfortunately, exactly the same thing happens in Colombia. However, now, in Colombia, there exists a regulation which allows the sale of goods and properties confiscated from the narco-traffickers of the cartels. The State does not directly administer goods taken away from the mafia. Today, a war is underway against the narco-traffickers, where no quarter is given. To fight them, we are inspired by Judge Giovanni Falcone. We are confiscating their wealth, their buildings, and their villas. With the money of the mafia, we are constructing prisons to put behind bars just those people…the mafia…”.
To combat the businesses of the ‘ndrangheta and of the Colombian narco-traffickers, Italy and Colombia, according to Santos, “must travel together an obligatory road”. For this, he explains, he has come to Italy, and adds that he will solicit continual exchanges of experience. An indispensable job, if it is true what investigations demonstrate: how tentacle-like and inextricable is the network of interests and relations which gravitate around the narco-traffic. Inquiries have shown that the Colombian cocaine was sold to the Basque Eta which, in turn passed it to the Neapolitan camorra, which paid with arms and explosives procured from the Balkan countries.
The unsuspected ties between narco-traffic and international terrorism are substantiated by the case just cited and it is not the only case. There is, for example, the case of the Moroccan narco-trafficker, arrested and released for insufficient proof, in Italy: that narco-trafficker was involved in the investigations into the Madrid massacre of the 11th March, 2004.
“Italy”, states Francisco Santos, “after England and Spain, is the European Country where the most cocaine is consumed: therefore, the Italian consumers must understand that every time they buy drugs, they are killing a Colombian baby and are financing terrorism .. And then..the alliance between the ‘ndrangheta and Colombian cocaine traffickers must not surprise and, if it is true that the collaboration, the agreements between mafia groups are agile and undivided, then also the collaboration between States, between the Forces of law and order and the judicial bodies of the States must be likewise, or rather, even more … we are obliged to work together, developing common enterprises and always more incisive in the activities of prohibition, instruments to facilitate the extradition of criminals…”.