Drugs & Democracy Team

Drugs and Democracy

December 2005

Introducing the Drugs and Democracy team.

Martin Jelsma (Netherlands) is a TNI-fellow and the Drugs & Democracy programme coordinator. He is a political scientist specialised in Latin America and international drugs policy. In 1995 he initiated and has since co-oordinated TNI's Drugs & Democracy Programme.

Tom Blickman (Netherlands) is a researcher and journalist specialised in organised crime issues. For several years he has been involved in the TNI Drugs programme and initiated TNI's Crime and Globalisation project. He coordinated the research projects on the Dutch ecstasy market and on "The Economic Impact of the Illicit Drug Industry".

Pien Metaal (Netherlands) is a Dutch political scientist who lived and worked for many years in Bolivia and El Salvador, from where she already collaborated with the TNI drugs programme. Currently based in Amsterdam, she is responsible for programme activities on Bolivia and Peru, and on coca-related research and publications.

Amira Armenta (Colombia/Netherlands) is an historian with a degree in Latin American history from the Université de Jussieu (Paris). She has been working as an assistant of the Drugs & Democracy project since 2000, and is currently in charge of the Colombia section of the web page. She regularly drafts, edits and translates texts for the Spanish edition of the Drugs & Conflict and the Drug Policy Briefing series.

Tom Kramer (Netherlands)

Publications for Drugs and Democracy

Losing Ground. Drug Control and War in Afghanistan (with Martin Jelsma and Christian Rivier), Drugs and Conflict Debate papers No. 15, December 2006
HIV/AIDS and drug use in Burma/Myanmar, TNI Drug Policy Briefing 17, May 2006
A Downward Spiral. Proposed opium bans could spark a humanitarian crisis in Burma’s drug-rich north Irrawaddy, Vol. 13, No. 10, October 2005
Kicking the Habit: Drug use and harm reduction policies in Burma; Irrawaddy, Vol. 13, No. 10, October 2005
Ethnic Conflict and Dilemmas for International Engagement in Trouble in the Triangle: Opium and Conflict in Burma, Silkworm Books, July 2005 (edited by Martin Jelsma, Tom Kramer, Pietje Vervest)
Drugs and Conflict in Burma (Myanmar): Dilemmas for Policy Responses (with Pietje Vervest and Martin Jelsma), TNI Drugs & Conflict Debate Paper 9, December 2003

Ernestien Jensema (Netherlands) is a Dutch social anthropologist working on international drug policy since 2001

Ricardo Vargas Meza (Colombia) is an Associate Fellow of TNI. He is a sociologist with a Ph.D. in Social Philosophy (Filosofía Social) at the Universidad Nacional. He is the coordinator of Acción Andina Colombia. Previously, he was a researcher at the Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CINEP) in Bogotá, where he coordinated the project Drugs and Violence. He is a specialist in the area of illicit cultivation in Colombia. Co-author and editor of Drogas, poder y región en Colombia (two volumes), and co-author of Extradicción: ¿nudo gordiano o corredizo?. He frequently writes for several publications in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. He is the director of the Revista Acción Andina magazine.

Ricardo Soberón Garrido is a Peruvian lawyer, who graduated at the Law Faculty of the University of Lima, and is a member of the Lima Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados). He worked as a researcher for the Andean Commission of Jurists (Comisión Andina de Juristas), as a parliamentarian consultant (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2006), as a consultant for coca producers with the Andean Counsel of Coca Leaf Producers (Consejo Andino de Productores de Hoja de Coca) and for PNUD, CEPAL and other international organizations. He is an analyst of the phenomena of drug trafficking and counter-narcotics policies in the Andean region. He writes for the Revista de la Academia Diplomática del Perú and other specialized magazines (Nueva Sociedad, Ciencias, Narcomafie).

Publications for Drugs & Democracy

Convulsión y diálogo en el Alto Huallaga, in Boletín Internacional Acción Andina, Vol 9 No. 3, November 2000
Valle de Monzón: Confluencias entre drogas, política, erradicación, desarrollo, fumigación y subversión, in Boletín Internacional Acción Andina, Vol 9 No. 2, June 2000
Sueños e ilusiones de un Mecanismo de Evaluación Multilateral, in No. 91, March, 2000
Hacia un modelo de seguridad en areas de cultivos ilícitos - La experiencia peruana (1985-1998), in Boletín Internacional Acción Andina No. 82, July 1999
Perú y su lucha antidrogas: entre una realidad virtual y atrapados sin salida, Boletín Internacional Acción Andina No. 73, November 1998
Perú: nuevo autoritarismo in Democracias bajo fuego May 1998
Corruption, drug trafficking and the armed forces - An approximation for Latin America in Crime in Uniform, December 1997
Siembra vientos..., in Revista Acción Andina No. 1, June 1997
The Armed Forces and the drug war: between garrisons, caletas and borders in Democracy, Human Rights and Militarism in the War on Drugs in Latin America, April 1997

Adriana Rossi earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and is an Italian citizen living in Argentina. She is a professor and researcher in Political Science and International Relations at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR) in Argentina. She coordinates the Centro del Sur, the Center for Study and Research on Drugs and Drugs Trafficking of the UNR. She conducted research in several Latin American countries and monitors development projects in coca-growing regions. She has been the director of several Latin American institutes and represented various European ones. She has written for magazines on political analysis, and published several essays.

Publications for TNI and Drugs & Democracy

Mercosur: entre doctrinas, mercado y seguridad, TNI briefing series 2006/3, September 2006
Argentina en la Ruta del Lavado de Dinero, in Boletín Internacional Acción Andina, Vol. 10 No. 1, July 2001
Argentina: la trama oscura del poder, in Democracias bajo fuego May 1998
Argentina: Internal Insecurity in Crime in Uniform, December 1997
Argentina: Future watchdog of the Americas? in Democracy, Human Rights and Militarism in the War on Drugs in Latin America, April 1997

Theo Roncken has been the coordinator of the Drugs & Democracy progamme for Accion Andina. He is a Dutch researcher with degrees in chemistry an psychology. He was the coordinator of the Acción Andina platform and researcher for the Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia (CEDIB) and the Andean Information Network. He has published articles in specialized magazins and edited texts and videos about the consequences of drug trafficking and antinarcotic policy in Bolivia. He was an editor for Cocapress.

Publications