Democracias bajo fuego

One of the most interesting - and complete - investigations on drugs and power in Latin America to be found to date El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia.

Democracias bajo fuego (Democracies under Fire) illustrates that the current repressive drug policies create more damage than that they produce solutions in Latin America.

The collateral damage, generated by both drug trafficking as well as the 'war on drugs', are mayor impediments for the process of democratisation on the continent.

This 370-page study aproaches the problem from two sides: on the one hand the destabilizing effect of an illicit economy; and on the other the re-militarization caused by the escalating drug war.

Introduction by Martin Jelsma and Theo Roncken

1. Democracies under Fire
   
   • Organized Crime
     
     • Mexico: a narco-democracy? by Carlos Fazio
     • Brazil: drug trafficking, state and civil society, by Jayme Brener
   • Authoritarianism
     
     • Argentina: the obscure intrigue of power, by Adriana Rossi
   • Between War and Peace
     
     • Colombia: use and abuse of the War on Drugs, by Ricardo Vargas Meza
     • Central America: war after the war, by Mario Maldonado
   • Impunity
     
     • Power, offence and impunity in Latin America, by Gloria Rose Marie de Achá
2. Sovereignty under Fire
   
   • War on Drugs
     
     • Their own worst Enemy: Washington's War on Drugs in Latin America, by Coletta Youngers & Peter Zirnite
     • Conflict of interests: The CIA in the War on Drugs, by Frank Smyth
   • Bilateral Agenda
     
     • The Bolivian enigma: bilateralize the bilateral agenda, by Theo Roncken
     • Mexico in the imperial orbit, by Carlos Fazio
   • Integration and Transmilitarization
     
     • Security and sovereignty, by Samuel Blixen