Beatrice Rangel: The Disintegrating Effects of Rogue States Former Venezuela Presidential Chief of Staff Beatrice Rangel takes a look at how rogue states can poison a region. By Beatrice E. Rangel Latin American Herald Tribune September 13, 2017
Rogue states are the direct descendants of pirates who ruled the seaways from the 1660s to the 1730s. Piracy thrived in the Caribbean because of the existence of seized seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica, Tortuga in Haiti, and Nassau in the Bahamas.
Now, like then, progress creates development vacuums as nations do not develop at the same pace. Development left behinds become institutionally fragile as their resource power cannot sustain the populations expectations for an improved wellbeing.
Institutional fragility sets in as people become disillusioned with their leadership and begin trying development shortcuts that erode rule of law. Fragility acts as a magnet for organized crime given that it can fill the institutional gaps with its abundant resources springing from a host of illicit activities thereby securing a nesting platform to plan and execute illicit operations.
Organized crime organizations enter the stage to secure an operational platform to execute a mosaic of illicit activities. These activities include migrant exploitation; traffic of drugs and persons; money laundering ; corruption; trade in counterfeit products…. and more recently cybercrimes!!!
Once criminal organizations settle in, conflicts ensue, as fights for territorial control supervene between rival organizations.
Rogue states are fragile nation states taken over by organized crime.
As a result, the penetrated country adopts conduct considered to be out of line with international norms of behavior by either the rest of the international community (such as the United Nations), or by clusters of nations grouped into regional organizations (such as the OAS).
Such conduct undermines rule of law and disrupts international trade as well as the procurement of goods and services. It is no coincidence but part of a structural design that so many leading criminal organizations are headquartered in countries like Somalia; Congo; Afghanistan, Central America and West Africa …and more recently Venezuela !!
Given that criminal activities derive annual earnings of US$3 Trillion, its leadership has an unbeatable capability to maintain control of rogue states. In time Rogue States pose severe threats to world stability and security.
This disintegrating effect has caused the international community to create a an institutional framework to deal with globalized criminality.
The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNCTOC) is the foundation of that system aiming at fighting organized crime with a worldwide strategy. UNCTOC’s first success story was the US prosecution of Fifa’s leadership for corrupt practices.
UNCTOC was also invoked by Brazilian prosecutors in the Odebrecht scandal.
As its jurisdiction expands UNCTOC might bring to an end the crisis in Venezuela as its government officials seem to fit the convention’s profile determining illicit activities.
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