Colombia: More Revelations of Institutional Corruption by Narcos

Further revelations have been made about the extent to which the narcotic trade has infiltrated and corrupted Colombia's institutions.

The first case involves former head of the Prosecutor General Office Valencia Cossio. He was arrested in 2008 for his alleged links to notorious Colombian drug trafficker Daniel Rendon, alias `Don Mario`. As Prosecutor General, he was responsible for the direction of investigative justice in Colombia, and also presides over Anti Money Laundering initiatives. Clearly, if it is proven that he had links with powerful narco-traffickers, this will have been a considerable corruption of the justice institution in Colombia.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department added the former official to their list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers. This list encompasses all those persons or businesses worldwide who are deemed to be threats to American national security for their involvement in the drug trade. Once on the list, the person or business cannot do business with any US citizen, and can have any American assets frozen. More than 750 businesses and people are now on this list, including some Soccer team franchises.

The second case involves the Colombian Military. A soldier stationed in eastern Colombian named John Quirama testified before the Prosecutor General`s Office that his army unit took money from paramilitary drug traffickers in exchange for protection and persecution of of their rivals. Quirama said that his army unit was receiving bribe money from Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias Macaco, even after he officially demobilized in 2005. But the army`s services were free to the highest bidder. In May 2007, Quirama said that another supposedly demobilized paramilitary Cuchillo outbid Macaco, and even offered rewards for soldiers who killed his rival`s men.

By constitutional design, the Colombian military has significant autonomy to set anti drug policy and strategy as they like. In their examination of the history of the violence in Colombia, scholars Aleida Ferreyra and Renate Segura note that in Colombia the military has often been simply another violent actor in the state`s political conflict, and has not lived up to the modern expectation that it behave as an impartial institution. It is feared by some that exposure to the drug trade will corrupt this institution and ultimately undermine it`s ability to provide for the law and order protect the sovereignty of the state it is tasked with upholding. Others, like Professor Barracca at the University of Texas, argue that the corruption of the army is limited to the few rogue officers which break with official institutional directives, and does not threaten the supremacy of the democratic system itself. But without civilian oversight, the army is more or less free to address this issue internally.

While these two cases of significant corruption of the states`institutions are shocking, it can be hoped that they remain isolated instances limited to the particular people involved. There are not as of yet indications of systematic corrupt similar to what occurred during the days of Pablo Escobar. In the meantime, let`s hope that the Colombian government is able to continue to punish corrupt officials and extend accountability and transparency over it`s institutions, as was done in a recent case involving `the False Positives`scandal.