SPREADING FEAR: HOW THE NEW CARTELS DELIVER CHAOS TO FOUR CONTINENTS

Governments Struggle To Respond As Resurgent Trade Moves Into Uncharted Areas

From Colombia, Peru and Bolivia through Mexico and on to a half
dozen west African states, the new cocaine supply route - and the war
against it - is leaving a trail of mayhem in its wake.

In Peru, Shining Path guerrillas have revived their movement by
trading in Maoist ideology for coca cultivation and links with
Mexican cartels, driving cocaine production to its highest level in a
decade, according to US figures.

In Colombia, shadowy new groups with names such as the Black Eagles
have muscled into the gap left by a government assault on rightwing
militias and leftwing guerrillas, the groups that traditionally
trafficked cocaine. Production is increasing after being reined in
earlier in the decade. "The trade has gone from the hands of drug
lords to the hands of warlords and is now controlled by gang lords,"
said Aldo Lale-Demoz, of the UN's Bogota office.

In Bolivia coca cultivation increased by 5% in 2007, a much smaller
rise than in Colombia. The strategy of President Evo Morales, an
indigenous coca farmer and Washington critic, has been unique: expel
US counter-narcotic agents, let farmers grow coca for uses such as
tea and medicine and order local security forces to root out the
cocaine element. The government will lobby the UN summit in Vienna
this week to decriminalise the coca leaf. The defiance is summed up
by Feliciano Mamani, a coca farmer and mayor of Villa Tunari in
central Bolivia. Resting a leg on his desk and revealing a bullet
wound on his shin, he shrugs: "This was the war on drugs."

A senior European diplomat in La Paz fears the departure of US agents
has left Bolivia vulnerable to drug cartels. "The EU is the main
market for Bolivia, and we are worried, but there is not much we can
do." Venezuela also expelled US agents but continues to co-operate
with Europeans.

The traffickers are extremely versatile. In drug lord Pablo Escobar's
era cartels relied largely on planes but these days the preferred
craft are fast boats, which outrun coastguard patrols, and fibreglass
submarines, which evade radar.

Routes evolve to exploit law enforcement gaps. Venezuela has become a
hub, with 282 tonnes of Colombian cocaine slipping through in 2007,
four times higher than in 2004, according to US officials. West
Africa is estimated to be the stop-off point for between a third and
half of the cocaine bound for Europe. Colombia recently dispatched
narcotics agents to west Africa and played host to police from seven
African countries.

With profit margins of up to 5,000%, cocaine traffickers make
fortunes. The cost to Latin America is incalculable. Every stage of
the trade inflicts damage.

Armed groups seeking land for coca have cleared rainforest and killed
and evicted the people who live there. Some 270,000 Colombians were
forced to flee their homes in the first half of 2008, according to
human rights group Codhes - a 41% jump on the previous year. Every
week refugees such as Jose, 35, trek over the peaks of the Sierra de
Perija to seek sanctuary in Venezuela. "Gunmen took the farm; we had
to run," he said. Murder rates in Venezuela have tripled in the past decade.

Smugglers have co-opted coastal communities in the Caribbean by
exchanging dollars and white powder for fuel and supplies. Even
Panama's Kuna, an indigenous tribe which resisted outsiders for
centuries, has been sucked in.

Further north, Nicaraguan fishermen coyly refer to the "white
lobster" which for some transformed shacks into mansions with
satellite dishes. But in towns such as Bluefields the effect is
corrosive. "Some sell, some use; the young are anchoring themselves
in this business," lamented Sandra Wilson, a community activist.

State institutions also suffer. "The power of the drug cartels is
leading to the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of
crime," said Cesar Gaviria, Colombia's former president.

More than a dozen members of Colombia's congress, including
government allies, have been charged with ties to drug-trafficking
paramilitaries. A building boom which saw apartment blocks erected
from Rio de Janeiro to Panama City has been linked to
money-laundering, prompting jokes about narc-deco architecture.

"Narco-traffickers can't have that size of market unless they are
paying big protection money," said Terry Nelson, co-founder of Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, who spent 32 years fighting drugs as
a US government agent in Latin America. "All along I knew we weren't
making any progress. But I was just a field commander. The big shots
in Washington with their triple PhDs just told me to shut up."