“Venezuela is not a drug state, but a state that uses drugs as an instrument of survival of power” | EUROtoday

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Lnarcotrafficking is just not a facet impact of up to date authoritarian regimes. It has develop into, in lots of circumstances, their invisible infrastructure. It doesn’t solely finance legal actions: it helps safety apparatuses, buys loyalties, replaces collapsed economies, retains alive states which might in any other case not have assets or legitimacy. When politics ceases to supply legitimacy, medication produce liquidity. And liquidity produces energy.

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Venezuela is probably the most profitable instance of this transformation. It is just not a cocaine producing nation, however one of many essential logistical nodes of world trafficking. Military airports, ports, official paperwork, armed safety: what ought to assure sovereignty is used as a state service for drug trafficking. The so-called Cartel de los Soles is just not a cartel within the basic sense: it’s a military-institutional construction, a canopy system permitting Colombian visitors to go via the nation with out hindrance.

A distinction is critical right here. A narco-State within the strict sense is a State which couldn’t survive with out the drug economic system. In this sense, Venezuela is just not: Chavista energy was born from a politico-military regime primarily based on oil. But the nation presents superior types of narco-statization: sectors of the armed forces handle drug and gold trafficking, establishments assure impunity, the unlawful economic system turns into extra worthwhile than the official economic system. Venezuela is just not a drug state, however a state that makes use of medication as an instrument of survival for energy. The distinction is decisive – and all of the extra harmful.

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