tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/smuggling-17097/articlesSmuggling – The Conversation2023-03-20T16:21:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017142023-03-20T16:21:04Z2023-03-20T16:21:04ZIllegal immigration: cracking down on smuggling makes gangs more organised – and costs migrant lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516667/original/file-20230321-18-fty9jd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C125%2C5901%2C3862&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Channel crossings have been increasing in recent years. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.alamy.com/border-force-pulling-the-abandoned-boats-into-harbour-at-dover-portincreasing-numbers-of-migrants-have-been-sailing-in-small-boats-out-of-french-territorial-waters-into-the-english-channel-where-they-are-legally-brought-ashore-by-the-uk-border-force-the-migrants-are-then-able-to-seek-for-asylum-in-the-uk-image368440598.html?imageid=A473CF97-618F-4BB0-AC3A-6D278A2D559E&p=473355&pn=1&searchId=6d45210c18e45eb9c9ab4275e716409e&searchtype=0">SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0262/220262.pdf">illegal migration bill</a> is the government’s latest proposal to tackle the <a href="https://www.ippr.org/publications/understanding-the-rise-in-channel-crossings">rise in small boat Channel crossings</a>, by detaining and removing anyone who arrives in the UK without valid permission to enter.</p>
<p>The government hopes the bill, currently in committee stage in the House of Commons, will deter migrants from relying on smugglers to reach the UK. Anyone arriving by small boat won’t be able to claim asylum, will be swiftly <a href="https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/14/factsheet-migration-and-economic-development-partnership/">removed to Rwanda</a> (or another third country), and barred from ever entering the UK again. If this is what you are faced with, why would you pay a smuggler for such a dangerous trip?</p>
<p>This isn’t the government’s first go at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/07/conservatives-channel-crossings-small-boats-tories-rwanda-deportation">this deterrence approach</a>. In June 2022, the Nationality and Borders Act made arriving in the UK without a valid entry clearance – and facilitating such arrivals – <a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/first-legal-challenge-to-criminalising-asylum-seekers-reaches-court-of-appeal/">a criminal offence</a>. As of April 2022, anyone crossing the Channel on a dinghy can be prosecuted as a criminal.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63938698">Home Office figures</a> show that between June and November 2022, an estimated 29,400 migrants arrived in the UK on small boats. Of these, only 96 (0.3 %) were arrested on suspicion of committing the new crime of illegal arrival. Just 78 were later charged, of whom 56 have been so far convicted. The number of people arrested and charged for the facilitation of arrival (steering the boats) has not been made public by the Home Office, but is likely to be smaller still.</p>
<p>Critics of the bill, including Labour shadow secretary Yvette Cooper, have said that instead of focusing on deterrence, the government should <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1633201258877145089">crack down on smuggling gangs</a>. But taking a more heavy handed approach to smugglers won’t deter people from seeking their services.</p>
<p>Italy and Greece <a href="https://www.investigativejournalismforeu.net/projects/europes-fake-war-on-migrant-smuggling/">have prosecuted thousands</a> of supposed smugglers in the last few years. But there is no evidence that this has effected migrants’ decisions to cross the sea. Rather, policies of deterrence against smuggling fuel smuggling itself, forcing routes to become more dangerous, smugglers more organised, and migrants less able to cross borders without their services.</p>
<h2>Organised smuggling thrives in illegality</h2>
<p>Europe <a href="https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/renewed-eu-action-plan-against-migrant-smuggling-2021-2025-com-2021-591_en">fortified its borders</a> by increasing border security and sponsoring cooperation agreements with neighbouring countries such as <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-years-on">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/01/libya-eu-conditions-remain-hellish-as-eu-marks-5-years-of-cooperation-agreements/">Libya</a> following the 2015 spike in border crossings. But without addressing the reasons why people migrate irregularly in the first place, this simply increased the request for smugglers.</p>
<p>People smugglers have upped their game all over the main entry routes to Europe, including the <a href="https://balkaninsight.com/2022/06/22/with-police-connections-serbian-syrian-translator-turned-people-smuggler/">Balkan route</a>, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/podcasts/podcast-borders-belonging/migrant-instrumentalisation-europe-belarus-poland-wall-border/">eastern Europe</a>, the <a href="https://ecre.org/atlantic-route-more-deaths-on-dangerous-journeys-smugglers-evade-moroccan-authorities-women-increasingly-risk-their-lives-at-sea/">Atlantic route</a> and the routes across <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368541439_The_Kurdish_kacakci_on_the_Iran-Turkey_border_corruption_and_survival_as_EU_sponsored_counter-smuggling_effects">Pakistan, Iran and Turkey</a>. Their services vary according to how much can one afford. Different fees buy different types of passage by sea or land, from risky, crammed old boats to safer journeys “guaranteed” through bribes to border officers.</p>
<p>In July 2022, European law enforcement agencies Europol and Eurojust announced the outcome of the <a href="https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/major-operation-against-migrant-smuggling-english-channel">“biggest ever international operation”</a> against people smugglers, coordinated between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. It led to the arrest of 39 suspects. The agencies have not publicised more information on whether these were actually members of the same smuggling network, or how many were ultimately sentenced.</p>
<p>European agencies often disclose information about those arrested as <a href="https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/annual-report-2021/operational-outcomes">smuggling suspects</a> but less data is made public on how many of these arrests actually lead to convictions. <a href="https://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/the-future-of-counter-smuggling/">Research suggests</a> the main outcome of most counter-smuggling operations is to reduce small scale smuggling, usually organised ad hoc by migrants themselves.</p>
<p>As former <a href="https://www.investigativejournalismforeu.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Aux-frontie%CC%80res-de-l%E2%80%99Europe-des-migrants-devenus-boucs-e%CC%81missaires-de-la-%C2%ABguerre-aux-passeurs%C2%BB-%E2%80%93-Libe%CC%81ration.pdf">Frontex director Gil Arias</a> confirmed in 2022, very few large smuggling groups have been stopped by European law enforcement. This is partly due to operational difficulty – “big” smugglers mostly operate from neighbouring countries and never climb on the boats themselves – and partly to the <a href="https://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/the-future-of-counter-smuggling/">lack of evidence</a> of large, transnational organised crime groups being involved in migrant smuggling in the first place.</p>
<p>Those arrested and sentenced to jail in countersmuggling operations are mostly migrants who have been <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/03/07/fisherman-facing-4760-years-in-greek-prison-receives-centuries-long-sentence">steering or agreed to captain the boat</a> in exchange for a lower fee to cross. The same dynamic is reported happening in the Channel, where the maximum penalty for boat pilots has been raised to a <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/small-boat-pilots-crossing-channel-with-migrants-to-face-life-in-prison-says-home-office-12641851">life sentence</a>.</p>
<h2>Making migration more dangerous</h2>
<p>One common effect of harsher border policies is the displacement of migration routes to more dangerous methods and locations. Last month, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/italy-shipwreck-more-bodies-pulled-from-sea-calabria">72 migrants drowned</a> after their boat, which departed from Turkey, crashed off the Italian Calabrian coast. The sea route from Turkey to Italy is not new, but until recently had remained relatively unfrequented due to its high risk and the easier availability of routes to Greece. But as Greek authorities have been accused of <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/drift-backs-in-the-aegean-sea">performing illegal pushbacks</a> (abandoning asylum-seekers at sea or forcing them back to another state) in the Aegean sea, the numbers on the Turkey-Italy route have <a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/47176/migrants-on-turkeyitaly-route-doubled-in-2022">doubled</a>.</p>
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<p>Similar trends are apparent in the Channel. Growing security controls at the port of Calais, including <a href="https://www.flir.co.uk/discover/security/thermal/port-of-calais-installs-thermal-imaging-cameras-for-security-and-surveillance/">thermal scans</a> and higher surveillance around the port’s perimeter, have reduced the number of people attempting to cross the border by climbing on the back of trucks. But rather than stopping them from migrating altogether, small boat crossings <a href="https://www.ippr.org/publications/understanding-the-rise-in-channel-crossings">have become the method of choice</a>.</p>
<p>Meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64916446">pledged £500 million</a> over the next three years to increase the operational capacity of French border police and construct a new detention centre in France. More policing of the Channel could push boats to leave from further away such as Normandy and Belgium, raising the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/11/24/deaths-in-the-channel-british-and-french-authorities-are-furthering-their-mission-to-make-the-border-space-into-a-fundamentally-hostile-environment_6005420_23.html">risk of shipwrecks</a>.</p>
<p>Instead of crushing the smuggler’s business model, deterrence policies risk galvanising the smuggling economy, making refugees and migrants more prone to abuse and risk, but without affecting the root causes of their migration.</p>
<p>The way to counter the smuggling business model is to provide better options to those who want to migrate – the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/immigration-uk-small-boats-channel-asylum-b2303591.html">“safe and legal routes”</a> that politicians are often encouraging migrants to use, but in reality for most, don’t actually exist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Suber receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council - ESRC</span></em></p>Arresting smugglers is difficult, and doesn’t make migrants less likely to seek out their services.David Suber, Doctoral research fellow, Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1915252022-10-08T05:00:57Z2022-10-08T05:00:57ZUganda’s fuel smugglers: are the Opec Boys (anti-)heroes of the marginalised?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488040/original/file-20221004-17-1onk58.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boureima Hama/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Smuggling in the Ugandan border region of West Nile has a long and chequered history. It straddles the <a href="https://books.google.be/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FTJhFP1FK1wC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=abraham+and+van+schendel+2005&ots=hcL7cIKofK&sig=czwJFPyXuvAh0jtOHbYq5wNGyvY#v=onepage&q=abraham%20and%20van%20schendel%202005&f=false">fine line</a> between legitimacy and legality. Governance and conflict researcher Kristof Titeca has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17531055.2012.664703?scroll=top&needAccess=true">studied</a> smuggling in the border region <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003043645-11/smuggling-legitimate-activity-kristof-titeca">since 2003</a>. He explains the dynamics.</em> </p>
<h2>What’s the history of smuggling in Uganda’s West Nile region?</h2>
<p>The term smuggling often brings strongly negative connotations, and is often associated with criminality and violence. However, smugglers aren’t always associated with these negative connotations by the communities in which they are embedded.</p>
<p>The West Nile region in Uganda illustrates this dynamic. This area is located in northwestern Uganda, and borders the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan.</p>
<p>When colonialists introduced the borders demarcating Uganda, Zaire/Congo and Sudan, this divided ethnic groups but <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/Assets/Documents/PDFs/csrc-working-papers-phase-two/wp63.2-changing-cross-border-trade-dynamics.pdf">didn’t stop the interaction</a> between them. Continued untaxed trade – or smuggling – was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abs/regulation-crossborder-trade-and-practical-norms-in-west-nile-northwestern-uganda/DF13D59E5184A27637447D169F4D7291">considered legitimate</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, smuggling – both then and now – is viewed as a survival mechanism. </p>
<p>For example, during successive wars and rebellions affecting the region, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346912534_A_Historical_Perspective_on_State_Engagement_in_Informal_Trade_on_the_Uganda-Congo_Border">many people fled across borders</a>. When former Ugandan president Idi Amin (a West Niler) was ousted from power in 1979, the residents of West Nile feared revenge and fled to eastern Congo and southern Sudan. Similarly, violence in southern Sudan in the early 1990s, and in more recent times, forced many (South) Sudanese to flee to northern Uganda. Smuggling constituted an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056249008703848">important livelihood</a> for many during these times, and laid the basis for contemporary trading networks and practices.</p>
<p>Smuggling is also linked to people feeling marginalised or oppressed. And the West Nile region <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/uganda/refugee-law-project-working-paper-no-12-negotiating-peace-resolution-conflicts-ugandas">feels marginalised</a> by the Yoweri Museveni regime. </p>
<p>Smuggling in this border region has to be understood in this context: as a way of making ends meet despite of – and in opposition to – a regime perceived to marginalise them. Smuggling is regarded as legitimate employment. And an important form of social mobility, a rags-to-riches story present in the wider social imaginary of the population. </p>
<h2>How pervasive is smuggling in Uganda?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.undp.org/africa/publications/borderland-policy-briefing-series-informal-cross-border-trade-along-drc-uganda-border">Data</a> from the Bank of Uganda and Uganda Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2018, Ugandan informal exports – or smuggled products – were worth US$546.6 million. For their part, smuggled imports were worth US$60 million. </p>
<p>But these numbers are an underestimation as they are based on data from official border posts, which excludes goods smuggled through <a href="https://westniletodaynews.com/122-illegal-entry-points-fuel-silent-gold-trade-along-uganda-drc-border-in-west-nile/">many unofficial smuggling routes</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, the <a href="https://www.undp.org/africa/publications/borderland-policy-briefing-series-informal-cross-border-trade-along-drc-uganda-border">data shows</a> that for the DRC – which in 2018 accounted for almost half of Uganda’s informal trade value – informal export and import figures are almost always higher than the formal ones.</p>
<h2>What does the story of the Opec Boys tell us?</h2>
<p>The Opec Boys – a term used to refer to fuel smugglers operating in the region – are a telling illustration of the dynamics of smuggling in the West Nile.</p>
<p>In my research, I have studied the Opec Boys at <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-politique-africaine-2006-3-page-143.htm">different moments</a> in their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17531055.2012.664703">history</a> over the last 20 years. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003043645-11/smuggling-legitimate-activity-kristof-titeca">Their roots</a> can be traced to the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was when much of the population of north-western Uganda fled to neighbouring DRC and Sudan after the overthrow of the Amin regime. </p>
<p>During this time, a number of exiled young men made a living from smuggling fuel. They didn’t stop doing so upon their return to Uganda. They started an organisation that came to be known as the Opec Boys. Many other young men returning to their home areas, with no education or assets, were drawn into this fuel business. </p>
<p>They would sell smuggled fuel in jerrycans on street corners in the region’s major urban centres. There was a general shortage of petrol stations in the area, and their fuel was cheaper. The Opec Boys got their smuggled fuel in different ways: some smuggled it themselves from Congo, others used “transporters” who were mostly young(er) boys on bicycles, smuggling the fuel via back roads to avoid security officials. Others bought their fuel from truck drivers, who equally smuggled their fuel into Uganda. </p>
<p>The Opec Boys were the most important supplier of fuel in the area until the late 2000s. Around this time, the increased number of fuel stations, and the changing tax regime in DRC pushed many of them out of business. While they still exist, their activities are less prominent.</p>
<h2>What did they come to represent?</h2>
<p>The Opec Boys were considered an important social-economic and political force in two major ways. </p>
<p>First, they came to constitute an important manifestation of what sociologist Asef Bayat’s calls “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436599715055">un-civil society</a>”. This is an unconventional, uninstitutionalised form of civil society. It operates through ad hoc, direct and sporadic action through which it represents the interests of the urban informal sector. This definition applies to the Opec Boys. </p>
<p>Particularly during the 1990s and 2000s, they would – led by <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/kaku-arua-opec-boys-supremo-rabble-rouser-3942538">a charismatic leader</a> – come to the defence of actors within the urban informal sector, such as market vendors or motorcycle taxi riders. They, for example, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003043645-11/smuggling-legitimate-activity-kristof-titeca">intervened</a> when urban authorities wanted to forcefully remove streetside kiosks by blocking roads and organising protests. </p>
<p>Second, in doing so, they are an illustration of historian Eric Hobsbawm’s “<a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Bandits-Revised-Edition-E.J-Hobsbawm-Pantheon/5603239895/bd">social bandits</a>”. This is through their links to the population and their composition – young, unemployed men, and (certainly in their early phase) often ex-rebels considered “<a href="https://www.abebooks.com/Bandits-Revised-Edition-E.J-Hobsbawm-Pantheon/5603239895/bd">natural material for banditry</a>”. </p>
<p>Their smuggling activities provide employment to, and absorb, a potentially dangerous group: low-skilled, landless young men. In a region with a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/uganda/refugee-law-project-working-paper-no-12-negotiating-peace-resolution-conflicts-ugandas">history of rebel groups</a>, this is seen as an important stabilising factor, allowing for the voicing of discontent through trading activities rather than illegality. </p>
<p>For these reasons, attempts to take formal action against smuggling in the West Nile region often lead to demonstrations and riots.</p>
<p>In February 2022, for instance, <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/one-shot-dead-ura-office-torched-in-clashes-with-boda-boda-cyclists-3727616">riots erupted</a> in Koboko town. These were directed against Uganda’s tax collecting agency – the Uganda Revenue Authority. </p>
<p>Protestors set the authority’s offices on fire after tax collectors allegedly hit and injured a suspected fuel smuggler (the authority <a href="https://twitter.com/URAuganda/status/1496886523933126656?s=20&t=PMBLUpWUtHgMH8uIcZ2wkQ">denied</a> this happened). The smuggler was reportedly carrying 320 litres of fuel in sixteen 20-litre jerrycans from the DRC. During the riots, one person was shot dead and several others wounded.</p>
<p>Months earlier, the shooting of a suspected smuggler also <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/one-shot-dead-as-ura-officers-impound-numberless-motorcycles-in-arua-3557294">led to violent demonstrations</a>. </p>
<p>However, this doesn’t mean all smuggling is romanticised. Smuggling in goods such as <a href="https://ugandaradionetwork.net/story/suspected-ugandan-drug-dealer-arrested-in-congo?districtId=553">drugs</a> or <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201008240002.html">weapons</a> is looked at very differently, and doesn’t have the same legitimacy and popular support. </p>
<p>In sum, smuggling is looked at as more than a strictly economic activity; it’s a social and political one. In local social imaginaries, it’s seen as an act of resistance, a way to fend for oneself in difficult circumstances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191525/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristof Titeca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Smuggling in Uganda’s West Nile region is seen as an act of defiance – a way to make ends meet in the face of perceived state neglect.Kristof Titeca, Professor in International Development, University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1870592022-07-20T16:56:58Z2022-07-20T16:56:58ZDebunking the myth of the ‘evil people smuggler’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475224/original/file-20220720-11760-4t8hrw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C20%2C4469%2C2959&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel (left) and Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta (right) sign a deal on April 14, 2022, that would send some asylum-seekers in the U.K. thousands of miles away to Rwanda. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Muhizi Olivier)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/debunking-the-myth-of-the--evil-people-smuggler-" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>In 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people surpassed <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/insights/explainers/100-million-forcibly-displaced.html">100 million worldwide</a>. Nearly <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/resettlement-gap-record-number-global-refugees-few-are-resettled">1.5 million refugees</a> will need resettlement in 2022, but <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/resettlement.html">less than one per cent of refugees</a> will be resettled. </p>
<p>Across the globe, the declining rate of refugee resettlement and the absence of legal avenues has <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/boat-arrivals/">forced refugees to use smugglers to cross borders</a> to access refugee protection. </p>
<p>In response to these trends, high-income countries have introduced draconian deterrence measures that prevent people from reaching their territory to claim asylum. </p>
<p>By virtue of their irregular arrival, refugees who enlist smugglers to claim asylum are <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/desperatejourneys/">criminalized and and often pushed back</a>, which prevents them from accessing the rights of refugee status outlined in the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a>. </p>
<h2>The ‘Rwanda Plan’</h2>
<p>The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of efforts to deter and prevent refugees from seeking asylum on its territory. The U.K. has an established track record of using draconian measures to deter migrants. </p>
<p>When she was home secretary in 2012, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/theresa-may-windrush-migrants-hostile-environment-b2086746.html">Theresa May stated</a> that her aim “was to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration.” She later served as prime minister. Successive governments have maintained this agenda, culminating in the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/14/europe/uk-rwanda-migrant-deal-gbr-intl/index.html">U.K. and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership</a>. </p>
<p>The “Rwanda Plan” involves transferring asylum seekers and migrants arriving “illegally” in the U.K. — such as those crossing the English Channel in boats — to Rwanda, where they will be processed and resettled.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman giving a speech from behind a podium" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475225/original/file-20220720-9522-8pfmqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel speaks to the media after signing what the two countries called an ‘economic development partnership’ in Kigali, Rwanda on April 14, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Muhizi Olivier)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The plan has been widely condemned by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/14/european-court-humam-right-makes-11th-hour-intervention-in-rwanda-asylum-seeker-plan">international courts</a>, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/01/an-abomination-charities-react-as-uk-orders-first-migrant-deportation-flight">charities</a>, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/13/rwanda-deportation-plan-branded-national-shame-church-england/">religious groups</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/25/stars-urge-commonwealth-to-oppose-uk-plan-to-send-refugees-to-rwanda">celebrities</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2cca92d7-f771-4501-9a17-f91cdfae2bdc">asylum seekers</a>. The UN Refugee Agency has “<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116342">firmly opposed</a>” the partnership and re-emphasized that state actions that prevent refugees from reaching destination countries and claiming asylum lead to the shifting, rather than the sharing, of responsibilities to protect asylum seekers.</p>
<p>In her speech on April 14, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/oral-statement-on-rwanda">Home Secretary Priti Patel argued</a> the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Evil people smugglers and their criminal gangs are facilitating people into Europe, resulting in loss of life and huge costs to the U.K. taxpayer. The tragic loss of life of people in the Channel and in the Mediterranean at the hands of those evil smugglers must stop.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In pursuing its deterrence agenda, the U.K. has shifted the blame for dangerous and deadly journeys away from its hostile policies, toward a new faceless boogeyman: evil people smugglers. By doing this, the Rwanda Plan is presented as a way to protect vulnerable people from smugglers. </p>
<p>Secretary Patel’s comments reflect a strategy that has been adopted by many wealthy nations in response to the rising number of asylum seekers arriving “illegally.” By portraying smuggling as dangerous, criminal and deadly, these nations obscure the role violent borders play in contributing to the conditions under which migrant smuggling proliferates.</p>
<h2>Letting nations off the hook</h2>
<p>The narrow portrayal of smugglers as evil, greedy criminals provides a convenient scapegoat for governments, policymakers and journalists. The figure of the smuggler offers an ideal boogeyman for our anxious times because they embody an external danger that states can protect citizens against.</p>
<p>By framing the global crackdown on migrant smuggling as a battle between good and evil, wealthy nations hide <a href="https://commons.allard.ubc.ca/fac_pubs/14/">the role their policies play</a> in creating the global market for smuggling in the first place.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men are escorted by several border force officers in bright yellow vests" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474689/original/file-20220718-20-61y4wa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Border Force officers escort a group of men thought to be migrants to a waiting bus in the port city of Dover, England, in August 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, culpability for these tragedies is attributed to unscrupulous smugglers, stereotypically represented as “<a href="https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/rwanda-deal-johnson-speech-patel-presser/">people smuggling gangs</a>” that prey on the vulnerabilities of people on the move. </p>
<p>While it may be politically advantageous to portray smugglers as criminals, and smuggled people as victims of exploitation and abuse, this characterization is disingenuous and serves to rationalize draconian deterrence measures that violate the right refugees have to seek asylum.</p>
<h2>The migrant smuggling industry</h2>
<p>To be sure, migrant smuggling is a growing industry for organized crime. Smugglers facilitated the irregular transit and entry of roughly 2.5 million migrants in 2016 and made an estimated profit of <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glosom/GLOSOM_2018_web_small.pdf">US$7 billion</a>. </p>
<p>In the pursuit of profit, smugglers often take advantage of migrants and asylum seekers who are vulnerable to violence, theft, sexual assault and extortion. Nearly <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/data">50,000 migrants have died since 2014</a>, many drowning in the Mediterranean on risky journeys facilitated by smugglers. </p>
<p>However, the stereotypical accounts of migrant smuggling, based on graphic stories of violence, exploitation and profit maximization, is limited. As <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003043645-32/war-smugglers-expansion-border-apparatus-lorena-gazzotti">migration scholar Lorena Gazzotti states</a>, this portrayal of smugglers as “an inherently deviant, dangerous figure is deceiving.” </p>
<p>Organized crime researchers <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/migrant-refugee-smuggler-saviour/">Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano</a> provide some additional nuance: “It is certainly true that smugglers profit from the desperation of others, but it is also true that in many cases smugglers save lives, create possibilities and redress global inequalities.” </p>
<h2>Narrative needs to shift</h2>
<p>Organizations like the International Organization for Migration also characterize smugglers in black-and-white terms: “the large-scale smuggling of migrants across international borders is a <a href="https://www.iom.int/counter-migrant-smuggling">global threat</a> to migration governance, national security and the well-being of migrants.” They offer their services to help states “disrupt migrant-smuggling operations.” </p>
<p>While signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention are <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/3bcfdf164.pdf">prohibited from punishing asylum seekers</a> for using smugglers to enter a country of refuge “illegally,” refugee claimants who enlist the services of intermediaries are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44484134">often cast as “bogus refugees.”</a> Those who aid the entry of asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons are also criminalized and demonized by governments as “smugglers.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Someone holding a sign that says 'Refugee rights are human rights'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/474690/original/file-20220718-4540-vpiteh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters stand outside The Royal Court of Justice in London that will hear a legal challenge opposing the Home Office’s new asylum deal with Rwanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Frank Augstein)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is illustrated in the <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2022/06/08/How-LGBTQI-to-LGBTQI-support-is-helping-Ukrainian-refugees-find-safety-in-the-EU">criminalization of the evacuation of LGBTQ+ refugees from Ukraine</a> and the criminalization of aid for refugees <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2019/06/20/european-activists-fight-criminalisation-aid-migrants-refugees">throughout Europe</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/smuggling-of-migrants-and-refugees.html">UN Refugee Agency recognizes</a> that people fleeing persecution are often forced to resort to smuggling. Despite this, the prevailing narrative around migrant smuggling has clouded the public’s understanding of the issue by obscuring the role smuggling plays in helping refugees gain asylum and rationalizing a global crackdown on refugees in the name of combating evil smugglers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The prevailing narrative around migrant smuggling has clouded the public’s understanding of the issue by obfuscating the role smuggling plays in helping refugees gain asylum.Yvonne Su, Assistant Professor in the Department of Equity Studies, York University, CanadaCorey Robinson, Lecturer in International Relations, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840702022-07-06T13:33:09Z2022-07-06T13:33:09ZWhy US-Kenya cooperation on wildlife and drug trafficking matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470797/original/file-20220624-15-12zt89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ivory seized on a Kenya flight arriving in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2016.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Vichan Poti/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kenya and the United States have worked very closely against <a href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2021/04/climate-change-terrorism/">terrorism</a> since the targeting of the American embassy in Nairobi in <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2022/03/25/victims-of-nairobi-embassy-attack-register-to-lobby-00020628">1998 by Al-Qaeda</a>. But much less debated is US-Kenya cooperation on other issues such as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334974678_Transformations_Changes_and_Continuities_in_Conservation_Governance_A_Case_Study_of_Wildlife_Conservation_in_Kenya_1980-2016">environmental conservation</a> and law enforcement among others. </p>
<p>Cooperation between the two countries on tackling <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-jewell-announces-new-partnership-kenya-combat-wildlife-trafficking#:%7E:text=NAIROBI%2C%20Kenya%20%E2%80%93%20U.S.%20Secretary%20of,driving%20several%20species%20towards%20extinction.">illicit trade in wildlife</a> and <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/global-war-against-drugs-reaches-kenya">narcotics</a> has yielded some notable success in the recent past. A good example is the case of the infamous Akasha brothers - Baktash Akasha and Ibrahim Akasha. Baktash Akasha was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-leader-violent-kenyan-organized-crime-family-sentenced-25-years-prison-narcotics">expelled from Kenya</a> and became the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/global-war-against-drugs-reaches-kenya">first Kenyan</a> to be sentenced on drug trafficking charges in New York in 2019. </p>
<p>Both brothers were reported to have <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2019-07-27-akashas-had-links-with-al-shabaab-court-told/">links with Al-Shabaab</a>, the Al Qaeda linked terrorist group operating in the Eastern African region. Their arrest and prosecution was considered significant in the fight against transnational organised crime. </p>
<p>Another example was the recent arrest of Abubakar Mansur Mohammed Surur - a Kenyan national wanted in the United States for <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/29/kenya-arrests-man-wanted-for-illegal-ivory-trading">ivory related offenses</a>. His arrest followed a joint Kenyan-US press conference in Nairobi in which <a href="https://ke.usembassy.gov/u-s-announces-two-1-million-rewards-for-information-leading-to-the-arrests-of-two-kenyan-fugitives-involved-in-narcotics-wildlife-trafficking/">a $2 million bounty</a> was announced for two other Kenyan fugitives – Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh and Abdi Hussein Ahmed. They are believed to be part of a transnational organised crime network engaged in extensive rhino horn smuggling.</p>
<p>The Eastern Africa region in which Kenya falls is made up of states classified by <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/easternafrica//FrontOffice/07413_UNODC_Promoting_the_Rule_of_Law_English.pdf">United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime</a> as either developing or fragile states. This provides <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/easternafrica//FrontOffice/07413_UNODC_Promoting_the_Rule_of_Law_English.pdf">“fertile grounds”</a> for transnational organised crimes. These include piracy, terrorism, smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and wildlife trafficking. </p>
<p>Corruption facilitates large-scale smuggling. In Kenya, for example, corruption delayed completion of a recently launched <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/uhuru-launches-sh4bn-forensic-lab-at-dci-headquarters-3847488">ultramodern forensic lab</a> by about 20 years with implications for the fight against crime. This has implications for <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003221081/human-security-sustainable-development-east-africa-jeremiah-asaka-alice-oluoko-odingo">human security and sustainable development</a>.</p>
<p>Transnational organised crime is cross border in nature. Thus, cross border cooperation is central to tackling it effectively. My <a href="https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2021/04/climate-change-terrorism/">research</a> on the interplay between climate change and terrorism focuses on US-Kenya counter-terrorism cooperation and suggests areas that need improvement. </p>
<p>In my recently published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Human-Security-and-Sustainable-Development-in-East-Africa/Asaka-Oluoko-Odingo/p/book/9781032116969">co-edited book</a> I argue for multilateral cooperation and a people-centered approach to security and development in the Eastern Africa region. </p>
<h2>Why the US-Kenya relationship matters</h2>
<p>Bilateral and multilateral cooperation<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003221081-2/human-security-jeremiah-asaka?context=ubx&refId=9c3ccbfc-0b45-46a4-a181-b63f88e9a53d%20%22%22"> is the best way</a> to deal with a growing list of transboundary concerns. This includes transnational organised crime, climate change and pandemics. </p>
<p>The US-Kenya bilateral partnership is therefore important, especially when complemented with multilateral cooperation. This is true for three reasons.</p>
<p>First, bilateral and multilateral partnerships boost capacity needed to counter transnational organised crime. Neither the United States as a global superpower nor Kenya as a regional powerhouse can deal with the threat in isolation. But working together they can be much more effective by, for example sharing intelligence and technology. </p>
<p>Cooperation means that countries can share the costs and benefits. For example, by providing Kenya with <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-kenya-strategic-partners-2/#:%7E:text=The%20Department%20of%20Defense%20provided,in%20counterterrorism%20assistance%20to%20Kenya">financial support</a>, the United States outsources the burden of chasing after and arresting transnational criminals operating in the Eastern Africa region to Kenya. </p>
<p>Second, cooperation contributes towards reducing the burden of countering transnational organised crime. Going it alone means that each country must contend with the threats by themselves. This can be a very heavy burden to bear for both developing and developed countries.</p>
<p>Third, cooperation has the potential to provide impetus for similar cooperation in other areas of mutual interest. This can include areas not directly related to transnational organised crime. An example is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346503580_Climate-terrorism_nexus_A_preliminary_reviewanalysis_of_the_literature">climate change</a>. </p>
<p>Research on environmental peacebuilding establishes that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0010836718808331">cooperation can spill over</a> across sectors and scales. This means that US-Kenya partnerships on wildlife and drug trafficking have implications for future cooperation on other issues. </p>
<p>Finally, there is need to ensure that such partnerships don’t undermine either country’s sovereignty. They also should not contribute to human rights abuses and interference with individual freedoms. United States funded counter-terrorism campaign in the East African region is notorious for <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/12/somalia-us-must-not-abandon-civilian-victims-of-its-air-strikes-after-troop-withdrawal/">human rights abuses</a>. This includes <a href="https://missingvoices.or.ke/">forced disappearances, extra-judicial killings</a>, and <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war">killing of non-combatant civilians by drone strikes</a>. </p>
<p>There are also signs that this is already creeping into the counter-trafficking realm. A recent US Congressional Research Service <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11923">report</a> notes, in part, that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some anti-poaching units that have received funding from U.S. aid implementers have been implicated in torture and extrajudicial killings, including in Cameroon, Central African Republic, DRC, Kenya, and Republic of Congo.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This should not be allowed to take root. Respect for human rights and dignity should be front and centre in global efforts in countering wildlife and drug trafficking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremiah Ogonda Asaka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bilateral and multilateral cooperation is the best way to deal with a growing list of transboundary concerns.Jeremiah Ogonda Asaka, Assistant Professor of Security Studies, Sam Houston State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1601242021-05-24T15:18:11Z2021-05-24T15:18:11ZHow COVID-19 affected informal cross-border trade between Uganda and DRC<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401635/original/file-20210519-17-kkgnpc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Congolese women at the border crossing with Uganda at Bunagana in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Moore/AFP/GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Informal cross-border trade, which includes smuggling, is hugely important for <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231927336_Regulation_Cross-Border_Trade_and_Practical_Norms_in_West_Nile_North-Western_Uganda">survival</a> in, around and beyond <a href="https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/library/issue-briefs/borderland-policy-briefing-series---informal-cross-border-drc-ug.html">border regions</a>. Across the border between Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28477/">informal trade pays</a> the bills and puts food on the table; it stocks the provision shops and pharmacies; and it keep youths out of trouble, communities on the move, and people employed.</p>
<p>This trade is carried out both through unofficial crossings (where goods are smuggled across the border) and over official border points – where goods are not declared. Considered a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231927336_Regulation_Cross-Border_Trade_and_Practical_Norms_in_West_Nile_North-Western_Uganda">legitimate source of livelihood</a> this trade not only supplies the borderlands, but is also a vital supply line for the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44789476_The_changing_cross-border_trade_dynamics_betweennorth-western_Uganda_north-eastern_Congo_and_southern_Sudan">wider region</a>. </p>
<p>Different reasons account for the informality of cross border trade. These include cumbersome border procedures, shortages of particular commodities on either side of the border, and different taxation levels (with the consequent price difference offering attractive margins for smugglers). Added to these is corruption, and harassment of traders by state officials. For these reasons many traders avoid border controls altogether. </p>
<p>Uganda’s central bank has been collecting data on undeclared goods passing through official border points. Between 2010 and 2018, Uganda’s informal exports to the DRC <a href="https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/library/issue-briefs/borderland-policy-briefing-series---informal-cross-border-drc-ug.html">nearly doubled</a>, from US$ 143.2 million to US$ 269.8 million. Given that formal exports to the DRC for those years respectively were US$ 184 million and US$ 204 million, these <a href="https://www.bou.or.ug/bou/bouwebsite/Statistics/Reports/ICBT.html">figures</a> highlight the importance of informal cross-border trade. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/covid-19-and-state-global-mobility-2020">cross-border mobility worldwide</a> and its policy consequences are therefore <a href="https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/blog/2020/covid-19-and-the-challenge-of-african-borderlands.html">particularly visible around borders</a>. </p>
<p>But, what has been the impact of the pandemic on informal cross-border trade along the Uganda-DRC border? Our <a href="https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/library/issue-briefs/borderland-policy-briefing-series---informal-cross-border-drc-ug.html">new research</a> in a number of key border points found that cross-border trade has been severely affected, with knock-on effects on various aspects of lives far beyond the borderlands. For example, as north-eastern DRC largely depends on imports from Uganda for much of its commodities (such as salt, sugar or soap), their supply in basic goods was strongly affected. </p>
<p>However, we also found that players in the informal trade adapted to various changing COVID-19 policies and contexts, including differences in pandemic responses in Uganda and DRC. </p>
<h2>COVID measures</h2>
<p>Uganda has imposed some of <a href="https://www.giga-hamburg.de/en/publications/22075331-when-going-gets-tough-effects-covid-19-pandemic-informal-entrepreneurs-uganda/">the strictest COVID-19 lockdown</a> rules in the world. At the start in March, 2020, Uganda ordered a stay-at-home lockdown and the closure of all its borders - except for cargo truck drivers. Soon after, it suspended all public transport and non-food markets, and a nationwide curfew.</p>
<p>This led to a severe disruption in supply and distribution channels – both formal and informal. Uncertain supplies and speculative behaviour led to <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/east-africa-cross-border-trade-bulletin-july-2020-volume-30">increasing and fluctuating prices</a> throughout the borderlands region. </p>
<p>In order to reduce risk, most informal traders deal in a variety of items. These traders adjusted in a variety of ways. As the initial ban in Uganda excluded food markets, traders would shift from nonfood to food items. Yet, particularly in the initial phase of the lockdown, this was not easy, as it remained difficult to transfer goods across the border.</p>
<p>Second, the cost of trading increased as truck drivers had to undergo screenings leading to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-africas-borders-vast-jams-as-truckers-are-tested-for-covid-19-11591963201">long waiting times</a>. Formal exports and imports were “<a href="https://www.ug.undp.org/content/uganda/en/home/library/un-socioeconomic-impact-report-of-covid-19-in-uganda.html">slowed down or completely halted by the COVID-19 restrictions</a>.” This had a range of impacts, such as the loss of perishable and short-life items due to the restrictions on demand and supply.</p>
<p>Border areas are traditionally vulnerable to economic, political and mobility-related shocks. Cross-border trade run mostly by small-scale traders with fragile supply chains is especially prone to insecurity and upheaval.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 control measures in Uganda therefore had a <a href="https://twitter.com/newvisionwire/status/1253287493119676417">severe impact</a> on informal cross-border trade. Many traders lost merchandise, such as agricultural produce or livestock, that they were unable to sell. This led to increased financial stress among informal traders, who then often relied on informal loans, resulting in spiralling debt.</p>
<h2>Surviving COVID-19 restrictions</h2>
<p>While Uganda employed a heavy-handed approach, with the military shutting off official and unofficial border crossings, this was not the case on the Congolese side of the border. Congo’s president did announce the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-congo-idUSKBN21B3GT">closure of the country’s borders and a state of emergency</a> in March 2020. But these directives remained largely ineffective with Congolese authorities making no effort to limit crossings.</p>
<p>This allowed some limited opportunities for informal cross border trade. For example, while markets were forcibly closed on the Ugandan side of the border, they remained open on the Congolese side. As a result, many small-scale Ugandan traders shifted to the DRC to reside there. Many were unable to return due to the closed border, and often stayed in precarious conditions. </p>
<p>To move goods across the border, traders on either side of the border would pay truck drivers to transship goods. Overall, these were fairly small quantities, but still allowed traders to survive. But there were risks too. Traders complained about being duped or shortchanged by truck drivers entrusted with moving or sourcing goods. For example, a driver entrusted with buying Congolese coffee for sale in Uganda may deliver inferior quality beans. </p>
<p>Moreover, traders complained that Ugandan security officials were more vigilant in levying trade taxes but also irregular “foreigner taxes”, more so in the Rwenzori border region.</p>
<h2>Informal trade is here to stay</h2>
<p>Many COVID-19 border restrictions for traders in Uganda have now been <a href="https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/east-africa-news/uganda-now-okays-opening-of-borders-airport-and-churches--2715592">lifted</a>. In theory, travellers need to present a COVID-negative test issued no more than 120 hours before travel – but in practice this is not enforced for small-scale traders. Most security personnel have also been withdrawn from unofficial border crossings, through which cross-border mobility has improved again.</p>
<p>In sum, <a href="https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/library/issue-briefs/borderland-policy-briefing-series---informal-cross-border-drc-ug.html">our research </a> demonstrates once more how informal border trade is a historically grounded reality, constituting an important source of livelihood, and supplier of goods, for many far and beyond. Formalisation of these dynamics should therefore not be seen as the solution, as it will <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34884">threaten trade operations and endanger the economic viability of border communities</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, what is key here is improving the trade environment for these traders. This can be achieved by tackling various other financial and non-financial obstacles, such as harassment by security officials. Doing so will help <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34884">to deepen regional integration and foster development in these border communities</a>.</p>
<p><em>Innocent Anguyo, a research consultant based in Kampala, is the co-author of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Field research on this topic was funded through the UNDP Africa Borderlands Centre. </span></em></p>Within already economically perilous border areas, informal cross border trade is even more vulnerable during a pandemic.Kristof Titeca, Senior Lecturer in International Development, University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1594032021-05-13T15:13:38Z2021-05-13T15:13:38ZTruth, lies and honey<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396088/original/file-20210420-23-1oxd2up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">file xgd v</span> </figcaption></figure><p>We hear many tales about bees and honey. Even economists may base their theories on fantasy hives. Dieticians can do the same when promoting the imaginary health benefits of honey, and then there’s the honey itself. It should be one of the purest products of nature, yet what we find on supermarket shelves can be cut with syrup, tainted by antibiotics, or sourced from China despite a label that claims otherwise. </p>
<p>So let’s take a worldwide tour of the honey trade, which oscillates between truth and tall tales, with a few tips for your coming purchases.</p>
<h2>Bee theory</h2>
<p>The social life of bees has long fired up our imagination. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder">Pliny the Elder</a> (23-79 CE) admired their political organisation, with its chiefs and councils. He even thought that <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D11%3Achapter%3D4">moral principles guided their behaviour</a>. Nearly 1,700 years later, the Anglo-Dutch author Bernard Mandeville took the opposite view, describing a vice-ridden hive inhabited by selfish bees. The <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57260"><em>Fable of Bees</em></a>, published in 1714, became a work of reference for political economists. A precursor to Adam Smith, whose invisible hand of individual self-interest fed the common good, Mandeville set out to prove that, unlike altruism, selfishness was productive. Hostile to frugality – wealth stolen from a miser will trickle down, after all – he inspired Keynes’ critique of excess saving.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1225&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382180/original/file-20210203-17-1bcgyke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1225&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Fable of the Bees</em>, 1724 edition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Fable_des_abeilles#/media/Fichier:TheFableOfBees-Mandeville.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fairness to Pliny, Mandeville and many others who have fantasised about bees, the hive as we now know it, with its removable wooden frames, had yet to be invented. So it was difficult to observe the life and social mores of bees. There were no glass walls enabling us to watch their busy work or count drones, males whose only purpose in life is to mate with a virgin queen. Nor were there electronic tags to monitor the ceaseless movement of bees and discover that to produce a pound of honey they must cover a distance equivalent to flying around the world, visiting some 5 million flowers on the way.</p>
<p>James Meade, a British economist who was awarded the 1977 Nobel prize for his work on international economic policy, had no such excuse. In the early 1950s he cited the example of apple-growing and beekeeping in the same area to illustrate his <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2227173?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">theoretical analysis of external economies</a>. Each serves the other: the bees gather nectar from the apple blossom to make honey and in so doing pollinate the flowers which in turn become fruit. </p>
<p>Meade theorised that because these reciprocal services are unpaid, both parties under-invest: Beekeepers set up fewer hives than is economically optimal, because they take no share in the marginal product apple growers obtain from a bigger harvest. Orchard owners plant fewer trees than is economically optimal, taking no share in the marginal product beekeepers derive from extra honey. This example was a big success with economics professors and their students, no doubt on account of its bucolic character and springtime atmosphere. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, Meade was mistaken on two points. First, he did not know that apple blossom contains very little nectar, which is perhaps excusable. Apple-blossom honey, should you find some in a shop, is actually made from the flowers of other plants in the orchard. Second – and this is a real blunder – he overlooked the many arrangements between growers and keepers for their mutual benefit and reward. So there was in fact no sign of free, unpaid production factors, and hence no external economies. Steven Cheung, a specialist in property rights and transaction costs, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/724823?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">made this point</a> with a survey of beekeepers and tree-growers, whose deals abide by rules rooted in tradition or are actually framed in full-blown contracts.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382173/original/file-20210203-23-12kcvd8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North American beekeepers loading ‘traveling hives’ on a tractor-trailer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bee_migration_9045.JPG">Pollinator/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bees sometimes travel by truck</h2>
<p>American beekeepers have been charging for their pollination services for years. But the almond boom has <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-bee-economist-explains-honey-bees-vital-role-in-growing-tasty-almonds-101421">massively increased the scale of these operations</a>. Every year millions of hives are trucked to California’s almond orchards from other parts of the country. Accounting for almost 80% of global demand, the farms play host to some <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/migratory-beekeeping-mind-boggling-math/">30 billion bees for a few weeks</a>. The hives are then taken to Florida or Texas to pollinate other trees.</p>
<p>Bees and beehives travel around other countries, too. In France, they move from one region to another to gather pollen from flowering plants and trees at their best. At different points in the season the same hive may produce honey flavoured by Mediterranean <em>garrigue</em> (scrubland), acacia trees and finally lavender bushes. Unlike their US counterparts, professional beekeepers in Europe countries earn their living from producing honey, and not mainly from pollination services. Nor is there much trade in bees here.</p>
<p>Until recently, the transportation of bees in China was largely for honey production, not pollination. But in provinces such as Sichuan, the balance of earnings is shifting toward pollination. This is indirectly due to a local shortage of bees coupled with an increase in the land given over to orchards. But the root cause is the massive use of pesticides on apple and pear trees. Having <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/humans-bees-china_n_570404b3e4b083f5c6092ba9">lost their bee colonies</a>, beekeepers are reluctant to truck their hives to such places.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398712/original/file-20210504-17-1ofvqyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hand-pollinating <em>Iris lortetii</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/35079427@N00/7049705269">Yonat Sharon/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trade in honey has far greater global reach than any commerce in bees themselves. In Paris, Berlin or London shops – specialist outlets or high-class grocers – you can find honey from as far afield as New Zealand or Cuba. Retailers also sell Chinese honey – but often unknowingly. In Europe, if a honey’s label indicates a “blend of non-European Community honeys” or “blend of EC and non-EC honeys” this is very likely the case. China is the main source of honey imported to the EU, followed by Ukraine. (This may change, as new EU labelling rules require each source country and its share be indicated.)</p>
<h2>Fraud far afield</h2>
<p>As in many other domains, China is the world’s leading producer and exporter of honey. But such statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt, as it were. The most common way of adulterating honey is to add sugar syrup, which is much cheaper and not easily detected. Either jars are simply not checked – inspection during the production process or on importation is exceptional – or it just goes undetected. Some types of sugar can only be spotted using expensive technology such as nuclear magnetic resonance.</p>
<p>A 2016 article in the <em>American Bee Journal</em>, <a href="https://www.apimondia.com/docs/commissions/decreasing_prices_honey_americas.pdf">“A Study of the Causes of Falling Honey Prices in the International Market”</a>, makes a compelling case that only adulteration with sugar can explain the recent growth in exports by China, India and even Ukraine. In these countries – as indeed elsewhere – domestic demand has not dropped (which would have released volume for the export market). Nor has hive productivity increased (on the contrary, bees are plagued with increasingly acute health and environmental problems). Lastly, the number of hives has only slightly increased because of the lack of attractive profit margins and extensive training of new beekeepers.</p>
<p>Another form of fraud involves “laundering” honey by concealing its true origin. Countries such as Vietnam and Thailand export more honey than they could realistically produce. The difference is made up with Chinese exports, and the resulting blend is shipped to the United States. China has been targeted by an anti-dumping duty since the early 2000s, but labelling it as coming from the stop-over country gets around that obstacle. Other circumvention schemes include <a href="https://www.usitc.gov/publications/701_731/pub4776.pdf">fake shipper bonds and under-evaluation of entries</a>. It is estimated that in 2015 about <a href="https://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/chinese-honey-banned-in-europe-is-flooding-u-s-grocery-shelves-heres-how-to-know-the-difference/">one-third of the US honey supply came from China</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382179/original/file-20210203-19-lzltwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Falsifying the origin of the production is one of the main frauds in the honey market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/fr/photos/abeilles-ruche-entr%C3%A9e-objectif-3717962/">Pixabay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A third type of malpractice hinges on non-compliance with health and safety regulations. Honey may contain pesticides or antibiotics that are either prohibited or exceed limits. Hives can be treated with antibiotics (to combat American foulbrood, a disease caused by a spore-borne bacteria), but the drugs may also accumulate in their surroundings. The idea of unwittingly consuming antibiotics along with one’s honey is particularly shocking given that it <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensin">naturally contains defensins</a>, small proteins that help to kill microbes.</p>
<p>The presence of pesticides in honey results from beekeepers treating their hives or similar products used in farming. Whatever the source, most honey contains a few micro- or nano-grams of such chemicals. Japan has recently warned it will stop importing New Zealand honey because <a href="https://www.fbtech.co.nz/2021/01/21/japan-warns-of-nz-honey-ban/">it detected glyphosate</a>, a weed killer used in kiwifruit orchards. While the pesticide residues sometimes found in honey are not a risk for our health, some substances, in particular neo-nicotinoids, are deadly for bees. Experimental evidence shows that while neo-nicotinoids don’t kill bees outright, they can <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/controversial-pesticides-can-decimate-honey-bees-large-study-finds">cause them to become disoriented</a> and prevent them from finding their way back to the hive. In general, pesticides contribute, to a degree as yet <a href="https://www.anses.fr/fr/content/travaux-de-l'anses-sur-les-n%C3%A9onicotino%C3%AFdes;https://www.ceh.ac.uk/our-science/projects/impacts-neonicotinoids-honeybees">difficult to determine precisely</a>, to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder">colony collapse disorder</a>. Many factors play a part in this phenomenon, which has wreaked havoc in bee colonies around the world over the past 20 years.</p>
<p>Much as with other types of fraud, trade is distorted because producers and regions marketing substandard goods are passing them off as decent honey. Adulterated produce costs less, so producers and regions offering high-quality goods must compete at prices that deny them adequate margins and reduce their market share. Consumers also lose out. The medicinal and nutritional value of honey is lost when adulterated with corn or cane sugar, or soiled with chemicals.</p>
<h2>Home is where the honey is</h2>
<p>You may have gathered by now that I do not recommend buying Chinese honey. This is not to say that there is no good quality produce there, but we would need to know where to find it. The same goes for budget spreadable honey, as its true source is open to speculation.</p>
<p>At the top end of the price range there is New Zealand’s sought-after Manuka honey. This is a monofloral honey (predominantly from the nectar of one plant species) derived from the Manuka tree, native to southeast Australia and New Zealand. It boasts exceptional <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-or-snake-oil-is-manuka-honey-really-a-superfood-for-treating-colds-allergies-and-infections-78400">antiseptic and antibacterial properties</a>. Due to the honey’s high price, New Zealand is second only to China for the value (as opposed to volume) of its honey exports. But retailing at almost 100 euros a kilogram, the precious honey attracts swarms of smugglers – five times more of (purportedly) Manuka honey is sold worldwide than is actually produced in New Zealand. As a general rule, if you want to buy premium goods from outside your country it’s wisest to go to a specialist retailer selling tested, selected produce.</p>
<p>For humbler, less exotic varieties, I would suggest honey sourced locally, which makes a difference in two ways. First, it corresponds to a particular ecosystem – specific plants and flowers as well as agricultural practices that have a significant impact on the flavour and contents of honey. Of course, if you live in an area with intensive farming and pesticide use, you have to be cautious. Do not hesitate to contact directly a local beekeeper and ask about their practices. That’s the second difference: getting direct information will tell you far more than a label that simply says English or French honey.</p>
<p>If you’re concerned about pesticide and antibiotic residues, you should opt for honey that is certified as organic. If you are concerned about the China contents in your “Born in the USA” honey, there’s a labelling program called the <a href="https://truesourcehoney.com">True Source Honey</a> that can help you feel confident that the honey you purchase is the real thing.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z7M8R4350iw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fake honey: Study finds disturbing results (ABC)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<p><em>François Lévêque is author of <a href="https://www.odilejacob.fr/catalogue/sciences-humaines/economie-et-finance/entreprises-hyperpuissantes_9782738154989.php">“Les Entreprises hyperpuissantes Géants et Titans, la fin du modèle global?”</a>, Odile Jacob, April 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>François Lévêque ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Hives that travel by truck, bees paid for their pollination service, adulterated honey, economic theories based on an imaginary social organization…François Lévêque, Professeur d’économie, Mines Paris - PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1535912021-01-26T14:17:44Z2021-01-26T14:17:44ZAttacks at sea aren’t all linked to piracy. Why it’s important to unpick what’s what<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379951/original/file-20210121-13-187c0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian Navy Special forces pretend to arrest pirates during a joint military exercise with the French navy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/four-attacks-in-one-week-show-the-rising-risk-of-west-african-piracy">Pirate attacks</a> against merchant ships off the African coast have been reported regularly over the past decade. And despite measures to suppress it, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259425417_Piracy_in_Somalia_A_Challenge_to_The_International_Community">Somalia-based piracy</a> remains a concern. On the other side of the continent, the <a href="https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/imb-piracy-report-2020/">Gulf of Guinea</a> is now viewed as presenting a much more serious piracy problem. </p>
<p>Last year a record 130 crew members were kidnapped in 22 separate incidents, according to the <a href="https://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php/1301-gulf-of-guinea-records-highest-ever-number-of-crew-kidnapped-in-2020-according-to-imb-s-annual-piracy-report">International Maritime Bureau</a>. The cluster of attacks in November and December has once again led to alarming headlines about the <a href="http://portfolio.cpl.co.uk/BIMCO/202012/cover/">Gulf of Guinea</a> being the world’s <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/gulf-of-guinea-confirmed-as-world-piracy-hotspot/">piracy hotspot</a>.</p>
<p>But an increase in officially reported attacks does not necessarily mean that the actual number of attacks has increased. And individual cases must be <a href="https://www.dirksiebels.eu/publications/2021/01/04/gulf-of-guinea-piracy-in-2020/">analysed</a> carefully. Attacks against small cargo ships trading solely in the Gulf of Guinea, for example, are often linked to criminal disputes or other illicit activities at sea. These incidents are very different from random attacks targeting merchant ships in international trade which are solely aimed at kidnapping seafarers to collect a large ransom and are, therefore, a profit-driven crime.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://safety4sea.com/two-suspicious-approaches-in-gulf-of-aden-in-24-hours/">reports</a> about suspicious approaches against merchant ships off Somalia are still frequent. Most are related to smuggling operations between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula or simply to everyday fishing activities.</p>
<p>Pirate attacks may grab most headlines, but maritime security is important for wider reasons. Illicit activities at sea limit the potential benefits of economic activities linked to the sea – what’s referred to as the “blue economy”. This includes maritime trade, fishing activities, offshore oil and gas production or coastal tourism. Also, criminality at sea and on land are closely linked. Government agencies need to recognise this if security is to be improved.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/gulf-of-guinea-fighting-criminal-groups-in-the-niger-delta-is-key-to-defeating-piracy-130480">Gulf of Guinea: fighting criminal groups in the Niger Delta is key to defeating piracy</a>
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<h2>Many problems, few resources</h2>
<p>Piracy remains arguably the most visible symptom of <a href="https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/the-challenge-of-governance-in-the-gulf-of-guinea">insecurity at sea</a>. But coastal states also have other reasons to be concerned about it.</p>
<p>Illegal fishing, for example, has a direct impact on coastal communities where artisanal fishing is one of the few opportunities to earn a living. Smuggling on maritime routes even affects government income directly. Virtually all African countries rely heavily on customs revenues. When fuel, cigarettes or agricultural goods are smuggled, no import or export duties are paid. Less money can then be spent on schools, roads or hospitals, as <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030226879">my research</a> has shown.</p>
<p>Governments are also concerned about drug trafficking or weapons smuggling at sea, underlined by <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/africa-new-regional-anti-piracy-agreement/">international agreements</a> which have been adopted by the majority of African coastal states. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030226879">Limited monitoring</a> of maritime trade allows for a steady flow of pharmaceutical products – including fake drugs – into Africa as well as lucrative exports of unlicensed timber or illegal wildlife products.</p>
<p>Despite the widespread impacts, maritime security has only come into the political focus over the past decade. African countries have <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/promising-signs-of-africas-global-leadership-on-maritime-security">initiated</a> international meetings about it. The African Union adopted a maritime <a href="https://au.int/en/maritime">strategy</a> in 2014 and held a follow-up summit in Togo’s capital Lomé in 2016. But progress has been <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/maritime-security-implementing-aus-aim-strategy/">limited</a>. National governments have largely failed to take concrete actions. Strategies aren’t supported by financial and human resources.</p>
<p>Even Ghana, where a comprehensive <a href="https://996227d1-de16-4875-a76e-7ece4d3917bc.filesusr.com/ugd/a5e83a_ffc206114be34849b92d89655812abd7.pdf">maritime strategy</a> has been under development for years, is still unable to provide reliable <a href="https://safety4sea.com/ghana-wants-more-investment-to-improve-maritime-security/">funding</a> for patrol boat operations. </p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Some examples highlight that it is possible to provide more security at sea. In West Africa, Nigeria is leading the way with its $195 million <a href="http://www.apanews.net/en/news/nigerian-press-focuses-on-plans-to-commence-195m-deep-blue-project-in-2021-others">Deep Blue project</a>, scheduled to be fully operational in the coming months. This project is primarily aimed at better surveillance and enforcement across the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, an area that stretches out up to 200 nautical miles (around 360 kilometres) from the coastline.</p>
<p>Benin, Gabon and Tanzania have partnered with environmental organisations like <a href="https://www.seashepherdglobal.org/our-campaigns/iuu-fishing/">Sea Shepherd</a> to combat illegal fishing in their waters. Such non-traditional partnerships may help overcome short-term challenges and focus on urgent problems.</p>
<p>But it’s necessary to build capacity for the long term.</p>
<p>In many African countries, the blue economy could help to increase economic growth and development, although it should not be limited to <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.00586/full">economic gains</a>. Acknowledging the needs of local communities and environmental sustainability are equally important. Investments can yield direct benefits which are five times higher than the initial outlay, according to a <a href="https://oceanpanel.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/Ocean%20Panel_Economic%20Analysis_FINAL.pdf">recent study</a>. And the inclusion of <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/covid-19-four-sustainable-development-goals-help-future-proof-global">Sustainable Development Goal 14</a> on ocean resources could strengthen efforts to recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/lift-for-maritime-sector-in-kenya-and-djibouti-after-fall-in-piracy-128073">Lift for maritime sector in Kenya and Djibouti after fall in piracy</a>
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<p>Despite some alarming <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/global-sea-piracy-coronavirus-covid19/">headlines</a>, there is no evidence to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic has had an immediate <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f3f8460cb3933732c1b3650/t/5f984316e606836d108ed586/1603814171548/Whitepaper+Maritime+Security+Post+Covid+Sep+2020_sml.pdf">impact</a> on security threats at sea. But growth forecasts have been <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2020/12/30/covid-19-takes-its-toll-on-african-economy/">slashed</a> and governments are unlikely to prioritise spending on navies and other maritime agencies. </p>
<p>Security concerns <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/elections-and-instability-as-africa-enters-2021">on land</a> are much more immediate threats, and even relatively limited <a href="https://set.odi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/The-evolving-fiscal-and-liquidity-stimulus-packages-in-response-to-COVID-19-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa.pdf">stimulus packages</a> are another burden for government budgets.</p>
<p>A closer analysis of sea piracy is important for law enforcement and longer-term prevention whether these are solely aimed at pirates or at organised criminal groups. It is also important for shipping companies because it affects the threat assessment when attacks are linked to criminal activities and aimed at specific ships rather than random targets.</p>
<p>Short-term solutions for long-standing problems are impossible. Even small steps, however, are important to improve maritime security in the medium to long term. That would be in line with the <a href="https://au.int/en/maritime">AU’s maritime strategy</a> which highlights the blue economy’s potential contribution to economic growth and development across the continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Siebels does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sea piracy often grabs the headlines, but it is just one of many symptoms of insecurity at sea.Dirk Siebels, PhD (Maritime Security), University of GreenwichLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1270322019-11-18T14:28:00Z2019-11-18T14:28:00ZFighting piracy in the Gulf of Guinea needs a radical rethink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301921/original/file-20191115-66945-1tojfeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ivorian sailors participate in an anti-piracy hostage rescue scenario with the Ghanaian Navy during Exercise Obangame Express. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Bonita had been anchored off Benin for several days, waiting for a berth in the port of Cotonou. On November 2, 2019 the crew had a traumatic awakening. Armed men boarded the vessel and <a href="https://beninwebtv.com/en/2019/11/benin-09-persons-kidnapped-in-a-ship-attack-at-cotonou-port/">kidnapped nine crew members</a>. Only two days later, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/pirates-attack-greek-oil-tanker-off-togo/a-51108398">four seafarers were kidnapped</a> from the Elka Aristotle, which was anchored off Lomé in neighbouring Togo.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these were not the only attacks off the coast of West Africa in which seafarers were kidnapped. Nevertheless, the patterns are changing, with <a href="https://riskintelligence.eu/articles/long-term-perspective-west-africa-and-gulf-guinea-piracy">gradual signs of improvement</a>. In addition, attacker success rates in the region have declined from <a href="https://riskintelligence.eu/articles/long-term-perspective-west-africa-and-gulf-guinea-piracy">80% over ten years ago to just under 50% in 2018</a>.</p>
<p>Another change has been the fact that attacks have become more visible. This is at least partly due to increased cooperation among countries in West and Central Africa. They adopted the <a href="http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Security/WestAfrica/Documents/code_of_conduct%20signed%20from%20ECOWAS%20site.pdf">Yaoundé Code of Conduct</a> in 2013, aimed at fighting illicit activities at sea. Implementation has been slow, yet navies and maritime agencies in the region have become much more active in collecting relevant information.</p>
<p>Based on my research into maritime security in the region, I have become increasingly convinced that sustainable improvements are impossible when the focus is solely on piracy. In many cases, kidnappings of seafarers are an extension of land-based problems – such as fuel smuggling and illegal migration – and have to be tackled as such.</p>
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<p>In my view, <a href="https://www.bimco.org/news/priority-news/20190108-call-for-gog-counter-piracy">demands by the shipping industry</a> for international navies to become more involved in counter-piracy operations won’t lead to lasting solutions. These can only be successful if they are designed based on regional requirements and take on board regional initiatives aimed at tackling a multiplicity of social problems, rather than just one.</p>
<h2>Links to crime on land</h2>
<p>High-profile attacks – such as the recent kidnappings – are generally carried out by criminal groups based in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-nigeria-must-do-to-deal-with-its-ransom-driven-kidnapping-crisis-116547">Kidnappings on land have been a long-standing problem</a> for security forces there. Collecting ransoms has become a lucrative business model which requires foot soldiers, access to camps for holding hostages, and negotiators with the necessary skills. All these things can be found in the Niger Delta, where the lines between armed insurgents and organised criminals are often fluid. </p>
<p>For countries like Benin, Togo and Cameroon where Nigeria-based criminals have taken hostages from merchant ships this year, the situation is a concern. Ports in these countries are crucial for economic growth and development in terms of customs revenues. For example, <a href="https://www.mcc.gov/resources/story/story-story-kin-apr-2015-unlocking-a-regional-trade-bottleneck-in-benin">more than 40%</a> of Benin’s government revenues are collected in Cotonou’s port. Ensuring adequate security for maritime trade is therefore a strategic concern in Benin. Hence the government’s <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/07/c_138536961.htm">quick announcement</a> of improved security measures for ships anchoring off Cotonou.</p>
<p>Most kidnappings still take place off the Nigerian coastline. The established pattern is one of hostages being taken and then released several weeks later for a ransom payment. This is according <a href="https://riskintelligence.eu/articles/long-term-perspective-west-africa-and-gulf-guinea-piracy">to analysis done</a> by the Danish security intelligence company Risk Intelligence.</p>
<p>The fact that there are more cases off the Nigerian coastline points to my contention that this criminal behaviour is closely linked to land-based criminal activities – such as fuel smuggling – which is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tracing-the-flow-of-nigerias-stolen-oil-to-cameroon/a-45918707">widespread in the area</a>.</p>
<p>When such incidents are analysed through a narrow piracy lens, efforts of navies and law enforcement agencies -– which are already suffering from a lack of resources –- are likely to be misguided. The narrow view might mistakenly focus, for example, on the capacity to respond at sea.</p>
<p>The problem of wrong analyses is made worse by international actors, for example the US and European governments, the European Union or international organisations. They often put a strong emphasis on combating piracy and provide financial or technical assistance to partners in West and Central Africa. But they rarely focus on illegal fishing, fuel smuggling or illegal migration. All these activities have been linked to attacks against merchant ships or fishing vessels. </p>
<h2>Broader understanding needed</h2>
<p>Fighting piracy in the Gulf of Guinea requires a broad understanding of maritime security. Acknowledging links between, for example, piracy and illegal fishing is vital for regional governments and external partners. On the most basic level, illegal fishing destroys fishers’ livelihoods, forcing some into piracy simply to earn an income. </p>
<p>A good example is the EU’s contradictory stance. On the one hand, it provides <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/52490/eu-maritime-security-factsheet-gulf-guinea_en">€29 million</a> to support West Africa’s Integrated Maritime Security project. On the other hand, EU countries <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws-125679">contribute to the depletion of fish stocks across West Africa</a>. </p>
<p>Countries around the Gulf of Guinea also have to <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-states-dont-prioritise-maritime-security-heres-why-they-should-77685">increase their efforts</a>. Laws regulating maritime operations are often deliberately opaque, disguising a lack of enforcement capacity and enabling corruption. Increasing transparency would highlight shortcomings and problems caused by insecurity at sea –- somewhat embarrassing for any government, but necessary to address these issues.</p>
<p>Recent efforts in Nigeria, including a large conference in October that led <a href="https://globalmaritimesecurityconf.com/2019/10/11/communique-for-the-global-maritime-security-conference-2019/">to the Abuja Declaration</a>, are a step in the right direction. The declaration highlighted shortcomings of countries around the Gulf of Guinea related to ocean governance and law enforcement at sea. Concrete actions have to follow.</p>
<p>More transparency could also help to improve relationships between the maritime industry and security agencies in the region. Lack of trust and limited cooperation have often hindered thorough investigations, feeding a simple narrative of piracy without a broader look at other maritime security challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk Siebels works as a Senior Analyst for Risk Intelligence, specialising in maritime security issues in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in West and Central Africa.</span></em></p>Feeding a simple narrative of piracy without a broader look at other maritime security challenges hinders progress in dealing with it.Dirk Siebels, PhD (Maritime Security), University of GreenwichLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255922019-10-27T07:57:32Z2019-10-27T07:57:32ZNigeria’s border closure has implications for Africa’s economic integration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298698/original/file-20191025-173548-1z8y5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The border closure has affected goods from other West African countries</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria recently partially closed its border with Benin in an effort to stem the smuggling of rice. It then <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/nigeria-trade/update-1-nigerias-land-borders-closed-to-all-goods-customs-chief-idUSL5N2706CO">went on to close its land borders</a> to the movement of all goods from Benin, Niger and Cameroon, effectively banning trade flows with its neighbours.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.africanews.com/2019/10/18/why-african-nations-close-borders-nigeria-sudan-rwanda-kenya-eritrea/">Border closures are not new in Africa</a>. But Nigeria’s actions raise important concerns about the seriousness and prospects of regional integration in Africa. </p>
<p>Nigeria acted just three months after it had signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. With 55 member countries, a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion and a total population of 1.2 billion, the agreement will create the world’s largest free trade area. Its aim is to promote intra-Africa trade, which is abysmally low at <a href="https://www.afdb.org/fr/news-and-events/intra-african-trade-is-key-to-sustainable-development-african-economic-outlook-17022">16%</a>.</p>
<p>To restrict trade flows so shortly after this momentous feat is a major blow to integration efforts. It also shows how unprepared African countries might be for free trade. It’s hard to see how the free trade deal can increase intra-Africa trade to 60% by 2022, as <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/36085-doc-qa_cfta_en_rev15march.pdf">projected</a> , when it is being undermined from the start. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-work-lies-ahead-to-make-africas-new-free-trade-area-succeed-118135">More work lies ahead to make Africa's new free trade area succeed</a>
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<p>These early trade tensions between Nigeria and its neighbours are hardly surprising. They underlie some of the fundamental problems that must be addressed before cordial free trade can succeed on the continent.</p>
<p>In the case of Nigeria, Africa <a href="https://www.tralac.org/resources/our-resources/13595-nigeria-intra-africa-trade-and-tariff-profile.html">accounts</a> for only 13% of its exports and 4% of its imports. These statistics probably underestimate the true volume of trade between Nigeria and its neighbours. But they show that Africa is a dispensable market. </p>
<h2>Border closure</h2>
<p>Nigeria’s economy declined in 2015 and further <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/NGA">contracted</a> by 1.6% in 2016 . This was largely due to a worldwide drop in the price of crude oil in <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/12/08/why-the-oil-price-is-falling">2014</a>. The country has since fallen on hard times. Foreign direct investment inflows have plunged by <a href="https://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/FDI%20Statistics/FDI-Statistics.aspx">55%</a> . There have also been shortages of foreign exchange which have put the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-currency/nigerian-naira-tumbles-30-percent-after-peg-removed-idUSKCN0Z61F7">Naira</a> in a tailspin, causing the government to implement stringent foreign exchange controls.</p>
<p>Crude oil accounts for over <a href="http://www.nationalplanning.gov.ng/images/docs/ERGP%20%20CLEAN%20COPY.pdf">95% </a>of Nigeria’s total exports and <a href="http://www.nationalplanning.gov.ng/images/docs/ERGP%20%20CLEAN%20COPY.pdf">90%</a> of its foreign exchange earnings. This shows that Nigeria has neglected other sectors of the economy.</p>
<p>The recent oil crisis highlighted the need for the country to diversify and restructure its economy. The result was increased attention being accorded the agriculture sector, which had declined significantly since the late 1960s. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s 2017 <a href="http://www.nationalplanning.gov.ng/images/docs/ERGP%20%20CLEAN%20COPY.pdf">Economic Recovery and Growth Plan</a> aimed to deepen investments in agriculture and increase the sector’s contribution to economic growth from 5% in 2017 to 8.4% by 2020. The idea is to revive domestic farming and save on food imports (over $22 billion a year).</p>
<p>It is this national plan that precipitated the border closure. The government wants to protect domestic farmers from cheap imported foodstuff. </p>
<p>While Nigerian rice farmers are happy about their government’s actions, there are concerns about whether domestic food production can meet domestic demand. In 2017, demand for rice in Nigeria reached <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-14/usda-sees-nigeria-rice-imports-increasing-to-3-4m-tons-in-2019">6.7 million tons</a>, almost double the 3.7 million tons produced domestically. </p>
<p>Since the border closure, the price of a 50 kilogram bag of rice has <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/border-closure-leaves-rice-loving-nigerians-steaming/ar-AAHwRo1">increased</a> from 9,000 naira ($24) to 22,000 naira ($61). </p>
<p>This is good for the farmers. But it is hurting consumers.</p>
<h2>Oil exports and fuel imports</h2>
<p>Then there is the bigger problem of government-subsidised petroleum being smuggled out of Nigeria and sold in neighbouring countries. </p>
<p>World Bank <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EP.PMP.SGAS.CD">data</a> show that between 2010 and 2016, the average pump price of petrol was $0.52 per litre in Nigeria, $1.01 in Benin, $1.14 in Cameroun and 1.04 in Niger. <a href="https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/">Current data</a> show that petrol is sold at $0.40 per litre in Nigeria and at $0.91 and $1.07 in Benin and Cameroon respectively. </p>
<p>The price difference creates the incentive to smuggle petrol out of Nigeria.<br>
Nigeria’s largest export is crude oil, and its largest import is refined oil. Domestic refineries are reportedly operating well below their capacity, causing fuel imports to average <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.VAL.FUEL.ZS.UN?locations=NG&view=chart">29%</a> of total imports over the past three years. Roughly 90% of fuel in Nigeria is imported, and all of it is subsidised. Last year, the subsidy bill was estimated to reach <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201810150083.html">$3.85 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Smuggling fuel out amounts to the use of public resources to subsidise neighbouring countries. Since the border closure, reports suggest that the delivery of fuel in Nigeria has dropped by <a href="https://www.voanews.com/africa/nigerias-land-borders-closed-all-goods-customs-chief-says">20%</a> and sales by <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-10-22-00-border-closure-has-mixed-impact-for-nigerias-economy">12.7%</a>. </p>
<p>This suggests that the demand for fuel in Nigeria is high because some of it is bought and smuggled out.</p>
<h2>Why the border closure is worrying</h2>
<p>African countries have different economic configurations and strategic priorities. The huge number of diverse countries within the free trade area isn’t going to make things easy.</p>
<p>Indeed, free trade has its benefits, but it also has costs. Nigeria’s bid to protect a declining rice farming industry and save foreign exchange has led to protectionism that defies the principles of a free trade area. </p>
<p>The African Union (AU) has been muted on the issue of the border closures. This might be because it does not yet have detailed institutional arrangements for settling disputes within the free trade area. </p>
<p>Another factor might be that it has been quiet because Nigeria is involved. As Africa’s largest economy, the AU courted it earnestly to sign. The agreement needs Nigeria, arguably at whatever cost. </p>
<p>The regional trade bloc ECOWAS has also failed to bring Nigeria to heel. Both Nigeria and Benin are members of the <a href="https://www.ecowas.int/member-states/">bloc</a>, created in 1975. All it has done so far is to <a href="https://www.pulse.ng/news/local/ecowas-parliament-appeals-to-buhari-to-reopen-borders/513nqmk">appeal</a> for the borders to be opened. It clearly has no enforcement power.</p>
<p>Nigeria’s border closure may be a precursor. More incidents like this can be expected as the realities of free trade kick in. Some countries will lose, others will gain. </p>
<p>The AU needs protocols and measures to manage free trade, as well as programmes to prepare political leaders for the realities that will follow. </p>
<p>The free trade area should not be a mere symbol. It must be fully understood and appreciated for it to succeed.</p>
<p>The Nigeria border closure must be resolved as soon as possible. It is diverting attention and positive energy from matters that can promote the free trade area, such as investments in transport infrastructure, trade data capture and border protection. </p>
<p>More importantly, it is a bad precedent that could reduce other countries’ commitments to economic integration in Africa. The AU must act now, or prepare to bury the free trade deal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tahiru Azaaviele Liedong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Efforts to increase trade within the continent are being undermined from the startTahiru Azaaviele Liedong, Assistant Professor of Strategy, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1111532019-02-11T11:23:55Z2019-02-11T11:23:55ZSmuggling in the Irish borderlands – and why it could get worse after Brexit<p>Central to the fate of the Brexit negotiations is the future of the Irish border. Politicians from all sides insist they want to avoid a return to border checks once the UK leaves the EU – but they disagree on how this can be achieved. </p>
<p>The history of smuggling across the Irish border – and what already happens today – is a major issue in this disagreement, yet it has received relatively little attention. </p>
<p>In 1923, soon after the end of the Irish war of independence, British and Irish <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09670882.2017.1346049?journalCode=cisr20">customs authorities agreed</a> on 15 “approved frontier crossing points” on cross-border roads for the inspection of goods in daytime hours. At each point, a border customs checkpoint or “customs hut” was set up. Many unapproved routes crossing the border remained open to pedestrians but travelling on them by vehicle was prohibited. The exception was a small number of “concession roads” on which vehicles could travel from one part of a jurisdiction, passing through another jurisdiction, and re-enter the original one without stopping. </p>
<p>Travellers with contraband on unapproved routes risked detection with penalties enforced by customs patrols. Smuggling became a widespread feature of borderland life between the 1920s and 1960s as borderlanders and those from further afield sought to avoid paying duty on goods bought on the other side of the border.</p>
<p>This period is replete with <a href="http://www.irishborderlands.com/living/smuggling/index.html">tales of small-time, domestic smuggling</a> – tea and butter concealed beneath a petticoat in wartime, whiskey and a turkey beneath a heavy overcoat at Christmas time. Even commercial smuggling stories, usually involving the transportation of animal livestock in some unusual way, were told to generate amusement, even admiration, rather than outrage. </p>
<p>Northern Ireland’s Troubles, beginning in 1969, suppressed smuggling activities because many unapproved routes were closed or blown-up by the British security forces. For many people, the presence of British Army checkpoints at approved crossing points also provided a sufficient disincentive for cross-border travel.</p>
<h2>An end to border checks</h2>
<p>The launch of the European single market on January 1, 1993 – to provide free movement of goods, services, people and capital within the European Union – made border customs checkpoints redundant because import duties on goods were no longer applied. But excise duties on fuel, alcohol and tobacco remained.</p>
<p>Smuggling across the border then became a highly profitable, niche activity that was the preserve of well-organised gangs who have largely concentrated on smuggling tobacco and fuel. The smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes – manufactured in Eastern Europe and Asia – into Ireland and across the border was <a href="https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/cross-border-organised-crime-assessment-2018.PDF">identified</a> in 2018 as a significant threat by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). </p>
<p>In March 2018, an <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/gardai-uncover-louth-factory-capable-of-producing-250000-illicit-cigarettes-per-hour-832695.html">illicit tobacco factory</a> manufacturing cigarettes from raw tobacco destined for the UK market was discovered in County Louth, south of the border. Fuel smuggling also remains a significant issue despite the success of HMRC’s anti-fraud strategy which contributed to the <a href="https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/cross-border-organised-crime-assessment-2018.PDF">shrinking of the Northern Ireland illicit diesel market</a> share from 19% in 2005-6 to 6% in 2016-17. </p>
<h2>Post-Brexit opportunities for smugglers</h2>
<p>It is entirely possible that the activities of such organised smuggling operations could be turbo-charged by a no-deal Brexit which would bring with it import and export duties between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and regulatory divergence for a wide range of commodities. The golden rule of smuggling is that where there is a difference in the price of a commodity, or it is in short supply on either side of a border, smugglers will seek to step in and make a profit. The organised and experienced smugglers are the most likely candidates to reap the illicit rewards.</p>
<p>An upsurge in smuggling would be facilitated by the most extensive cross-border road network in Europe. Officially, there are <a href="https://www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/infrastructure/border-crossing-joint-report-final_0.pdf">208 cross-border roads</a> on the island, nearly twice as many as those crossing the EU’s entire eastern external frontier. A security response to that upsurge would be inevitable. One possible retrograde step could be to close scores of the secondary cross-border roads that were <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/tpp/pap/2000/00000028/00000003/art00007">reopened in the 1990s</a> with the support of EU funding. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-eu-played-a-key-role-in-smoothing-relations-between-london-and-dublin-60657">How the EU played a key role in smoothing relations between London and Dublin</a>
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<p>Technology could also be deployed. Motion sensors, scanners, and infra-red and surveillance cameras could be erected on border crossings. But they could also be knocked down in the dead of night. A 2018 <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/brexit/Brexitfilestore/Filetoupload,780606,en.pdf">survey</a> conducted in the central border region found that a majority of the 600 respondents claimed they would not accept border control technology even if it was unmanned and not at the border.</p>
<p>Mobile security patrols along the unwieldy 500km of the Irish border would be almost irresistible, not least to help protect vulnerable customs officials and agrifood inspectors working in isolated border terrain. Such an introduction is made more likely by the fact that the peace and openness of the borderlands for 20 years, courtesy of European integration and the Irish peace process, has led to the <a href="https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/loss-of-more-than-40-of-border-stations-prompts-questions-over-future-policing-of-eu-uk-frontier">closure of 40%</a> of police stations on either side of the border. So it’s also likely that new security personnel would be drafted in from outside and would be unfamiliar with the area, unknown to borderlanders, and characterised by them as “nameless strangers”. Alienation and antagonism would seep into the borderlands as a result.</p>
<p>Chiefs of police on both sides of the border are acutely aware of potential post-Brexit challenges. These difficulties are posed not only by the possible return of alienation, antagonism, and by the likely strengthening of politically-motivated “dissident” Irish republicanism, but also by well-organised, cross-border smugglers motivated by profit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathal McCall received funding from the European Commission (FP7). </span></em></p>The history of smuggling across the Irish border.Cathal McCall, Professor of Politics and International Studies, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/980932018-06-15T09:39:37Z2018-06-15T09:39:37ZIllegal trade in antiquities: a scourge that has gone on for millennia too long<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223191/original/file-20180614-32304-xbs128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Looting of artefacts has always been a sign of military might or economic power. Over millennia, conquering generals would take away with them trophies to adorn their cities. In more recent centuries, the wealthy upper classes would make “grand tours” of classical sites and acquire – through whatever means – anything from vases to statues to entire temple friezes to show off at home. Owning a piece of antiquity was seen as demonstrating wealth, a love of ancient culture and, ultimately, one’s own distinction: having things that nobody else could have. </p>
<p>At least this is what the looters thought. We should now all know the most apt way to describe this dubious form of collection – and it’s a word that has historical resonance: vandalism. </p>
<p>So many antiquities were stolen that they fill massive imperial museums in many of the world’s capital cities: the British museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the Istanbul museum. These institutions continue to hold on to national treasures of other countries, claiming that they are international museums keeping the heritage of the world and making it available to everyone. </p>
<p>So it is with the Parthenon Marbles – one of the most <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/03-04/parthenon-sculptures-british-museum-controversy/">controversial acts of vandalism of them all</a> – held in the British Museum in London after being dubiously “acquired” by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin in 1801, less than three decades before the independence of Athens from Ottoman rule.</p>
<p>The UK’s opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, recently stated that a Labour government would return the marbles to Greece. In <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/corbyn-return-elgin-marbles-greece-british-museum-a8381681.html">a statement on June 3</a> he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As with anything stolen or taken from occupied or colonial possession – including artefacts looted from other countries in the past – we should be engaged in constructive talks with the Greek government about returning the sculptures’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The traditional position for the British government on the Parthenon marbles is that it is up to the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/news_and_press/press_releases/2015/unesco_mediation_proposal.aspx">trustees of the British Museum to decide</a> on the return of any artefacts in its collection. But, as the government is a key funder of the museum, it can surely wield a powerful influence on trustees’ decisions.</p>
<p>So the marbles have remained in London. And the antiquities trade is still going strong – not only depriving countries of their heritage, but, which is worse, depriving the world of the information that could be extracted with appropriate systematic excavation and reducing the artefacts into mere art pieces that can only be enjoyed in a stale museum context and not as both rich symptoms and teachers of the history of mankind. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, there is evidence that revenue from the sale of stolen antiquities looted in Syria and Iraq has been <a href="https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/Bogdanos.Paper_.pdf">used to fund Islamic State</a> and other terrorist groups – so one illegal activity has been connected to many others.</p>
<h2>Fighting the trade</h2>
<p>How are we to stop this trade, which is a scourge of historical knowledge, local pride and international sovereignty. The illicit trade in antiquities – and almost all trade of antiquities is illegal in some sense, as it almost always breaks the law of the source countries – is considered to be a common crime. In many countries there are police departments that are specialised in this type of crime. For example, the UK has the Metropolitan Police’s art and antiques unit and in the US the FBI has a 16-person <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/art-theft">Art Crime Team</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Mask of Warka, one of the earliest representations of a human face, was recovered in Iraq after being stolen from the National Museum in Baghdad during the 2003 US invasion.</span>
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<p>In the UK, “Operation Bullrush” by the art and antiques unit successfully prosecuted dealer <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/egyptian-treasures-smuggler-is-jailed-1256685.html">Jonathan Tokeley-Parry</a> in 1997 for smuggling priceless antiquities out of Egypt (he was also sentenced in absentia in Egypt). Meanwhile in 2002 a US court <a href="http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2017111000">convicted Frederick Schultz</a>, the former president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art, under the 1934 National Stolen Property Act (NSPA) of conspiracy to receive antiquities stolen from Egypt. </p>
<p>Meanwhile various countries are signing memoranda of understanding (MOU) to control the importation of antiquities and to coordinate efforts to prevent smuggling. In 2017 the US concluded an <a href="https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/ac-news/after-long-delay-us-and-egypt-sign-historic-mou-restricting-endangered-heritage-from-american-import/">MOU with Egypt</a>. These arrangements are backed by the <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">1970 UNESCO Paris convention</a> which prohibits the sale and purchase of ancient art that had not been in circulation before the ratification of that treaty by each country.</p>
<p>But most of these measures and stakeholders focus on the final destination of the illicit antiquities, the collectors or museums – and this isn’t enough. There need to be measures to account for all stages of the illicit trade of antiquities: from excavation to the first and second intermediary (the dealers), to those transporting it from one country to another, to the final purchaser, the collector.</p>
<h2>Working together</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://heritagemanagement.org/">Heritage Management Organisation</a> (HERITΛGE), a project associated with the University of Kent, has been working to create a comprehensive strategy for the illicit antiquities trade, which aims to combine the knowledge and efforts of multiple stakeholders: scientists, local communities, police, collectors, legislators and the public.</p>
<p>To prevent illicit excavations police forces need to deploy the latest technological advances such as satellite surveillance, pattern recognition and forensic science. But they need the assistance of local communities in areas of archaeological significance who need to become more positive as stakeholders in the protection of their heritage.</p>
<p>Collectors should not all be seen as the enemy – but as potentially powerful stakeholders that need to be engaged and trained in the fight against the illegal antiquities trade. Many collectors are careful in how they buy – but others are simply ignorant of how to buy more responsibly. Collectors have insights and valuable information on clandestine networks, art dealers and their potentially rigorous verification (or not) of the legal standing of each piece in their own collections. With the cooperation of the Greek Ministry of Culture, HERITΛGE organised the first ever meeting between collectors, the ministry and the police in Greece. Much more needs to be done in this area.</p>
<p>It’s all very well having international treaties to control the antiquities trade, but first they must be understood by all the relevant stakeholders. HERITΛGE has published one of the few commentaries on <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/cultural-property-law-and-restitution">restitution in both European and international Law</a>. </p>
<p>It is imperative that volunteers are trained on how to check the provenance of items for sale and on how to use existing databases to “catch” clandestine or stolen pieces. One example is academic <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/christos-tsirogiannis-on-the-trail-of-the-tomb-raiders-95tspm0f8">Christos Tsirogiannis</a> who had had some success in tracking down looted antiquities and ensuring they are returned to their country of origin. </p>
<p>But, for this strategy to bear fruit, all the relevant stakeholders need to collaborate with an open mind and then maybe there is a chance that we’ll be able to bring an end to millennia of the despoiling of so many countries’ national heritage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evangelos Kyriakidis directs the Heritage Management Organization. He is a Senior Lecturer in Aegean Prehistory in the University of Kent.</span></em></p>What’s needed is a comprehensive international strategy to combat the illicit trade in antiquities.Evangelos Kyriakidis, Senior Lecturer in Aegean Prehistory, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/965562018-05-22T19:14:34Z2018-05-22T19:14:34ZHow far can Europe push back its borders? The case of France in Niger<p>Migration control is now “high politics” in Europe and a priority for the EU. For example, on May 2, 2018, the European Commission proposed that the budget for the management of external borders, migration and asylum – set at 13 billion euros for the period 2014-2020 – be raised to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/budget-proposals-migration-border-management-may2018_en.pdf">34.9 billion euros</a>. </p>
<p>The main goal is to stem migration flows by displacing the border as far as possible from EU territory. In this context, it may be worthwhile to analyse the initiatives of the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has vowed to weigh on EU decisions. What solutions does he propose and how can we assess them?</p>
<h2>Hotspots in Niger</h2>
<p>On July 27 2017, recently having been elected president, Macron spoke during a <a href="http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/discours-d-emmanuel-macron-a-la-ceremonie-de-naturalisation-a-la-prefecture-du-loiret/">naturalisation ceremony in Orléans</a>. He announced that France would create “hotspots” in the Sahel-Sahara region to sort out potential refugees and “economic migrants” and select the happy few who would be allowed to come to France to apply for asylum. These would established first in Agadez (Niger), and Chad, later possibly in Mali and Libya.</p>
<p>Macron stated that “people should live happily in their country of birth” and denounced “gullible” migrants manipulated by criminal networks who risk their lives in Libya or when crossing the Mediterranean Sea to come to Europe, yet were unlikely to ever get refugee status.</p>
<p>In so doing, he failed to acknowledge that leaving one’s country is a right enshrined in international law since 1948 – article 13 of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, which states that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Moreover, African states are sovereign and not mandated to prevent emigration to Europe.</p>
<p>Macron’s speech also misconstrues migration dynamics in Africa. As noted in 2017 by the <a href="https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/gmdac_data_briefing_series_issue_11.pdf">International Organisation for Migration</a> (IOM) and <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017_Highlights.pdf">EUDESA</a>, Africans primarily move within the continent, where they constitute 80% of the 18 million migrants.</p>
<p>There are 9 million Africans in Europe compared to 20 million European citizens who moved within Europe itself. The numbers contradict alarmist projections, including that by Steven Smith, recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/demographie-africaine-et-migrations-entre-alarmisme-et-deni-94765">analysed</a> in The Conversation.</p>
<p>It thus seems relevant to explain why Macron wants to sort out <em>bona fide</em> and <em>mala fide</em> migrants in Agadez and assess the implications.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219740/original/file-20180521-14950-rzu1fc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mixed migrations routes, Niger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Mixed_migration_routes_Niger_EN_0.pdf">ReliefWeb/IOM</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Libyan turn</h2>
<p>Since the <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/tam_fr.htm">1999 EU Tampere summit</a>, the EU has relied on certain countries bordering the Mediterranean to contain unwanted migrants. States like France and Italy wanted to reinstate Libya in this role if it could serve as a <a href="http://www.ieee.es/en/Galerias/fichero/docs_marco/2018/DIEEEM01-2018_Migraciones_Europa_Niger-Libia_IreneDiazdeAguilar_ENGLISH.pdf">buffer state</a>. In 2008, negotiations for the <a href="https://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/publications/wp-29-10">EU-Libya framework agreement</a> on migration were launched.</p>
<p>But in 2011 France called for a military intervention by an international coalition to oust Libyan <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12688033">leader Muhammad Gaddafi</a>. The ensuing chaos had dire consequences. In 2012, looking for a quick fix, a diplomatic mission called <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/csdp-missions-operations/eucap-sahel-niger_fr">EUCAP</a> was sent south of Libya, in Niger, with an annual budget of <a href="https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_km/10530/EUCAP%20Sahel%20Niger:%20mission%20extended,%20budget%20agreed,%20mandate%20amended">26 million euros</a> with the idea that it would become, in effect, the new EU border. By 2016, the EU funded an IOM <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-niger-opens-migrant-information-office-agadez">information office in Agadez</a> whose role was to persuade sub-Saharan nationals to return home if they could.</p>
<h2>Remote control policy</h2>
<p>Macron’s idea of a <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2018/05/03/au-niger-les-rescapes-du-nouveau-poste-frontiere-de-l-europe_1647600">hotspot in Agadez</a> is thus a unilateral initiative but also a continuation of the EU policy. It is part of a “remote control” policy established in the 1990s to deter the arrival of migrants on European soil.</p>
<p>Policy instruments have included visas, carrier sanctions, outsourcing bordering to transit and source countries, and ultimately the establishment of migrant camps in Italy and Greece. It thus reduces migration to a “problem” whose solution is a question of logistics. Setting up a centre in Agadez is typical of this technical view.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Macron tried to showcase a different aspect of France’s migration policies, stating that the country would welcome 3,000 refugees stranded in Niger and Chad by 2019.</p>
<p>In November 2017, the French asylum office known as OFPRA interviewed 72 persons pre-selected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Niamey (Niger) and 25 were allowed to come to <a href="http://confrontations.org/la-revue/les-missions-de-protection-de-lofpra-du-proche-orient-au-sahel/">France</a>. The migrants were mainly from the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, Eritrea, and Sudan. OFPRA officers came back in February 2018 to interview an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/africa/france-africa-migrants-asylum-niger.html">additional 84 persons</a>.</p>
<h2>Agadez is no haven</h2>
<p>Agadez, a market town of 125,000 inhabitants and once a tourist destination, has for decades been a transit city for many <a href="http://www.ieee.es/en/Galerias/fichero/docs_marco/2018/DIEEEM01-2018_Migraciones_Europa_Niger-Libia_IreneDiazdeAguilar_ENGLISH.pdf">seasonal workers or refugees heading to Libya</a>.</p>
<p>After the fall of Gaddafi, the town became an important smuggling hub. The area north of Agadez is controlled by the Toubou clan and the low-paid Nigerian policemen accept money from <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/IOM-The-economic-impact-of-migration-in-Agadez.pdf">smugglers</a>. Agadez is now also a return hub for migrants escaping Libyan detention camps or turned away at the Algerian border. In early May 2018, the IOM reported that 1,500 persons from Cameroon or Guinea expelled from Algeria <a href="https://www.independent.co.ug/un-takes-1500-economic-migrants-to-niger-from-algeria/">had arrived in Agadez</a>.</p>
<p>In this complex context, reactions to the French decision to set up a “hotspot” in Agadez are mixed at best. Local authorities fear that it will attract more migrants, and according to Issouf Maha, representing the Agadez regional executive, only a few of those hoping to go to France will be accepted. While migrants usually only stay a week or two and are welcome as consumers by local businesses, the longer presence of those who are turned down by French authorities could prove strenuous on resources such as <a href="http://afrique.lepoint.fr/actualites/migrants-agadez-sous-pression-des-hotspots-de-macron-18-10-2017-2165444_2365.php">water and electricity</a>.</p>
<p>Civil-society actors, including human rights activist <a href="http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20170515-niger-activiste-societe-civile-arrete-agadez">Rachid Kollo</a> of the <em>Cadre d’action pour la démocratie et les droits de l’homme</em>, are also angry that local officials were not consulted. The decision to create the hotspot came directly from President Issoufou Mahamadou, whom Kollo considers to be <a href="http://afrique.lepoint.fr/actualites/migrants-agadez-sous-pression-des-hotspots-de-macron-18-10-2017-2165444_2365.php">Macron’s vassal</a>.</p>
<p>Local actors think the French hotspot will bring more problems than it will solve, and also raises broader issues such as democratic legitimacy. One major question regards French interference in African affairs.</p>
<h2>A clash of values</h2>
<p>The French hotspot is indeed a perfect illustration of the lack of acknowledgement of African states’ sovereignty.</p>
<p>If Europeans can move within the EU, why shouldn’t African citizens be able to move within their own region? In fact, in 1979, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted a protocol on the <a href="http://documentation.ecowas.int/download/en/legal_documents/protocols/PROTOCOL%20RELATING%20TO%20%20FREE%20MOVEMENT%20OF%20PERSONS.pdf">“free movement of persons, residence and establishment”</a> and an additional protocol in 1986 that implies that the citizens of the fifteen ECOWAS member states who travel and stay in Agadez do so freely and legally. ECOWAS migrants who will not be selected to go to France by French authorities should thus not be detained or expelled from Niger.</p>
<p>Besides, the French attitude toward some populations fleeing to Agadez is ambiguous. For instance, Sudanese fleeing an internationally recognised <a href="http://www.coalitionfortheicc.org/cases/omar-albashir">criminal regime</a> are stopped at the border by Janjaweed militiamen who participated in <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2016/09/29/hello-right-hand-meet-left-hand">war crimes in Darfur</a>. They are now part of the official border authority in Sudan under the name Rapid Support Forces and are even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/27/eu-urged-to-end-cooperation-with-sudan-after-refugees-whipped-and-deported">supported by the EU</a>. In 2017, some of these Sudanese border guards even came to detention centres for irregular migrants in France to <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/10/19/en-collaborant-avec-khartoum-la-belgique-et-la-france-offrent-une-insupportable-reconnaissance-aux-auteurs-du-premier-genocide-du-xxie-siecle_5203425_3232.html">look for regime dissidents</a>. So what will happen to the Sudanese who apply to go seek asylum in France at the Agadez “hotspot”?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MX1Wm1jo5-c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption"><em>The Devil Came on Horseback</em>, a documentary on crimes committed during Darfur war by the Janjaweed militia, many of whom now work with border patrols (BBC).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While there is little debate about the fact that “something needs to be done” given the number of people on the road seeking a haven in the Sahel and Sahara region, the question is on which premises and how? In the end, a French “hotspot” centre in Agadez is not so much a logistical solution as the epitome of the attitude of EU member states in relation to Africa: diplomatic condescension, collaboration with dictatorial regimes and an ignorance of local stakeholders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Guiraudon ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Displacing the EU’s border as far as possible from Europe: is this really a solution to mitigate the flow of migrants?Virginie Guiraudon, Professeur en sciences politiques, Sciences-Po, USPC, Fellow 2011-IMéRA d’Aix-Marseille, Réseau français des instituts d’études avancées (RFIEA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/383232018-01-04T12:52:26Z2018-01-04T12:52:26ZWhy it’s so hard to keep track of ships that get up to no good<p>South Korea recently <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42527294">seized two oil tankers</a> that it says were illegally transferring oil to North Korean ships at sea. One was registered in Hong Kong, while the other flew the Panamanian flag. The <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-02/trafigura-denies-involvement-in-illicit-north-korea-oil-transfer">ensuing fallout</a> has focused mainly on who ordered the transaction and chartered the ship – but by the standards of North Korea’s dubious shipping transactions, this is far from the most complicated. </p>
<p>North Korea is adept at exploiting a serious problem with maritime security: it’s often hard to even identify ships in the first place. Ashore, government agencies issue a registration number and plates for every vehicle, but when it comes to shipping, things are very different. </p>
<p>Although it’s widely thought that every ship normally flies the flag of the state where she is registered with a respective number and name, North Korea’s shipping company has many times <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31635564">reflagged and renamed ships</a> to evade the UN-imposed arms embargo. By changing their identity, the ships escape the “blacklist” database, giving North Korea a better chance of procuring and/or transferring embargoed items related to the country’s missile and nuclear programme. Given the North’s ongoing nuclear activities, the international security implications are obvious.</p>
<p>In the shipping industry, ship owners can register their ships with countries other than the country of ownership with what are commonly known as Open Registries or <a href="http://www.itfseafarers.org/defining-focs.cfm">Flags of Convenience</a> (FOC). Various <a href="http://shipregistrationagency.com/">agencies</a> exist to help companies or individuals with registering, reflagging or renaming their ships. FOCs <a href="http://www.itfseafarers.org/what_are_focs.cfm">come with various benefits</a> for ship owners: cheap registration fees, low or no taxes, and freedom to employ cheap labour. </p>
<p>But there are downsides. Some FOCs have poor safety and training standards and no limitations in terms of the crew’s nationalities. And there are other problems, too – including more dangerous ones.</p>
<h2>Through the cracks</h2>
<p>A UK government <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Arms-export-controls/2014-15-Cm8935.pdf">report</a> on the scrutiny of arms exports and arms controls includes a list of approved “floating armouries”, ships used by private maritime security companies to store their weapons between transits through the Indian Ocean high-risk area, where they provide security against piracy attacks on merchant vessels.</p>
<p>The list of ships includes <a href="http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2393385&sort_comments=2">MV HADI XII</a>, flagged in Bahrain, and <a href="http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:406964/mmsi:351093000/imo:8107713/vessel:ARINA_DILBER">MV Arina Dilber</a>, flagged in Panama. In reality, these vessels both have the same IMO identification number (8107713); the two entries refer to the same ship, renamed and reflagged. </p>
<p>Identification numbers such as 8107713 are part of a <a href="http://imo.udhb.gov.tr/dosyam/EKLER/2013422121526IMOA600(15)say%C4%B1l%C4%B1karar%C4%B1.pdf">scheme</a> introduced and implemented by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in 1987. Under its measures, ships are assigned permanent identification numbers that don’t change when the ship is reflagged. Since 2002, these numbers have had to be permanently marked in a visible place on the ship’s hull or superstructure. Passenger ships must carry the marking on a horizontal surface visible from the air.</p>
<p>But even as this database clearly helps to identify reflagged and renamed vessels, as in the case of the floating armoury, there are exceptions which widen the security gap.</p>
<p>The IMO identification number scheme is <a href="http://www.imo.org/OurWork/MSAS/Pages/IMO-identification-number-scheme.aspx">mandatory</a> since 1994 for passenger ships and cargo ships of at least 100 and 300 gross tonnage respectively. But this leaves out plenty of others. For example, the two vessels responsible for the terrorist attacks against the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/12/newsid_4252000/4252400.stm">USS Cole</a> in 2000 and the French oil tanker <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2334865.stm">Limburg</a> in 2002 were not subject to the scheme.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200536/original/file-20180102-26139-vogzyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The USS Cole after the deadly 2000 bombing that killed 17 US sailors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUSS_Cole_(DDG-67)_Departs.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/USMC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Vessels engaged solely in fishing are also exempt. The <a href="http://www.ejfoundation.org/">Environmental Justice Foundation</a>, a UK-based organisation focused on investigating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, highlights the security challenge stemming from the exemption of fishing vessels from the IMO identification number scheme. It urges the international community to fill this security gap with a new global database for fishing vessels.</p>
<p>The foundation has <a href="http://www.ejfoundation.org/report/bringing-fishing-vessels-out-shadows">reported</a> on how difficult it is for coastal states, port states and <a href="http://www.fao.org/fishery/topic/166304/en">Regional Fisheries Management Organisations</a> to ascertain whether vessels landing fish or applying for fishing licenses have engaged in illicit fishing, due to the lack of this unique identification number. In West Africa in particular, it has documented how fishing boats use multiple identities, change their flags, names and radio call-signs to avoid detection and sanctions.</p>
<p>Back in 2013, the IMO decided to extend the <a href="http://www.imo.org/MediaCentre/HotTopics/assembly/Pages/default.aspx">voluntary application</a> of the ship identification number scheme to fishing vessels of 100 gross tons and above. But while it’s all very well for the IMO to be concerned about the practice of ship reflagging and renaming, concern isn’t enough. Without an updated maritime security governance structure that works all over the world, states like North Korea will still be able to exploit this very useful and very dangerous security gap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ioannis Chapsos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Smuggling, piracy and sanctions-busting are all part of life on the ocean wave.Ioannis Chapsos, Research Fellow in Maritime Security, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816272017-08-15T14:01:17Z2017-08-15T14:01:17ZHeroin trafficking through South Africa: why here and why now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181408/original/file-20170808-22982-1by1v5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An addict prepares heroin in Lamu on the east coast of Kenya.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Goran Tomasevic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A series of large <a href="http://mobserver.co.za/69733/middelburg-situated-popular-drug-route/">heroin seizures</a> have been made in South Africa since 2016, but the country is just one of the pitstops on Africa’s heroin highway.</p>
<p>The African continent is geographically situated between opium production and consumer states. </p>
<p>Heroin reaches South Africa via the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-21-from-afghanistan-to-africa-heroin-trafficking-in-east-africa-and-the-indian-ocean/#.WYHGVYTfqUk">southern heroin trafficking route</a> originating in Afghanistan, where the overwhelming majority of global opium is <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/index.html">produced</a>. </p>
<p>The route goes through Pakistan and Iran to their coastlines, known as the Makran Coast. From there, the drug is loaded onto dhows which cross the Indian Ocean to transit states in either Africa or Asia, from where it is rerouted to its final destinations, mostly in Europe. The second phase of the journey can be by sea, land or air. </p>
<p>The dhows are large vessels often used for fishing explorations and able to undertake long journeys.</p>
<p>To avoid detection, the dhows either dock at island ports or remain out at sea. The heroin is then collected by smaller boats and taken ashore. The East and Southern African coastline has many inconspicuous islands to serve this purpose, which was also one of the factors luring cocaine traffickers to the cocaine plagued country of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/09/drugstrade">Guinea Bissau</a>.</p>
<p>The coastline from Kenya to South Africa is long, with porous borders, weak maritime surveillance, weak law enforcement capacity and corrupt officials willing to turn a blind eye. There is also a large diaspora connecting different regions to East and Southern Africa. </p>
<p>These factors attract traffickers and mean that managing the heroin trade in South Africa is fraught with challenges. Chief among them is the transnational nature of the heroin trade, the likely increase in local heroin use and the ability of the networks who run the trade to outsmart and outperform regional law enforcement entities and their limited resources.</p>
<h2>Changing circumstances, changing routes</h2>
<p>There are three primary heroin trafficking routes out of Afghanistan; the Balkan Route, the northern route and the southern route. The <a href="http://www.adriaticinstitute.org/?action=article&id=32">Balkan route</a>, stretching overland from Afghanistan to the Balkan countries and Western Europe, has experienced the bulk of heroin trafficking. </p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21639560-east-african-states-are-being-undermined-heroin-smuggling-smack-track">law enforcement</a> efforts as well as conflicts have pushed some of the trade away from the Balkan route to the southern route and maritime trafficking, where law enforcement is mostly absent. Despite an increase in the southern route’s popularity with traffickers, it remains the least used of the three. </p>
<p>In 2010, a surge in large maritime heroin seizures in East Africa first highlighted Africa’s role in the southern route, especially the use of Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar as <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-21-from-afghanistan-to-africa-heroin-trafficking-in-east-africa-and-the-indian-ocean/#.WYHGVYTfqUk">transit zones</a>. </p>
<p>In 2014, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australian-warship-seizes-a-tonne-of-heroin-worth-159-million-in-record-drug-bust-9291302.html">1,032 kg</a> of heroin was seized from a dhow off Mombasa. It was the largest ever seizure of the drug outside of Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries. </p>
<p>As seizures have continued, international attention and law enforcement efforts in and around East Africa have increased. This is probably what caused traffickers to increasingly turn to landing points in Southern Africa. </p>
<p>South Africa is attractive for other reasons too. Drug traffickers are able to exploit the country’s efficient financial and transport infrastructure.</p>
<h2>Indian Ocean heroin trafficking</h2>
<p>Law enforcement on the southern route is mainly concerned with disrupting maritime heroin shipments before they reach the shore. The biggest law enforcement effort has come from the <a href="https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/ctf-150-maritime-security/">Combined Maritime Forces Combined Task Force 150</a>. </p>
<p>It is a fleet of 31 international navies mandated to patrol the Western Indian Ocean to disrupt terrorist activities and financing. This includes disrupting heroin trafficking on the high seas. Between 2013 and 2016 the force seized <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2016/November/indian-ocean_-colombo-declaration-adopted-to-coordinate-anti-drugs-efforts.html">9.3 tons</a> of heroin. </p>
<p>The task force patrols a vast <a href="https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/ctf-150-maritime-security/">area</a> – 2.5 million square miles across the high seas, extending as far as Mozambique. South Africa must, therefore, rely on its own navy and intelligence to detect shipments that outwit the Combined Task Force. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181385/original/file-20170808-21888-1h9cem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A heroin trafficking dhow seized in Tanzanian waters, docked in Dar es Salaam next to the ferry to Zanzibar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Carina Bruwer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the biggest obstacle to exposing the criminal networks running the southern route has been the Combined Task Force’s lack of jurisdiction to arrest heroin trafficking crews in international waters. This has resulted in the practice of the Combined Task Force throwing the heroin overboard and setting the crew and their vessel free. </p>
<p>If heroin can be seized in territorial waters, the national laws of the country apply and prosecutions can follow. </p>
<h2>Land based seizures in South Africa</h2>
<p>It is likely that dhows are only dropping off heroin as far as Mozambique because they would attract suspicion if they travelled as far as South Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/tocta/TOCTA_Report_2010_low_res.pdf">Land based seizures</a> in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique have shown that heroin is broken up when it reaches the shore and then transported onward by road. This explains the seizure of smaller amounts of heroin being transported in cars and trucks from Mozambique to South Africa. </p>
<p>A recent heroin seizure in Overberg in the coastal province of the Western Cape has provided new insights into what researchers and law enforcement have only been able to speculate - that southern route heroin is also being transported to and from East and Southern Africa in containers. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/world/asia/sri-lanka-seizes-550-pounds-of-heroin.html">Containerised heroin seizures</a> have been made elsewhere along the southern route.</p>
<p>The heroin was found on a wine farm, hidden among boxes of wine intended for container shipment to <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2017-07-08-r292m-heroin-plot-collapsed-under-weight-of-cape-wine/">Europe</a>. This finally offers a more concrete link to container trafficking on the southern route, which would be harder to detect than dhows. </p>
<p>But lots of questions remain unanswered. These include: where did the shipment come from? Was it a single large shipment which entered at a harbour or smaller shipments that were consolidated on the wine farm? If so, which overland route was used? Was corruption involved? Is local heroin use increasing due to increased trafficking through the region? </p>
<h2>What needs to happen?</h2>
<p>Rooting out corruption and minimising the pool of potential small scale traffickers could be a good place to start. But the problem is much bigger than South Africa and encompasses many elements that increased law enforcement can’t address. One factor, for example, is increased local heroin consumption.</p>
<p>To understand, and respond to heroin trafficking networks there needs to be a coordinated effort that brings together production, transit and consumer states.</p>
<p>In the meantime, South Africa needs to increase its vigilance in local ports and along borders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carina Bruwer receives funding from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and the Social Science Research Council. </span></em></p>South Africa is only one piece in a larger puzzle of the heroin trade along the continents east coast.Carina Bruwer, PhD candidate, Institute for Safety Governance and Criminology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/771252017-05-08T06:25:45Z2017-05-08T06:25:45ZA bank heist in Paraguay’s ‘wild, wild west’ reveals the dark underbelly of free trade<p>It was as brazen as it was spectacular: on April 24 2017, a commando team of bank robbers assaulted a private security company in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, making off with <a href="http://www.abc.com.py/edicion-impresa/judiciales-y-policiales/prosegur-informa-que-el-monto-robado-en-ciudad-del-este-es-de-11720255-dolares-1588251.html">US$11 million dollars</a>. </p>
<p>Some dozen operatives, whom police believe were working for the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-paraguay-violence-idUSKBN17R2E9">Brazilian organised crime group First Capital Command</a>, blew through the fortified offices of Prosegur, a company known for its fleet of armoured vehicles, before fleeing across the border into neighbouring Brazil. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.lanacion.com.ar/2016759-paraguay-robo-millones-ciudad-del-este-prosegur">heist made headlines</a> not for the relatively modest sum taken but for its dazzling Hollywood style. According to local papers, the team came armed with heavy weaponry and explosives, and 15 cars were set ablaze. The robbers escaped via speedboat, crossing lake Itaipú to reach Brazil. <a href="http://www.abc.com.py/nacionales/prosegur-incautan-avioneta-1590722.html">A private getaway plane</a> was impounded by the authorities.</p>
<p>This dramatic scene fits neatly with stereotypes about Ciudad del Este, a Paraguayan commercial hub in the notorious <em>Triple Frontera</em> area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay intersect. It is one of the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1473095215598176">most active border economies of the hemisphere</a>, and Ciudad del Este is often portrayed as its lawless capital. </p>
<p>At its peak in the 1990s, Ciudad del Este allegedly moved US$10 billion per year in merchandise – more than Paraguay’s entire gross domestic product.</p>
<p>The city even featured in the 2006 blockbuster film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430357/">Miami Vice</a>, the backdrop for scenes in which smuggled documents find their way into the hands of a network of baddies. </p>
<h2>What it takes to build free trade</h2>
<p>That reputation as Paraguay’s Wild West (or, better yet, East), though perhaps well earned, is also incomplete. Ciudad del Este is, above all, a laboratory for global free trade. As anthropologist Carolyn Nordstom has found, “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=jWMbRYLMV8MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=carolyn+nordstome+global+outlaws&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=carolyn%20nordstome%20global%20outlaws&f=false">a veritable smorgasbord of goods travel these (global) circuits</a>.”</p>
<p>I spent two years (2009-2010) immersed in Ciudad del Este’s informal economy, conducting <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520287051">anthropological research</a> on credit and commerce. My research shows that, far from being ungovernable, this Paraguayan free-trade zone is built on a sophisticated legal, commercial, and financial infrastructure that has made a small group of political and business elites very, very rich.</p>
<p>Ciudad del Este has prospered because of its unique legal and economic status as a duty-free zone (<em>zona franca</em>). All sorts of consumer goods, from digital cameras and sneakers to pharmaceuticals, are imported – both legally and illegally – and sold tax-free there. </p>
<p>Even before the city was founded in 1957, trade flowed across Paraguay’s porous land and water borders with Argentina and Brazil. The 1970 “special customs zone” legislation just gave that freewheeling frontier capitalism a legal and regulatory imprimatur. </p>
<p>Today, some Paraguayans work in lucrative import-export companies and own cavernous duty-free warehouses. Many more work as small-time smugglers engaged in “ant contraband” (<em>contrabando de hormigas</em>) – walking, cycling, trucking or floating goods across the border to Brazil.</p>
<p>Shopping tourists (known locally as <em>sacoleiros</em>, or “bag carriers”, for their large satchels of goods) come from Brazil or Argentina. And many international travellers drop in to buy affordable smartphones or imported perfume while vacationing nearby at the spectacular Iguazú Falls. </p>
<p>Inside, the bustling duty-free malls of Ciudad del Este, which are advertised on billboards lining the highways on all three sides of the border, look identical to those in international airports.</p>
<h2>A brief history</h2>
<p>Ciudad del Este was the brainchild of president <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/world/americas/16cnd-stroessner.html">Alfredo Stroessner</a>, the development-minded dictator who governed Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. After decades of border disputes with neighbouring countries, Stroessner wanted to secure territorial claims on Paraguay’s eastern frontier. </p>
<p>So in 1957, he established a city there (then called Puerto Presidente Stroessner), built a highway from the capital Asunción and constructed the Friendship Bridge that now connects Paraguay and Brazil. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168181/original/file-20170506-19106-1ilmsrr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Founded in 1957, Puerto Presidente Stroessner was renamed Ciudad del Este in 1989 after Stroessner’s regime ended.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archival photos courtesy of the Municipality of Ciudad del Este</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Senate legislation created Paraguay’s first “special customs zone” there 13 years later. That 1970 bill established a ten-hectare zone that was exempt from tax and trade regulations and granted a concession to the aptly named Bussines Company SRL [sic], which included partners from Brazil, Argentina and Singapore, to operate it.</p>
<p>The area, subdivided and leased to companies that built warehouses, storage facilities and shipping outfits, became an archipelago of tax-free islands controlled by private companies that had paid for the right to operate outside the regulatory purview of the state.</p>
<p>Today, the hustle and bustle of the city has rendered the boundaries of the <em>zona franca</em> almost invisible. It took digging into the archives to discover its legal origins. </p>
<p>On December 18 1970, Paraguay’s leading newspaper, ABC Color, reported on the legislative debate about the proposed free-trade zone. Evidently, after some senators expressed doubt about the international consortium that would build and maintain it, a supporting lawmaker retorted “capital does not have nationality”. </p>
<p>An outraged editorial said that Ciudad del Este, then still under construction, was “a result of an ideal vision of the nation, created as an example of directed [national] willpower.” It worried that a big (international) conglomerate like Bussines Company SRL (which has since changed hands numerous times) would not reflect that utopian goal.</p>
<p>That concern seems prescient today. The government is not totally absent from Ciudad del Este because the duty-free zone’s legal and fiscal connective tissue hold the city together. But Ciudad del Este is largely controlled by a small group of powerful business elites, both foreign and domestic. </p>
<p>Their lucrative monopolies are what happens when free trade becomes a national ideal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167902/original/file-20170504-20192-14rsap.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Private warehouses, created by the special customs zone legislation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Municipal Archives of Ciudad del Este</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The dark underbelly of free trade</h2>
<p>Prosegur, the company targeted in last week’s dramatic heist, serves as a key conduit for these channels of free trade. </p>
<p>Just as private duty-free warehouses stockpile merchandise across the region, a private network of security companies, Prosegur among them, transits its cash. Because these are private financial channels, we have no idea how much money moves through the <em>Triple Frontera</em>.</p>
<p>The professional, quasi-military nature of the Ciudad del Este heist has led some <a href="http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/185048">political analysts in Latin America to speculate that</a> the commandos were the “disposable workforce of global intelligence operations.” In other words, multinational companies, intelligence services, and foreign gangs are hiring members of private security companies to do their dirty work.</p>
<p>Blurring the line between (ex-)military and private security gives the quip that “capital does not have a nationality” an alarming new meaning.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if Ciudad del Este were designed for just this kind of stunt. The armoured cars, specialised banks, private warehouses that comprise its free-trade framework set the stage. And its thriving black market would have made the robbers feel right at home.</p>
<p>In point of fact, it’s elite government and business interests in Paraguay and beyond who primarily profit – quite legally – from this sprawling free-trade zone. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167903/original/file-20170504-27085-u1vbk9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mona Lisa duty-free shopping mall, owned by the family of Ciudad del Este’s Mayor Sandra Zacarías-McLeod.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mayor of Ciudad del Este is part of a family business empire centred on the iconic Mona Lisa duty free shopping mall. Even Paraguay’s President Horacio Cartes has his hand in Ciudad del Este; his family controls the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/paraguay/2016-02-05/sneaking-smoke">lucrative Tabesa tobacco company</a>, which has a free-trade zone there.</p>
<p>The heist and free trade are just opposite sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Ciudad del Este is not a lawless place – not Paraguay’s Wild, Wild East. It was legislated to be what it is, a city run by private businesses and imbued with precisely the legal, regulatory, and financial systems that they need to accumulate wealth and power. </p>
<p>That setup is providing well for Paraguay’s president and the Prosegur plunderers. But the question must be asked: how is it benefiting the well-being of the rest of Ciudad del Este’s citizens?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77125/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Schuster receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, and the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI).</span></em></p>The heist and free trade are just opposite sides of the same coin.Caroline Schuster, Lecturer, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748142017-03-21T09:45:55Z2017-03-21T09:45:55ZSomali sea hijack is a warning signal: the pirates are down but not out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161522/original/image-20170320-9117-1sf8n42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Suspected Somali pirates captured by the Dutch navy working under NATO command.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Joseph Okanga</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/somali-pirates-hijack-ship-sri-lankan-crew-onboard-170314141236032.html">hijacking</a> of an oil tanker on its way to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, has sparked international attention. For almost five years nothing was heard from the Somali pirates. International naval patrols as well as self-defence measures and armed security guards on ships had, it seemed, solved the problem. </p>
<p>Between 2008 and 2012 hundreds of merchant vessels transiting the Western Indian Ocean were attacked. The area became the most dangerous water way in the world. Piracy became a threat to international trade, but also for the development of regional countries. </p>
<p>The hijacking of the Aris 13 - the first involving a large commercial vessel since autumn 2012 – begs the question: have the pirates returned?</p>
<p>When the Aris 13 was boarded by Somali hijackers and steered to the coast of Puntland, a familiar Somali style script was played out. Many commentators expected a humanitarian tragedy to unfold for the eight Sri Lankan crew on-board. Familiar questions were asked: Who would pay the ransoms? Who would lead the negotiations? Was the vessel adequately insured? </p>
<p>Similar cases in the past have led to ordeals that have lasted months, and sometimes years, for seafarers. Fortunately, the situation <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/somali-pirates-release-oil-tanker-crew-170317040141718.html">was quickly resolved</a>. The tanker was destined for Mogadishu and the oil on board was the property of a Somali businessmen who successfully negotiated the release of the vessel and crew directly with the hijackers. <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/17/africa/somali-pirate-mt-aris-13-crew-released/">No ransom</a> was paid and the vessel released. </p>
<p>But, the question must be asked - what if? What if the cargo had not been the property of a Somali? What if the ship had not been destined for a Somali port? What if innocent crew were injured or killed in the hijacking?</p>
<p>For academics, piracy experts, and naval practitioners the hijacking didn’t come as a surprise. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23340460.2015.960170">They have continued to alert</a> the international community and the shipping industry about the risk that Somali pirates will go back to their hostage and ransom routine if the opportunity presents itself. </p>
<p>In the research project Safe Seas based at Cardiff University we examine maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean. <a href="http://safeseas.net">The initial findings of this research clearly show</a> that the international community has to step up the game in the region. </p>
<p>Although several capacity building projects are under way, these haven’t delivered yet. Too much emphasis is placed on piracy without considering the links to other maritime insecurities. The focus is on the state institutions and too little attention on the concerns of coastal communities.</p>
<h2>Somali pirates have not retired</h2>
<p>Indeed, Somali pirates had not retired from crime. Former pirates had <a href="http://www.lessonsfrompiracy.net/2016/10/10/new-un-sg-report-reviews-developments-and-challenges/">reportedly become involved in other illicit maritime activity</a>, such as contraband smuggling, after 2012. Yet, many came to believe that the situation was more or less under control. <a href="http://piracy-studies.org/natos-fight-against-somali-pirates-the-end-of-an-unsung-success-story/">NATO ended its Operation Ocean Shield</a> in December, and the two other major naval operations draw on minimum force levels. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.lessonsfrompiracy.net/2016/06/12/final-communique-of-the-19th-plenary-published/">Discussions are underway</a> to further scale down the international response, to revise the EU’s naval mandate or to shut down the major global coordination mechanism, the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia. Ongoing capacity building work has led to the confidence that Somalia and the countries in the region can take over from the international community soon.</p>
<p>The hijacking of Aris 13 was a warning signal that any over-confidence in the international response, complacency within the shipping industry or the belief that Somali piracy is over, is misguided.</p>
<p>The Aris 13 hijackers justified their operation, by pointing to the continued existence of illegal fishing in Somali waters. Illegal fishing and other maritime insecurities provides a justification for piracy within disadvantaged coastal communities. It also damages prospects for sustainable development of Somalia’s ocean resources and undermines trust in national institutions and international capacity building efforts.</p>
<h2>Pirates may be down, they are not out</h2>
<p>Aris 13 will not be an isolated incident unless the international community sends out a strong signal to stay engaged and continue to build the capacities of regional states to manage their own security needs. There is a risk that the hijacking of the Aris 13 might embolden other pirate groups to attempt fresh attacks. But if the current naval and defensive measure remain intact, it’s unlikely to escalate beyond manageable levels.</p>
<p>Ultimately, these activities can only provide short term solutions to piracy. The conditions that allow piracy to thrive still exist in Somalia. It’s vital, therefore, that the international community continue to develop innovative and regionally appropriate ways to build the capacity of western Indian Ocean states to take ownership of their own maritime security. So while the pirates may be down, they are not out – yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Bueger receives funding from the British Academy's Sustainable Development Programme. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert McCabe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The tanker hijacking off the Somali coast will not be an isolated incident unless the international community remains engaged to root out piracy.Christian Bueger, Reader in International Relations, Cardiff UniversityRobert McCabe, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612392016-06-20T13:47:38Z2016-06-20T13:47:38ZHow illegal firearms find their way onto British streets despite tough laws<p>How it is possible to get hold of weapons in Britain despite tough laws that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearms-law-guidance-to-the-police-2012">restrict their ownership and use</a>? This strict firearm legislation, enacted chiefly through the Firearms Act 1968 and amendments following the 1987 <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/19/newsid_2534000/2534669.stm">Hungerford mass shooting</a> and 1996 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35784091">Dunblane mass shoting</a>, has reduced the number of purpose-made firearms in circulation. This has contributed to the number of firearms offences (including those using airguns and air rifles) falling from a high of 24,094 in 2004 to 7,866 in 2015. </p>
<p>A closer look at <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015/chapter3offencesinvolvingtheuseofweapons">recent statistics</a> shows that more than half the 7,866 offences involved unidentified, unknown, imitation, reactivated or other sorts of firearms. These type of weapons are often referred to as “junk guns” due to them being unreliable, underpowered, less robust, fairly inaccurate and likely to misfire. But this suggests that although the availability of high-quality firearms may have fallen, the demand for weapons remains.</p>
<p>This demand has driven criminals to be resourceful in identifying alternative sources of firearms. There are growing concerns about how they could acquire instructions online on how to build a home-made gun, or even <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22421185">3D-print a functioning pistol</a>. But what other alternative sources are criminals accessing in order to bypass strict laws?</p>
<h2>How useless guns are made dangerous</h2>
<p>Deactivated firearms (real firearms that have been altered so they can no longer fire projectiles) and replica firearms (anything that has the appearance of a real firearm, but isn’t) can be bought legally without a firearms license. With minimal tools, space and skills, criminals can convert or reactivate these types of weapons to enable them to fire live ammunition. </p>
<p>An alarming example is the conversions carried out by Grant Wilkinson, who <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2637822/Gun-factory-trial-Grant-Wilkinson-jailed-for-11-years.html">changed legally-bought replica MAC-10 machine guns in a garden shed</a> using only a lathe, metal cutters and drill bits purchased on eBay. His conversions have been linked to nine killings including the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7576925.stm">murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky</a>, who was killed during an armed robbery in Bradford in 2005.</p>
<p>Others have also been involved in manufacturing firearms and ammunition, for which there are a number of manuals and munitions handbooks known to be available – including some with official military origins. In 2013, Thomas Keatley was convicted of a number of firearm offences, including the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449078/Gangland-armourer-Thomas-Keatley-caught-handgun-jailed-9-years.html">manufacture of a fully improvised handgun</a> in his garage workshop. Keatley had bought the majority of the items required online from the US and the UK, and had downloaded guides from the internet on how to make handguns and even automatic machine guns. </p>
<p>Also problematic are the many <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-35615180">antique weapons</a>, such as muskets or flintlock pistols from previous centuries, or even more recent early 20th-century weapons, which can be purchased without a firearms license. The definition of an antique weapon is not clearly spelled out in legislation. Instead it is based on a number of factors that include the weapon’s age and its calibre and if that makes it obsolete or impossible to find suitable ammunition. This means it has been possible for criminals to legally purchase a fully serviceable and potentially lethal firearm, albeit aged, and adapt ammunition to fire from it. This is a potential loophole that has been identified and discussed in a recent <a href="http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/lc363_firearms.pdf">Law Commission report on firearms</a> in the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127294/original/image-20160620-8894-1r6yyq8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The seven routes through which illegal weapons are supplied.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Helen Williamson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Criminal armourers</h2>
<p>In my <a href="http://britsoccrim.org/volume15/pbcc_2015_williamson.pdf">research</a> I have studied the role of those individuals who use these avenues to supply firearms to criminals. I have identified <a href="https://www.brighton.ac.uk/_pdf/research/phd-students/poster-helen-williamson-small.pdf">seven potential categories</a> of armourer to reflect different roles, skills, knowledge and potential motivations. Working with the <a href="http://www.nabis.police.uk">National Ballistics Intelligence Service</a> we’re developing our understanding of illegal firearm supply and the people involved, in order to identify a greater range of points at which police intervention could disrupt the supply network.</p>
<p>UK police recently made what was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/21/gang-found-guilty-of-uks-largest-known-gun-smuggling-operation">largest ever UK gun smuggling bust</a> with the interception of 22 Kalashnikov-style assault rifles and nine machine guns that had been brought from France in a boat that docked at a marina in Kent. These guns were deactivated weapons legally bought from a firm in Slovakia – the same source as the weapons used in the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks in January 2015 – and then reactivated by armourers. The trade across Europe’s porous borders remains a problem for European police forces.</p>
<p>New supply routes continue to develop – firearms can be bought online through <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2950373/Guns-drugs-950-000-volt-knuckle-duster-stun-guns-assassination-instruction-manuals-lethal-products-buy-just-one-website-Dark-Net.html">anonymous shopping sites on the darknet</a>. Weapons can then be sent to the UK via standard post or through <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/criminals-smuggling-firearms-into-uk-by-post-amid-threat-of-paris-style-attack-top-police-officer-a6902606.html">fast courier services</a>, sometimes broken down into components to avoid detection and then reassembled for use. </p>
<p>Without a doubt, so long as there remains a demand for firearms in Britain, the criminal underworld will use all its ingenuity to meet that demand and continued research into their methods and the vigilance of police forces will be required to keep them out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Williamson receives funding from the University of Brighton (Scholarship). </span></em></p>Given the strict laws governing access to and types of gun allowable in the UK, how do guns get into the hands of criminals?Helen Williamson, PhD researcher, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/420182015-05-19T17:28:33Z2015-05-19T17:28:33ZHow our obsession with cheap flights is sparking a security risk beneath our feet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82211/original/image-20150519-30498-zddup9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bag it up. Is airport security at risk?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hernanpc/14668157512/in/photolist-omb9cs-rd1Y5r-bowjtF-7AkocJ-anrWW-bRgG8B-4o1WX8-6tzYoT-fjhC4t-89s4FL-5ACFZ-pzUS5-duojcT-5hVGTv-cmWA2-b91BRn-7k5K7f-dt8uMu-d6qv5y-es8KAo-7Be5y9-btFF59-MXxaW-qKEyVr-4G9Yka-483FUh-cJNec7-hW2M3q-nYasFU-7eL69L-5i151y-4P6Rtc-nRgxtn-nPu54k-nwZnvS-6HQFYy-ee5geq-4CFbfC-9mSw3H-9mSw6v-5hVHmK-a6PhSq-7eL69Q-2FQKpG-ef4w6z-cLneKC-pxijdo-gu66rh-5jRu7M-4KaTRE">Hernán Piñera</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Peter Gardner, an Australian-New Zealand dual national, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-32620181">is on trial in China</a>, accused of trying to smuggle 30 kilos of the drug crystal methamphetamine out of the country. Gardner claims he was unaware of what was in the bags he was carrying but faces the death penalty if found guilty. It is a devastating moment for him and his family.</p>
<p>Gardner has told Chinese authorities that his flight back to Sydney was timed to arrive while baggage handlers working for a drug syndicate were on shift. It is a startling claim that organised crime has snared some of the workers ferrying our bags in the warehouses underneath sparkling terminal buildings, but there is some evidence to support it. </p>
<p>Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this month, Rick Feneley suggested that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/drugs-and-terrorism-threat-thousands-of-airport-staff-not-securitychecked-20150508-ggx8y4.html">thousands of airport staff</a> in Australia are working without federal police clearance. He also points out that this kind of work is vulnerable to such subterfuge because of the high turnover of workers in a largely causal and poorly paid workforce.</p>
<h2>Cutting corners</h2>
<p>Recent studies for the European Transport Workers’ Federation that examined the nature of work for flight crew, cabin crew and ground handling staff identified similar contracts of employment in the European civil aviation industry. There are an increasing number of precarious workers with agency or temporary work contracts whose labour is poorly paid and highly intensive.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.etf-atm.org/civil-aviation-section/190-the-development-of-the-low-cost-model-in-the-european-civil-aviation-industry.html">One study, published in 2012</a>, cited a ground handling worker who claimed that job pressure meant that they regularly contravened security protocol in order to get their work done. Another study participant claimed that it was common to observe temporary staff on split shifts, whereby the worker may be required for several hours in the morning and several hours in the afternoon/evening, sleeping in their car between shifts because they were unable to travel home and back to the airport in time. It starts to paint a picture of a weak link in airport security, and the evidence doesn’t stop there.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82207/original/image-20150519-30548-juopsj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Low cost, high impact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michalo/5365401606/in/photolist-9b85Yf-pNVsJp-f6mh4j-5HpSxs-pug7qD-4GofhN-asrDrD-sgTGyy-q4KAd-5dnaJo-9Dgxhh-4pCDjj-6SphNW-9DdDfH-iyx6Q-q4KE5-adsEb1-9pn1S2-q4Kxa-7iVARe-f8L84H-c4RSLS-gazarj-ecDezJ-ecDer3-ecxMNt-ecxNTP-ecxycg-ecxtnX-ecDsvS-ecxzvK-ecDmhC-ecDrwG-ecDaq1-ecDjvL-ecxKQV-ecD9C1-ecD8Nm-ecD5kb-ecDiWm-ecxF18-ecDq6W-ecxJZK-ecDjph-ecxGnX-ecDnAE-ecDg13-ecxAii-ecxRJx-ecDgns">Anna & Michal</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more recent study carried out in 2013-14 looked at <a href="http://www.etf-europe.org/files/.../LFA%20final%20report%20221014.pdf">the effect of low cost airlines</a>, and involved a survey of 385 ground staff, many of whom were permanent full time or permanent part time, working in the UK, Spain and the Nordic states. It found that 63% were working variable shift patterns, while 20% were working split shifts. Only around half of the respondents felt that their job gave them security and 70% wanted a greater level of security. One participant summed up their experience as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Working shifts and strange hours has made my health suffer. Shorter work hours for shift people would be a dream. My social life is suffering since I am always tired and trying to recover from lack of sleep (getting up at 03:30 mornings and coming home after midnight on late shifts). Airline business is hard work, low pay and bad work hours. Less and less people do more and more work. [There is] no support when something happens and passengers are unruly (cancelled flights etc.). I wouldn’t recommend this business to anyone young today.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Security at risk</h2>
<p>It is hard to arrive at any other conclusion that such experiences, with their detrimental impact on workers’ ability to effectively do their job, will serve to undermine the International Air Transport Association’s commitment to safety and security. It’s also not hard to see how organised crime might start to see such conditions as a weak spot to be exploited. </p>
<p>However, before we vilify the ground handling service providers for the contracts which deliver these conditions, it is worth bearing in mind that these firms face not only the ever-increasing demands from airlines seeking a cost advantage through their suppliers, but also European legislation (<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/airports/ground_handling_market_en.htm">Directive 96/67/EC, for the completists</a>) that mandates competition between the ground handlers.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82213/original/image-20150519-30548-huhwab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Probably not the solution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/acrider/2286476030/in/photolist-4u3MEw-4HRaFR-eGtP2w-48Uuzc-Tr3dp-mux3x9-muvagK-muvagz-dU6jCy-d1pj1C-d1pjnJ-8yrhEn-rShEUb-6f2BF6-9WJz9d-eKCh5-bADbQd-6oYUDC-47YDv8-64TYua-79JvF1-6oYYiq-ee1qay-cnaAoq-7k5K7f-5rdr6E-6m5ti3-5rdreC-5BxmAx-6oUEkc-6oUEAk-6oYNeb-6oYLGq-6oYMFY-6oUDeR-6oUESF-6oUCUa-6oUDNk-oULvcd-7Zq1LS-9fPQH5-ef4w6z-5hQ3wf-6abDYs-tTTcz-6YkxTN-e4966W-64EAPq-q8NHuv-sWHSA">Anthony Crider</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The European Commission has tried to ensure that no handling firm gains a monopoly at large airports, but in practice it means that the companies are forced to compete with one another for airline contracts. Airlines – low fare players and legacy carriers alike – are seeking cost efficiencies from their supply chain, and that means that ground handlers, as a necessary function, are a target of cost reduction. </p>
<p>Competition between them invariably focuses on cost. With the cost base made up largely of labour costs (<a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/.../20120605ATT46310EN.pptx">upwards of 65%</a>) this simple equation inevitably affects staff and leads to worse terms and conditions of employment, lower levels of training and potentially jeopardises airline safety and security.</p>
<p>The civil aviation industry in Europe and elsewhere in the world has undergone a seismic shift in the last 25 years resulting in many more people flying due to the lower tariffs. It is worth bearing in mind that lower fares come at a cost. Are the low fares worth it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geraint Harvey has received funding from the European Commission via the European Transport Workers Federation for the studies cited herein.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Turnbull has received funding from the European Commission via the European Transport Workers Federation for the studies cited herein.</span></em></p>When reports surface that a drugs syndicate might control an airport’s baggage handlers, it’s time to look at the pressure points for what is a precarious job – and a serious security threat.Geraint Harvey, Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations and HRM, University of BirminghamPeter Turnbull, Professor of Human Resource Management Labour Relations, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.