I'm fascinated when a 'non-state actor' becomes a 'state-sponsored actor' (or vice versa) and an individual, who could be committing all manner of egregious crime, is either made immune and sacrosanct, or a terrorist, by the magic wand of the CIA payroll or the good graces of other Intelligence services. Like Manuel Noriega, Augusta Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, to name a few.

I wouldn't want to be a tourist there right now. The chance of being kidnapped and held to exchange for this guy is too great. And tourism is prime source of people's income.

I can't believe a drug lord named Mr. Coke would have an additional nickname.

Charles, do you think that any of Saskia Sassen's recent work about cities and asymmetrical military conflict is relevant here? This is not a rhetorical question; I actually wonder how you would connect the two.

Thanks for this post Charles!

Matthew, I'm going to think about that. I have not properly absorbed her ideas yet. The gangsters in this situation are much like the pentecostal churches described in Planet of the Slums and the informal market that Mugabe bulldozed in Zimbabwe. The gangsters replace the police; the churches replace health services; the informal markets replace the formal markets. This is the connection I immediately made.

Is this guy doing what Muqtadr al Sadr* is and the Black Panthers were doing... Providing human services (free lunches, community organizing, etc.) as well as "order" and protection?

*Caveat: I don't know all that much about al Sadr, but his "Sadr City" enclave smacks of him doing these sorts of things.

The "order and protection" Coke provides includes corrective rape for lesbians and vigilante murder of gay men. Hurray for post-colonial freedom!

If they don't want the loan restrictions, they needn't borrow the money.

Similar to la Familia Michoacana, México's most lethal drug cartel. They had basically taken over the state, through mass murder of rivals, but they provided protection and an effective quasi police force. They kept the peace, and got rid of petty crime so when the Mexican army came in, people turned on the army.
The other bizzare thing about la Familia is that they're all Pentecostals. So church and narcos control a state.

This is what happens when the state is hollowed out and it's services and legitimacy stripped away by the demands of the global financial institutions. As the "first world" continues to slide into a neo-liberal dystopia, we may all share the fate of Kingston, Rio, Ciudad Juarez and other "third world" capitals of the "Hollow State".

Another conversation on this topic is taking place at Jon Robb's Global Guerrillas Blog - http://cut.as/ab