Voiding the Deal: The Rise of Vigilante Groups against Organized Crime

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes laid down in his Leviathan what many consider to be the basic principles of the modern state and state security, namely that the state should be endowed with the monopoly of violence. As sole protector and arbitrator, the state could ensure that everyone be allowed to pursue their interests without fearing predation or domination, domestically or internationally. The deal was loyalty and taxes in exchange for protection.

When the artificial balance of the cold war fell apart, we became confronted with the emergence of failed states, the most prominent example of which was (is) Somalia. But official numbers and definitions do not take into account partial failure, situations where local governments are no longer in a position to provide basic security to its population, something that is occurring in hundreds of regions around the globe.

So when the state fails to hold up its end of the bargain, what are the options left? For an increasing number of individuals, the answer has been to take security into their own hands. Successfully.

Over the last four months, we witnessed an increasing amount of groups that have successfully defended their cities or villages without relying on the state. Two cases stand out: First the city of Maiduguri, Nigeria, where locals defeated the members of the paramilitary cultist group Boko Haram. Here, the local government provided weapons and minimal training to a group of citizens willing to risk their lives for 100$ a month in order to fight off Boko Haram. Second, the town of Nueva Italia, Mexico, that recently fought back against the violence of the Knights Templar drug cartel. In this case, some report that the weapons were provided by competing cartels and that the vigilante action is not as legitimate as some would like to present it.

While these stories may appear like “feel-good” stories along the lines of The Magnificent Seven, it raises very troubling issues about the state and future of security in countries facing strong organized crime.

The first question that needs to be asked is why are governments satisfied with this solution? The governor of Borno encouraged the formation of militias like the “Civilian J.T.F”, letting them do the dirty work security forces have been unable to accomplish to this point. Could this be merely a statistical solution – less security personnel lives lost – or a financial one? Or could this actually be based on strategy, as some have argued? Regardless of the answer, the truth is the government is absent and is failing to fulfill its duties.

This raises the second and more complicated issue of government credibility. The reasons why these organizations achieve such levels of power are not only due to intimidation and weaponry, but mostly they prey on the incapacities of formal power structures to provide for basic needs. In other words, they cash in on the lack of credibility of governments, which creates a non-negligible passive support for these organisations. Coupled with dramatic deficiencies in terms of education and life perspectives, which these groups also fill, through easy money and a false sense of empowerment, organized criminality de facto compensates for the state and worse, replaces it as “security” provider. A model, tried and tested by groups such as Hamas and Hizballah. While Boko Haram has evolved beyond this, it nonetheless provided the roots for the movement. Clearly, the issue of credibility is not one that will be solved by arming and empowering civilians: quite the contrary, governments only appear more useless and powerless. In fact, one could argue that the success of militias/vigilante groups, both on the field and in the media, is a humiliation for the governments that forces them to react and intervene, even when they barely took notice before. Whether or not this intervention translates into success is another story.

Which brings us to the third crucial point: what does a government do with citizens it empowered and provided weapons to? Civilians with absolutely minimal training and education? Citizens made valuable by being hired as improvised mercenaries? This “self-defence initiative”, while successful in the short-term, is only equivalent to creating a Frankenstein that will come back to hurt them in the long run, creating many more problems than it solves. Problems that have already begun.

Vigilante operations have certain advantages: they might better infiltrate some organizations and they may have a more accurate information. They also have more mobility than logistically bound security forces and perhaps, in certain cases, greater moral restraint. But it is nonetheless putting gasoline on a fire rather than quell the flames.

Self-defence groups and militias are not new nor is it a novel problem. Many countries, including the United States and Germany, have such groups, and have had to deal with their potential danger for decades. The apparent novelty here however is that these groups are either openly or passively encouraged by governments, creating a situation where they not only undermine their own power and credibility, but also strengthen the states within the state.

Citizens cannot be forbidden to defend themselves when their lives and livelihood are threatened on a daily basis. But it is imperative that governments confronted with such criminality and internal violence find a way to truly protect their citizens and renew the bonds of the “security contract”. Otherwise, true lawlessness will rule the land.