Drug Cartels, Guerrillas, and a Couple of Machetes

The Asian continent—what a multifaceted direction it is. From the vast and densely populated India, the mountains of Tibet, the steppes of Mongolia, the valleys of China, to the islands of Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. In short, a broad field for exploration, an immense historical layer that has left a significant legacy in the history of humanity. But that’s not what we’re talking about now.

I’ve long wondered—how do left-wing guerrilla groups even survive in Asia? The Naxalites, ethnic militias, even the Pol Potists. Many of them have stayed afloat for decades. I’ve heard various explanations, read about it too. For instance, if we recall the Maoists in Latin America, it often came down to outright robbery, racketeering, and kidnappings. But in Asia, it’s a different story.

There’s an interesting report. Let’s start with it. It states that drug trafficking is a key source of income for insurgents. In Myanmar, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), with 20,000 fighters, uses profits from methamphetamine to maintain autonomy and military operations. A similar story applies to ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in Shan State. They control routes and laboratories, collecting taxes or a share. This is considered a pragmatic partnership: conflicts create “gray zones,” ideal for production.

According to analytical centers like the Vivekananda International Foundation and Observer Research Foundation, in 2024, the volume of drug trafficking in Asia exceeded $100 billion, part of which supports radical groups. For example, in India, the Naxalites from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) control opium fields in the “Red Corridor” (states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha), where drug revenues reach hundreds of millions of rupees annually. The Naxalite-Maoist insurgency is one of the longest-running conflicts in Asia, starting in 1967 in the village of Naxalbari.

Though data on India varies widely. According to the Indian government, in 2023–2024, the Naxalites earned up to 1.5 billion rupees from drug trafficking, accounting for 20–30% of their budget.

This alliance, rooted in the history of colonialism and the Cold War, is evolving today under the influence of globalization and digital technologies. There’s another document, this one about the Philippines. The New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, is accused of “taxing” drug producers in exchange for protection. Although the NPA denies direct involvement, investigations reveal ties to drug syndicates.

Full-fledged memoirs from Naxalite leaders are scarce (due to repression), but in the article “Gangsters or Gandhians?” the authors cite anonymous interviews with former insurgents who describe opium as an “economic weapon” against capitalism. Here’s another particularly curious quote:

“The Naxalite insurgent movement is supported by an illegal economy, including opium cultivation, which provides both financial and political capital.”

It might seem something’s off, and this could just be a pretext for repression. But if we dive into the new-left ideology, which directly intertwined with Maoist radical groups, we quickly find not just justification for this direction but an ideological struggle.

Surprised? That’s not all! Just a teaser for keen minds.

Left-wing radicals in Asia draw ideas from the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tradition, where financing insurgency through “illegitimate” means is justified as part of the class struggle. It might sound complex, but indeed, most guerrillas justify their actions with the works of the classics.

The main platform here isn’t even Lenin, who engaged in bank expropriations, racketeering, and other fun activities. Mao, in his theory of “protracted people’s war” (outlined in works like On Guerrilla Warfare, 1937), emphasized the self-sufficiency of guerrillas through local resources, including capturing the “enemy’s.”

Mao, of course, fought opium in China and didn’t support it, even when alliances with drug cartels were common. However, his ideas about “base areas” influenced Asian Maoists, who adapted them to drugs as a “resource of the oppressed.” The NPA and Naxalites directly cite Mao as a source of inspiration for the economic independence of insurgency. Charu Mazumdar, the founder of the Naxalite movement in the 1960s, emphasized “expropriation” as a method in his works, though he didn’t directly mention drugs. Modern leaders, like Ganapathy, in interviews (e.g., for the Brookings Institute) indirectly justified control over opium fields as protecting peasants from exploitation.

Approvals from guerrillas are often indirect to avoid repression. Theories focus on pragmatism: in poor regions, drugs are the only resource. However, this leads to contradictions: left-wing groups position themselves as “anti-drug” but profit from them. Figures like Sison or Mazumdar didn’t openly “approve” drug trafficking, but their theories and statements laid the groundwork for the practice. This highlights how ideology adapts to the reality of conflicts. Time Magazine in 2016 quoted Duterte’s statements that communists joined the “war on drugs” but actually profited from it, while interviews in Crisis Group reports describe how insurgents use drug trafficking for funding in remote areas.

Expanding the view beyond Asia, the global landscape of left-wing radical movements reveals a complex web of ties to drug trafficking—from Latin America to Europe and Africa. And here, after a brief section introducing the theory of this direction, we move to a more interesting situation. There was this drug cartel led by Pablo Escobar, you know?

The alliance of Pablo Escobar, the “cocaine king,” with left-wing radical groups. This alliance, fueled by cocaine money and ideological protest against the Colombian state, became an example of how pragmatism and ideology can unite drug lords and insurgents.

Escobar, leading the Medellín Cartel, used left-wing radicals from FARC and M-19 to protect his interests, while they saw his billions as a means for revolution. A bit of historical context: in the 1970s, Colombia was a country of deep social divides—poverty, corruption, and inequality fueled left-wing radical movements. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), founded in 1964 as a Marxist guerrilla group, fought for peasant rights, while the 19th of April Movement (M-19), established in 1970, combined socialism with urban guerrilla tactics. At the same time, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, a farmer’s son from Medellín, was building the world’s largest cocaine cartel. By 1982, he controlled up to 80% of the global cocaine trade, earning $420 million a week. In Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo, Escobar is quoted as saying: “I pay those who help my cause, be they communists or military.”

Escobar wasn’t an ideologue. His philosophy boiled down to “plata o plomo”—“silver or lead,” meaning bribe or death. However, he understood the power of left-wing radicals, whose anti-government sentiments aligned with his fight against extradition to the U.S. FARC, led by Manuel Marulanda (nickname “Tirofijo”), controlled cocaine regions like the Cauca Valley, where peasants grew coca. M-19, led by Iván Marino Ospina and Carlos Pizarro, operated in cities, staging high-profile actions.

The first documented contact occurred in the early 1980s. According to Insight Crime, Escobar began paying FARC and M-19 to protect cocaine plantations and routes in exchange for a share of the profits. FARC imposed a “grammage tax” on the Medellín Cartel for every kilogram of cocaine produced in controlled zones. The most notable element of the alliance was the palace siege. The M-19 attack on the Palace of Justice in Bogotá on November 6, 1985.

The group seized the building, demanding the repeal of drug lord extradition. The attack failed: 11 Supreme Court judges and dozens of others died in the army’s assault. Ana Carrillo, in her book The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy, quotes an anonymous M-19 member: “Escobar gave us money to strike at the system. We knew it was his war, but it was ours too.” However, this alliance wasn’t eternal and eventually collapsed under the pressure of failures, ideological differences, and escalating conflict. By the late 1980s, M-19, exhausted by losses and seeing the futility of armed struggle, entered negotiations with the government. In March 1989, the group renewed a truce with authorities, and in 1990, it fully demobilized, transforming into a legal political party—the Democratic Alliance M-19 (Alianza Democrática M-19). Many of its members integrated into Colombia’s political life, and former leader Carlos Pizarro even ran for president in 1990, though he was assassinated.

The culmination was the collapse of the Medellín Cartel. In 1991, Escobar surrendered to authorities on the condition of no extradition and served time in the luxurious “prison” La Catedral, but in 1992, he escaped, fearing transfer to a regular prison. After a year of pursuit, he was killed on December 2, 1993, in Medellín during a shootout with police and special forces. With his death, the alliance effectively ceased: FARC, not directly dependent on Escobar, continued collecting “taxes” from other traffickers and, over time, deepened its involvement in the drug business, controlling coca production in its zones.

The FARC conflict with the state dragged on until 2016, when a peace agreement was signed. But there was another movement, in a different country, namely Peru, that resorted to another curious tactic.

The alliance of the Peruvian left-wing radical group Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) with the drug business is perhaps the best example of a party turning into a massive political corporation with a host of field commanders.

Abimael Guzmán Reynoso, born on December 3, 1934, in Arequipa, came from a middle-class family: his father was a merchant, and his mother died early. Guzmán studied philosophy and law at the University of San Cristóbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, becoming a professor in 1962. Influenced by Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, he founded Shining Path in the late 1960s as a faction of the Communist Party of Peru, rejecting Soviet-style revisionism. Adopting the pseudonym “President Gonzalo,” he preached a “people’s war” to overthrow the “bourgeois-feudal” regime and establish a “new democracy.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, Peru faced a deep crisis—inflation, inequality, land conflicts, and a military dictatorship under Juan Velasco Alvarado. Left-wing radical movements, inspired by the Cuban Revolution and China’s Cultural Revolution, gained traction among students and peasants. Shining Path, named after José Carlos Mariátegui’s phrase (“Marxism is the shining path to revolution”), began as an intellectual circle but transitioned to armed struggle by 1980, burning ballot boxes in Chuschi as a symbolic act.

Unlike Colombia’s FARC, which initially focused on peasant rights, Shining Path was ultra-radical: Guzmán rejected alliances with other leftists, including Cubans or Nicaraguans, and relied on a “blood quota”—mass terror to destabilize the state. The group operated in poor Andean regions like Ayacucho, recruiting Quechua Indians with promises of land and equality. By 1983, it expanded, attacking mayors, police, wealthy landowners, and even peasants who refused to cooperate.

The first contact with the drug business occurred in the early 1980s in the Upper Huallaga Valley, a key coca-growing region. Initially, Shining Path rejected drugs as a “capitalist vice,” but pragmatism prevailed: the group began imposing a “revolutionary tax” on farmers and traffickers for protecting plantations from police.

Estimates suggest revenues reached $10–100 million annually: $20,000 per flight carrying cargo and $3 per kilogram of paste. This enabled arming 3,000–6,000 fighters with modern weapons, including FN-FAL and RPGs, purchased from international dealers through Colombian cartels. The most notable element was the symbiosis with traffickers: Shining Path provided “fair prices” to peasants and protection from eradication in exchange for loyalty and a share of profits. Eradication, by the way, means complete destruction.

This alliance marked a transformation: from a purely ideological guerrilla group, Shining Path gradually became a semi-criminal and terrorist organization, where revolution served as a justification for controlling drug trafficking. By the late 1980s, coca revenues formed the bulk of the budget, funding urban expansion. Endless attacks on Lima, brutal control of the peasant market, recruitment of patrols and armies, and constant ideological, note, ISOLATED training.

In 1992, Guzmán’s capture in Lima disrupted the chain of command: he was sentenced to life, and the group splintered into factions. By the 2000s, remnants led by figures like Comrade Artemio (Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala) in the Upper Huallaga Valley and the Quispe Palomino brothers (Víctor and Jorge) in the Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro Valley (VRAEM) deepened their involvement in the drug business. VRAEM became “the densest coca producer in the Andes,” according to the UN, with Shining Path guarding routes, laboratories, and eliminating competitors, earning from “protection services.”

The decline came with weakening: Artemio’s arrest in 2012 and the deaths of key leaders like “Alipio” and “Gabriel” in 2013 temporarily weakened the group in the Upper Huallaga Valley, but in VRAEM, it revived, collaborating with traffickers and using revenues to buy weapons.

An unusual story of interaction? But we haven’t yet discussed right-wing groups that, as in Colombia, eliminated left-wing competitors, nor mentioned the leftists and rightists who fought drug trafficking. But that’s for next time.

SOURCES

1. 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (U.S. Department of State): https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-International-Narcotics-Control-Strategy-Volume-1-Accessible.pdf
2. Article on the Nexus Between Insurgency and Narco-Trafficking (Vivekananda International Foundation): https://www.vifindia.org/article/2024/april/26/Nexus-between-Insurgency-and-Narco-Trafficking
3. Research on the Drug Trade Across India and Myanmar (Observer Research Foundation): https://www.orfonline.org/research/from-poppy-fields-to-black-markets-understanding-the-drug-trade-across-india-and-myanmar
4. Indian Government Data on Naxalites and Their Drug Trafficking Income (UCLA Law Review): https://www.uclalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Prasanna-63-2.pdf
5. CIA Document on Philippine Insurgents and Their Links to Drug Trafficking: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00875R001100090048-5.pdf
6. Article “Gangsters or Gandhians?” on Naxalites and Their Economic Strategies (Taylor & Francis): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14736489.2014.937268
7. Quote on Naxalite Insurgency Supported by Illegal Economy, Including Opium (JSTOR): https://www.jstor.org/stable/44156660
8. Article on the Philippines, Duterte, and Communist Links to Drug Trafficking (Time Magazine): https://time.com/4392551/philippines-duterte-drugs-communist-new-peoples-army-kill-addicts
9. Report on Calming the Long War in the Philippine Countryside (International Crisis Group): https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/philippines/338-calming-long-war-philippine-countryside
10. Article on Reviving the Ghosts of Pablo Escobar and the Era of Major Drug Lords (El País): https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2024-01-21/carlos-lehder-revive-los-fantasmas-de-pablo-escobar-y-la-epoca-de-los-grandes-capos-del-narcotrafico.html?utm_source
11. Profile of Pablo Escobar and Colombian Organized Crime (Insight Crime): https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/pablo-escobar/?utm_source
12. Report on Colombian Elites and Organized Crime (Insight Crime): https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Colombia_Elites_Organized_Crime.pdf?utm_source
13. Report on Shining Path and Their Drug Trafficking Income (RAND Corporation): https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R3781.html?utm_source

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