Hizbullah in Latin America: Inflated influence or reality relativized?

Anything that can be said about Hizbullah is permeated by its being considered a
terrorist organization by the International Community (above all U.S. and E.U.), a
situation determines any investigation, since in the current international context post-S
11 who admits to being a supporter of an organization considered terrorist is
automatically pigeonholed into that conception. Thus, all that can be said about
Hizbullah and its insertion in Latin America is mere conjecture: nothing is duly
recorded, and no one can admit explicitly that he favored Hizbullah, let alone that raises
funds for that organization.

However, the investigations into the actions of Hizbullah in Latin America are plentiful,
and interestingly most of them are based on data involving the Lebanese group in
various types of criminal activity, to raise funds that are drawn to the “parent”. For
example in June 2005 ecuatorianian police broke up an international cocaine ring led by
Lebanese restaurant owner Rady Zaiter, ecuatorianian resident, who was accused of
raising money for Hizbullah.

In 2001, the Colombian Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) arrested a Lebanese

businessman, named Mohammed Ali Farhad, with ties to Hizbullah for managing a
US$650 million cigarette smuggling and money laundering operation between Ipiales,
Colombia, and ports in Ecuador. The Farhad investigation established a link with a
Hizbullah-backed money-laundering operation run by Eric and Alexander Mansur,
through the Mansur Free Zone Trading Company.

It is also often relate the presence of Hizbullah and its alleged links to drug trafficking
in the porous city of Tijuana, Mexico, U.S. border city. According to the Kuwaiti daily
Al Seyassah, Mexican police arrested the head of a cell that recruited people Mexican-
Lebanese to mount a base of operations on the continent. U.S. denounced the Islamic
group links to drug trafficking. The report says that militants had contacted the
Lebanese citizens of Mexico with family ties in Lebanon as bases of a network of
Hizbullah in Latin America.

And the best example for the alleged inclusion of Hizbullah in Latin America is given in
the Triple Border Area (TBA), due to the high percentage of Syrian-Lebanese origin.
For this city lies the weight of the U.S. State Department, and deterrence on the
governments of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, in that they must exercise extreme
control in Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) regarding their relationship with money transfers
to terrorist causes considered. For this city lies also the research on the bombs attacks in
Argentina in 1992 (Embassy) and 1994 (AMIA)1, when in fact Hizbullah has
consistently denied any involvement in the attacks2.

An Argentine prosecutor said Ibrahim Hussein Berro of Lebanon had been identified in
a joint effort by Argentine intelligence and the FBI. But Hizbullah said that he had died
1
Hizbullah's intervention in the area first came to light when the Argentine authorities concluded that the
attacks against the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the AMIA in Buenos Aires in 1994, were probably carried
out by Hizbullah cells stationed in Ciudad del Este. The report by the U.S. State Department-Models of
Global Terrorism - 2000, characterized the TBA as “a focal point for Islamic extremism”.
2
If we analyze the activity of the military apparatus of Hizbullah since its foundation and we will accept
their statements that all incursions into Lebanese territory have been, or claimed as such, consistent with
the view that the military apparatus functions as a national liberation army.
in southern Lebanon while fighting Israel. Hizbullah describes the accusations as
“categorically false.” Hizbullah officially denies responsibility for these attacks and
remains emphatic that it only operates in the Israel-Lebanon theatre, in what it declares
to be the defense of Lebanese soil and sovereignty against Israeli threats and occupation
However a joint 2003 study by the Federal Research Division of the Library of
Congress and the Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics Center concluded the
“amounts laundered in the TBA probably are in the billions of dollars per year.” The
same study concluded that “Hizbullah has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars from
narcotics and arms trafficking, product piracy and other illicit activities in the TBA”3.

It should be noted that the U.S. strategic interest in the TBA is related to the control of
natural resources, since the area has one of the fresh water reserves more abundant on
Earth, so it would not be unreasonable to say that the presence of cells Hizbullah in the
area is an excellent excuse to keep the area under surveillance and monitored by U.S.
intelligence agencies.

The major concern from the West is financing Hizbullah would be receiving from the
Arab diaspora residing in Latin America, but again none of this is duly recorded, as of
course no way that sending money is made from an institutional but personally: “From
Argentina comes money to Hizbullah,” said without specifying the amount Muafak
Jammal, one of the political heads of Hizbullah and a person of extreme confidence of
the group leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

According to an interview published in an Argentine newspaper4, Jammal said that

Hizbullah is funded with money received from “all countries where there are Muslims.
From Argentina, comes money of Lebanese, there are many. And not necessarily from
the Muslims, is also coming from Lebanese Christians who are committed”. However,
the ambassador of Lebanon in Argentina, Hicham Hamdan, told BBC World (after 2006
war between Israel and Lebanon) that help was sent only by official and legal channels.
Since Hizbullah has no official representation in any Latin American country the
economic cooperation, for example from Argentina, can drive three ways, said Roberto
Ahuad, current Argentine ambassador in Syria. “It is clear that people are depositing
funds into an account opened at the embassy. On the other hand, bought food and
medicine that are also sent through formal channels. But there is the possibility that
those who have relatives in Lebanon send them money to rebuild their homes”.

According Ahuad, “it is likely that the Lebanese state, which recognizes Hizbullah as
the group that came to face external attacks, distributes part of who receives to the
social wing of this group, whose humanitarian work precede the military”.
While most Arab and Islamic institutions deny to send funds to the organization, some
people say that, if they could they do. One of them is Sheikh Mohsen Ali, of the House
for the Dissemination of Islam in Argentina. “We are fans of Hizbullah and if we had
money we would be helping because it defends the dignity of the Arab people and
Lebanon, and the physical integrity of the population”.

This premise seems to recur in all Latin American countries with a strong presence of
Arab population, especially in times of crisis between Israel and Lebanon. And this is
the fear of U.S. or Israel, the money raised ends up being invested in the purchase of
3
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/TerrOrgCrime_TBA.pdf
4
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=832509
arms by Hizbullah, rather than for social assistance that this group performed.

However, just like the millions of Jews around the world contribute to “the cause of the
State of Israel”, either individually or by their institutions, also in the world are
scattered millions of Arabs, ordinary men and women, many of them in Latin America5.
But the fact is, every Arab, wherever they are, is a potential, and almost certain, “sleeper
cells”.

Because under the paradigm of international struggle against terrorism and radical Islam
espoused by the USA, being Latin America a sort of backyard of the USA, any
individual or group of arab origin that sends money to their country of origin is
considered suspicious. It is also committed to the reductionism of homologate groups
like Hamas or Hizbullah with Al-Qaeda, using a single parameter to differentiate: if you
are Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian or Shiite of any nationality of origin, then you are in favor
of Hizbullah; Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian, then you are a Hamas's supporter.
Finally, any muslim is suspect of having links with Al-Qaeda.

An example of the mysterious and so complex that it is the analysis of Hizbullah in

Latin America is found in statements of a group that is called “Hezbollah Latin
America”, established in Venezuela. The few religious references are notable, as well as
the wide variety of names purchased (Political-Military Proposal Islamic
Fundamentalist Integrity Latin American, Islamic Political Party of Latin American
Military Hezbo Allah, Hezbollah in Latin America, Latino Hezbollah, Hezbollah
Venezuela, etc..). Its alleged leader, Teodoro Darnott, is a former leftist revolutionary
who converted to Islam and living in Venezuela.

As they admit on their website6 not even the Lebanese Hizbullah is aware of its
existence, so it's not clear if this group is an offshoot of the Lebanese Hizbullah. The
links page only leads to other blogs owned by the group, which replicate the original
web content. Despite include several links to “subsidiary” of Hizbullah in countries
such as Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, etc. these new sites further convey a poor image
that the matrix of Venezuela, its contents were not found in just any material. The
alleged existence of a global network of Hizbullah in Latin America is seriously
questioned from what can be deduced from these contents.

It would then like two parallel dynamics with regard to the relationship between
Hizbullah and Latin America: on the one hand there are groups that institutionally have
nothing to do with Hizbullah-Lebanon or “parent” but that is wielded as a kind of
subsidiaries, replicating the discourse and ideology of the parent, even if from Lebanon
unaware even the very existence of these groups. Moreover, from Latin America
recognize have not official ties with Hizbullah, but envy his future and therefore
assumes the name, in a kind of propaganda ploy.

5
Calculations like the one recently published the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram indicate that there are 17
million Arabs and Arab descendants in the region, only 10 of them in Brazil, of which 6 million are of
Lebanese origin. But a more precise estimate, measured more by religion than by origin, says the number
of Muslims in Latin America in six million. This has been calculated the Islamic Organization for Latin
America (OIAL). Of that amount, a million and half lives in Brazil and 700,000 in Argentina, as places
with great presence. About 25,000 arabs, both Muslims and Christians, live in the TBA
6
http://www.seprin.com/portal2/notas/hezbollah1/6puntos.msnw.htm
On the other hand, the opposite way, it is very difficult for the Lebanese Hizbullah
activists in Latin America to be admitted, since from the western perspective who is a
member of a group considered terrorist is automatically considered as such, even if, as
we know, Hizbullah not only has a military wing but also a political one, the main
reference for the Lebanese Shiite community in the Parliament of that country, with 13
parliamentarians out of 128 after the elections of June 2009.

Any relationship between Hizbullah and Latin America comes from reports of secret
services that reproduce various news agencies and linking the Lebanese with different
types of crimes, some of which are intended to raise money to be sent to the “parent”
and finance the activities of the group. Regarding the terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires
has not been duly established that were made by Hizbullah. With regard to sending
money from Latin America to the organization based in Lebanon there are no certainties
that there have been deviations in relation to regular assistance officer through
institutional channels or immigrants send remittances to their relatives in Lebanon. The
problem arises because Hizbullah is considered a terrorist organization by many
countries, especially USA, and this condition imposes the stamp of suspect to any
relationship that may develop between institutions or even common citizens and their
Lebanese counterparts.

If the label is changed from a “terrorist organization” to the “national liberation

movement”, represented in parliament and even ministerial, it is likely then that we face
an investigation without conditions, and that those who defend the cause of Hizbullah
can recognize explicitly. Until that happens then it will be difficult to open an official
representation of Hizbullah in Latin America, so that the presence of cells or
sympathizers of Hizbullah will remain mere conjecture, or malicious interest.