Guinea Bissau: The First African Narco-state?

Guinea Bissau: “The value of cocaine passing through the nation dwarfs the legitimate economy…”

Guniea Bussau (GB) can be rightly described as a narco-state. A former Portuguese colony, Republic of Guinea Bissau, is one of the smallest nations on the African continent. The cumulative effect of its tumultuous past - highlighted by a protracted liberation war and several military coups – has left the majority of the 1.5 million indigenes impoverished. Its numerous coastal islands (Bijagós Archipelagoes), lagoons and extensive mangrove waterways, plus a broken law enforcement system makes Bissau the ideal drug trafficking hub in the world.

Being a narcotics hub is bad enough, but there is even a more devastating danger hanging over GB: more and more people of its productive age-group are becoming addicted to crack cocaine or “pedra’ as it’s called in the local parlance.

The United Nations’ Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reports: “In the three years since this country became a major trans-shipment point for drug traffickers bringing cocaine from South America to Europe many locals have started consuming the drug.”

Ethan, an Afrocentric blogger states the arrival of Latin American drug barons is transforming the local economy:

Nightclubs and high-end restaurants cater to dealers and their guards; new mansions are being built on the outskirts of town. The value of cocaine passing through the nation dwarfs the legitimate economy of Bissau. In the same way that natural resources can destroy an economy, cocaine appears to be having a similar effect. Any economically rational Bissauan is getting into the drug game, leading to increased corruption and, likely, a decay of the existing, fragile legitimate economy.

The depiction of the life in GB is best captured by a recent Guardian story:

By day, Guinea-Bissau looks like the impoverished country it is. Most people cannot afford a bus fare, never mind a four-wheel drive. There is no mains electricity. Water supplies are restricted to the wealthy few, and landmark buildings such as the presidential palace remain wrecked nine years after the end of the war. But this wreck of a country is what the UN - which declared war last week on celebrity cocaine culture - calls the continent’s ‘first narco-state’. West Africa has become the hub of a flow of cocaine from South America into Europe, now that other routes have become tough for the traffickers.

The Guardian story also some insights why GB has gone narco:

US drug enforcement agents report that the old cocaine channels through the Caribbean, markedly Jamaica and Panama, have become more intensively policed, forcing the Colombians to develop new routes to traffic cocaine. The increasing might of Mexico’s powerful drug cartels has forced the South Americans to search for trafficking routes to Europe across the Atlantic rather than through Central America.

Moreover, the West African coast can be reached across the shortest transatlantic crossing from South America: either by plane from Colombia, with a re-fuelling stop in Brazil; or by ship from Brazil or Venezuela. The boats leaving South America travel only by night, remaining motionless by day, covered in blue tarpaulins to avoid detection from the air. The journey can be completed in four to five nights travelling this way.

To echo Ethan’s question: Who’s going to fix Guinea Bissau - The African Union? This is not likely given the typical foot-dragging response of the AU to other more pressing events on the continent.

The United Nations International Narcotics Control Board Secretary Koli Kouame states via VOA:

“When states are weak, when institutions are weak and when all of this is doubled by governance issues, obviously it becomes an easy target for drug traffickers because they can easily manipulate, they can easily take over. There is no miracle one can achieve, there are things that can be done, law enforcement needs to be strengthened - that also means the judiciary needs to be strengthened and in some cases that massive assistance needs to be given to these people to do, for example, just an investigation”

Given the political past of Guinea Bissau, it appears only a “strong-man” - a malevolent dictator, sort of - would have the muscle and courage to clean up the mess of the broken nation - a mess that is quickly turning into a catastrophe of huge proportion.