Highlights
– Airplane seized carrying 1,102lbs of cocaine at Guinea-Bissau’s main airport
– Three Venezuelan nationals aboard the plane, airport’s traffic controller arrested
– Guinea-Bissau becoming important stop in drug trade
On July 19, 2008 Guinea-Bissau police seized an airplane carrying 1,102lbs (500kg) of cocaine and arrested the head of air traffic control at the country’s main airport. The plane’s crew, composed of three Venezuelan men, was also arrested.
The incident is demonstrative of Guinea-Bissau’s increasing importance in the drug trade. Specifically, the country plays a role as a major hub for Latin American drug organizations moving their product across the Atlantic, eventually arriving in Europe.
A combination of factors has made Guinea-Bissau Africa’s first narco-state. Primarily, the country remains one of the poorest in Africa, especially in West Africa. In addition to suffering extreme poverty throughout much of the country, the national government remains extremely weak and under-funded, leading to insufficient salaries for soldiers and police. The underpaid security forces are easy targets for drug cartels, which can entice officers to collaborate with the cartels and earn an entire month’s salary in one or two operations. Furthermore, the country’s many small islands off its coast, characterized by weak police enforcement, provide a myriad of opportunities for drug organizations to build small airstrips and fly in large amounts of drugs, mostly cocaine.
From the small islands the cartels can then hire natives to perform the risky task of smuggling drugs from Guinea-Bissau to countries in Western Europe. In recent years cocaine has become increasingly popular in Spain and the United Kingdom as Latin American cartels flood the European markets with the drug. In fact, over the past decade, cocaine use in Europe has tripled while it has stagnated and begun to decline in North America. The profit margin is also higher for criminal groups, thus prompting the transportation surge to Europe.
International Effects
In June 2008, the United Nations (UN) warned that drug smugglers operate with nearly total immunity in Guinea-Bissau. The UN also warned smugglers benefit from rampant corruption. Recent estimates suggest the profits from the volume of cocaine that passed through Guinea-Bissau in 2007 exceeded its national income. While Guinea-Bissau is the most important African country involved in the drug trade, other West African countries are also becoming involved in the drug trade as traffickers continue to seek new routes to smuggle cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
Security forces throughout the region lack sufficient resources to battle the drug gangs. Additionally, large-sum bribery often provides the necessary incentive for military and police personnel to become complicit in the drug trade. As the country is on the verge of becoming a failed state, Guinea-Bissau continues to play an increasingly important role in the international drug trade.
Outlook
Due to a series of civil wars and general unrest in the past decade West Africa is plagued by weak governments and weaker security forces, both of which remain extremely susceptible to corruption. A recent study by the Brookings Institute placed Guinea-Bissau as the 18th weakest state, underscoring the fragility of the Guinea-Bissau government.
While the international community, including European Union (EU) member states and the United States, have recognized the problem and are beginning to address the issue, it will likely take years before concrete results are shown.
The severity of the problem is demonstrated by the arrest of the air traffic controller, as well as complicit security forces. While the international community will need to continue to work to improve the capabilities of Guinea-Bissau and other nearby countries’ security forces in the long-term, increased naval and air surveillance by the international community in the near-term will be an important step in disrupting the growing drug trade between Latin America and Europe that uses Guinea-Bissau as a drug trafficking hub.
