Den vestafrikanske stat Guinea Bissau er et vigtigt punkt på kokainens rute fra Sydamerika til Europa. De mange narkopenge, der falder af i det lille land, korrumperer og truer med at underminere staten, lyder det fra tænketank.
BISSAU, 10 June 2013 (IRIN): Drug-trafficking in Guinea-Bissau is undermining the country’s stability, distorting its economy and intensifying the competition for power among political and military leaders, say analysts and observers.
“Because drug-trafficking stokes instability, it affects every citizen. Moreover it gives the country a deplorable image, which tends to discourage donors. In a country where access to credit is difficult, some observers say that drug money has been used to fund the cashew nut trade, the country’s main export and a key revenue source for the rural population,” Vincent Foucher, a researcher with the International Crisis Group (ICG), told IRIN.
He said drug money is also funding the personal security networks of top politicians and military personnel – an important element in ongoing power struggles and political strife.
“But regarding drugs, the security forces have a comparative advantage [to the politicians],” said Foucher.
The wholesale value in Europe of cocaine trafficked through West Africa, with Guinea-Bissau being one of the main transit points, dwarfs the national security budgets of many West African states, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a recent report. The entire military budget of many West African countries is less than the price of a ton of cocaine in Europe, it said.
“Cocaine-related corruption has clearly undermined governance in places like Guinea-Bissau,” said the report. Cocaine seizures in West Africa peaked in 2007 with 47 tons netted. The seizures have since declined to about 18 tons, it said.
Routing Europe-bound cocaine through West Africa has followed changes in the world cocaine market over the past decade. Prices have been plummeting with demand in the USA falling, while demand in Europe has doubled, said UNODC.
Former navy chief arrested by US
On 2 April US forces arrested former Guinea-Bissau navy chief José Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, alongside four fellow countrymen in a sting operation in international waters in the Atlantic.
He is accused of conspiring to import cocaine from South American to Guinea-Bissau. “Na Tchuto noted that the Guinea-Bissau government was weak in light of the recent coup d’état and that it was therefore a good time for the proposed cocaine transaction,” according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Guinea-Bissau military chief Antonio Indjai has also been charged, in absentia, by a US court with conspiring to sell weapons to Colombia’s FARC rebels to protect the group’s cocaine factories against US military forces and to store FARC’s cocaine in West Africa.
Indjai is subject to a UN travel ban for his alleged role in Guinea-Bissau’s April 2012 coup.
“Antonio Indjai conspired to use his power and authority to be a middleman and his country to be a way-station for people he believed to be terrorists and narco-traffickers so they could store and ultimately transport narcotics to the US,” US attorney Preet Bharara said in April in comments carried by the DEA.
Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the sources of cocaine transiting through West Africa. More than 20 major seizures were made in the region between 2005 and 2007 mostly at sea, but also on private aircraft or on land, said UNODC.
Drug-trafficking “exaggerated”?
Læs hele artiklen: http://www.irinnews.org/report/98202/cocaine-related-graft-erodes-guinea-bissau-governance
