Cocaine smuggling is fanning political turbulence and undermining investment confidence in West Africa, where drugs experts say Latin American gangs threaten to transform small nations into "narco-states". Unexpected seizures from Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania to Sierra Leone and Senegal illustrate a haphazard response to drugs syndicates that run rings around law enforcement agencies despite help from the United States and European countries.
The danger comes at a critical time for West Africa, where several states are rebuilding after civil wars and the region is of growing interest to the most adventurous frontier investors. "It is a huge threat," said Emmanuelle Bernard, West Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank. "The money from the drug trade is competing with the institution-building, which is what these countries need to be doing now."
"When there are those in power who are involved in the drug trade, its hard to do this," she added. Nowhere better shows up the dangerous combination of drug money and a weak state than Guinea Bissau. Death threats against a minister fighting the drug trade were followed by a coup attempt and the arrest of the head of the navy.
"Cops and training are fine but we also need people to come up with things like guns, armoured cars and money for informants," said Antonio Mazzitelli, the West Africa representative of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime.
Guinea-Bissau's justice minister says she will fight on. She survived a government reshuffle triggered by a constitutional crisis that forced President Joao Bernardo Vieira to dissolve parliament and appoint a new cabinet. But her judicial police, with few weapons or vehicles and little ammunition or fuel, are no match for international criminal networks. Despite the support of US FBI and DEA agents, they were blocked by the armed forces from searching a suspect jet that landed in Bissau last month. When they were eventually given a green light, sniffer dogs confirmed cocaine had been on board, but the jet was empty.
Mazzitelli says this shows how busts must be the end, not the beginning of investigations. It also added weight to widespread reports that state officials are involved. "Loyalties in the armed forces can be strengthened by the drug money," said Bernard. "Some might fear that they will lose out while others might see it as an opportunity."
The tiny West African nation, where there is no electricity but Porsche and Mercedes four wheel drive vehicles ferry some state officials down the potholed streets, may be the extreme but it is a microcosm of the region. Traffickers take advantage of poorly protected borders and weak authority to ferry hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine from Latin America to Europe, a short hop to the north.
Although they represent a fraction of the actual amount of cocaine passing through, the region has seen seizures jump from just 273kg in 2001 to 14.6 tonnes in 2006, according to the UN West African seizures are increasing when the global trend is downwards. But more of a concern, say analysts, is the relative impact the drug money can have on these weak countries.
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