NARCO-POVERTY, OR HOW WEST AFRICA HAS JOINED THE DRUG TRADE

An unfamiliar country keeps popping up in press reports about drug
trafficking: Guinea Bissau. This West African state of 1.5 million
people is one of the poorest in the world. Its chief exports?
Cashews, shrimp, and cocaine. Cocaine, in a country with no coca
bush? That's right. More than four tons of cocaine have been seized
in West Africa this year, a 35 percent increase over the haul for
2006. Drugs are also being seized in international waters off the
Gulf of Guinea.

One reason why this region is becoming a major drug trafficking hub
is its location. West Africa is an ideal staging point along the
route from South America to the cocaine markets of Europe. Big
shipments are hidden on fishing boats and freighters, then broken up
into smaller consignments that are sent by fast boats up the coast
to Morocco or Spain.

Moreover, Africa's weak states offer the least resistance as a
substitute for traditional cocaine smuggling routes in Central
America and the Caribbean, which are being blocked. Many countries
in the region cannot control their own territory, cannot administer
justice, and are plagued by corruption.

To appreciate the malaise of a country like Guinea Bissau, imagine
that you are a policeman there and are tipped off about a drug
shipment coming in by plane. First, you have to find a car to drive
to the landing strip and get official permission and money to fill
up the gas tank. There is no two-way radio to call for backup and no
electricity to charge your mobile phone. If you reach the scene of
the drop in time, the next challenge is to build a makeshift
roadblock to stop the truck from off-loading the cocaine.

Strangely, the truck's driver is wearing an army uniform and is not
too concerned when you seize his cargo. You take him to the police
station in the back of the car - without handcuffs, because you
don't have any. A senior government official intervenes to try
to secure his release. The police chief refuses, and is
so incorruptible that he sleeps beside the drugs to prevent the
multi-million-dollar evidence from disappearing. Later that week,
the suspect is released into the care of the military, and the police
chief is fired.

This is a true story. And it is not an isolated case.

Nor is Guinea Bissau the only country in the region vulnerable to
serious organized crime. Convoys of heavily armed four-wheel-drive
vehicles travel at high speed across the Sahel region of Western
Africa, bringing hashish from Morocco via Mauritania, Mali, and
Niger to Chad and beyond.

This drug trafficking equivalent of the Dakar Rally covers 4,000
kilometers of inhospitable terrain, across regions controlled by
rebel groups and terrorists associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb. These forces are probably profiting from the drug trade. At
the very least, their collusion enables the traffickers to obtain
fuel, spare parts, accommodation, and guides.

What can be done? Criminal justice must be made a centerpiece of
security and development. Such an approach has vaulted Cape Verde
off the bottom of development indices into the respectable ranks of
middle-income countries within a decade. Likewise, there must be a
crackdown on corruption, as in Nigeria, where an anti-corruption
revolution has swept an impressive list of greedy public officials
from high office. Fighting organized crime requires the state to
recapture control over its own territory. Improved security at ports
in Ghana and Senegal is putting a dent in illicit trade passing
through those countries.

A few major drug seizures by a professional group of
counter-narcotics agents would make drug traffickers change their
perception of West Africa as a low risk-high benefit transit route.
It would also deprive their venal local accomplices of the incentive
to exploit public office for private gain.

Countries like Guinea Bissau need help, fast. While the amount of
investment needed is minimal, failure to act will be very costly.

Antonio Maria Costa is executive director of the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary
in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (www.project-syndicate.org).