NORWEGIAN PEACEBUILDING CENTRE Noref Working Paper The international cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau: current trends and risks Luís Filipe Madeira, Stéphane Laurent and Sílvia Roque February 2011 Executive Summary This paper analyses the international, Favourable conditions for trafficking West African and national conditions Both the global operation of the cocaine that fuel the spread of the international market and a number of specific national drugs trade in West Africa, particularly in conditions favour the development of drug Guinea-Bissau, and examines the impact trafficking in West Africa and especially of the international cocaine trade at a Guinea-Bissau. At the systemic level, the social, economic and governance level in enforcement of the global drug-control this small West African country. system tends to push traffickers to select transit routes through states that are Although drug trafficking has a long already weakened by internal conflict, history in West Africa, over the past poverty or both. five years the region has increasingly attracted international attention as a new In recent years, the Latin American hub for the illicit cocaine trade between drug cartels appear to have shifted Latin America and Europe. In the case their attention to supplying the lucrative of Guinea-Bissau, that attention has European market by developing networks been all the greater for a number of in West Africa, focused around Ghana reasons: a) the visibility of the authorities’ in the south and Guinea-Bissau in the involvement in trafficking, causing north. From there the drugs are smuggled international agencies and the media to into Europe on commercial flights by dub it the “world’s first narco-state”; b) mules. At the same time, by paying local the amount of drugs seized on its territory collaborators in both cash and cocaine, the and the increasing presence of South traffickers are creating a local consumer Americans, to whom this type of activity market for the drug. is attributed; and lastly c) because the country is totally dependent on aid and The geography of Guinea-Bissau, with its uses the media attention given to drug myriad of coastal islands, makes it the trafficking as an argument for keeping aid perfect destination for unloading drugs flowing into the country. that have been transported by sea, often from Brazil or Venezuela. The virtual Following significant seizures of cocaine in collapse of the country’s administration, 2006 and 2007, the trade appeared to go the inadequacies of the police and justice into decline in 2008 and 2009, for which sector, impunity, endemic corruption the authors outline four possible scenarios, and widespread poverty create fertile the most likely being that it is continuing conditions for the flourishing of the but through the employment of other less cocaine trade which, in turn, has further visible methods, with the traffickers having adverse consequences at the social, made only a temporary tactical retreat. economic and governance levels. Noref Working Paper February 2011 The presence of resourceful and potentially address these problems. From a long-term violent South American cartels in Guinea- perspective, the attraction of the drugs Bissau has aggravated a situation that was trade for disenfranchised youth may also already unsustainable, and drug-related undermine social control mechanisms incidents are on the rise. After reporting that prevent crime and violence. So far, the involvement of the military and their however, Bissau’s youth, though faced civilian allies in drug trafficking, several with unemployment and few opportunities, journalists and activists have had to have shown little desire to go down that flee the country or go into hiding. Drugs route. Nevertheless, the consequences have been discovered at military bases, of globalisation, the food crisis and the and seizures made by the police have inability of external aid to respond to disappeared after being confiscated by the such problems could quickly change the military. Senior government officials have situation. also reportedly received death threats when seeking to investigate cocaine Policy options seizures. The authors argue that, in the long term, in order to tackle the enormous Social and economic impact challenges that the drug trade poses in The influence that cocaine-trafficking is route countries, a less securitizing agenda having on the country’s economy is not needs to be put in place globally, and the yet clear but, as it gains in importance, prohibition-based international consensus it is likely to soon generate more wealth should be debated and reconsidered. In than traditional legal activities and thus the meantime, a number of shorter-term be more attractive to the local population. measures need to be taken urgently to The extent of the impact will depend halt the negative effects of this activity on whether Guinea-Bissau’s role in the at international and national level. These trafficking chain is predominantly active or include improving the coordination of passive. efforts at national, sub-regional, regional and international level, reforming the At the social level, domestic drug use country’s institutions, supporting civil is growing, with the resultant addiction society, rehabilitation initiatives and and violent crime; addiction to cocaine, conducting further research to gain an and especially crack, is reportedly accurate understanding of the scale of the rampant. Guinea-Bissau lacks the material problem. resources, expertise and experience to Luís Filipe Madeira teaches International Relations at the University of Beira Interior (Portugal). He holds a PhD in Political Sciences from IEP, University of Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV, and he regularly collaborates with CIDAC (Portuguese NGO) Stéphane Laurent was trained at the University of Bordeaux in Management of Development and Humanitarian Aid. He is a member of the Board of CIDAC where he coordinates the development cooperation sector. Since 2002 he has been responsible for the NGO’s cooperation with Guinea-Bissau. Sílvia Roque is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. She holds a master’s degree in African Studies from ISCTE (Lisbon) and a BSc in International Relations from the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra. She is a completing her PhD in International Politics and Conflict Resolution and has been conducting research on Guinea-Bissau since 2006. - 2 - The international cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau: current trends and risks Contents Page Executive Summary 1 Methodological note 3 The rise of the cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau 4 Conditions favouring the cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau 6 The international drugs economy 6 National conditions 9 The main risks for Guinea-Bissau 11 Governance 11 Economic impact 12 Social impact 13 Conclusions and policy options 16 Further reading 18 List of interviewees 18 Methodological note The international drugs trade in West Africa, and specifically in Guinea-Bissau, has had a lot of exposure in the media but has been little studied. Since it is an illegal trade, accurate data on it is hard to come by, especially for countries where it is a relatively new phenomenon and where statistical research and analytical skills and tools are limited, as in the case of Guinea-Bissau. This paper is based on secondary data that has appeared in the media, and reports by international organisations (academic research on this specific issue and country is virtually non-existent); interviews with national and international stakeholders who have privileged information on the issue; the authors’ extensive fieldwork experience in the country over the past nine years in the context of development cooperation and research projects in the fields of human security, youth and gender violence; and the international peacebuilding intervention in Guinea-Bissau, where the issue of drug trafficking has repeatedly been highlighted and analysed by international organisations, national officials and the population. - 3 - Noref Working Paper February 2011 The rise of the cocaine trade and the media to dub it the “world’s first nar- in Guinea Bissau co-state”;3 b) the amount of drugs seized on its territory and the increasing presence of South A history of trading Americans, to whom this type of activity is at- In Guinea-Bissau the drugs trade only emerged tributed; and lastly c) because the country is to- as an acute problem in 2005. This does not tally dependent on aid and uses the media atten- mean that the trafficking, smuggling or even tion given to drug trafficking as an argument for consumption of drugs is completely new to the keeping aid flowing into the country. country. As in other parts of the world, traf- ficking is an ancient economic activity in West Accurate figures on the cocaine trade in Guin- Africa (including Guinea-Bissau).1 The trans- ea-Bissau are hard to ascertain. Official data is porting of people and goods across frontiers based solely on seizures made by the country’s is a specialised activity that has been going police. In 2006, 674 kg of cocaine were seized on for centuries and is characteristic of in Guinea-Bissau (the second largest sei- populations living in border regions. zure in West Africa). In 2007, 635 kg Guinea-Bissau is well-known in the re- were seized (the third largest in West gion for the illegal trafficking of small Africa).4 In 2007, a report by the Unit- arms. High-ranking government and ed Nations Office on Drugs and Crime military officials have been directly in- (UNODC) spoke of “the scaling up of volved. Over the past five or six years, the Latin American drug traffickers’ activi- illegal arms trade seems to have diminished ties and the use of Guinea-Bissau as a co- only to be replaced by the trafficking of cocaine, caine stockpiling centre, with illicit drug traf- involving, in particular, military actors.2 ficking taking place both by sea and air”.