Guinea-Bissau probes state complicity in drug trade
01 Jun 2007 17:57:00 GMT Source: Reuters
By Alberto Dabo
BISSAU, June 1 (Reuters) - High-level officials in Guinea-Bissau are implicated in drug trafficking, the interior minister said on Friday, and he announced the establishment of a government commission to fight the narcotics trade.
United Nations experts say the former Portuguese colony on West Africa's Atlantic coast is increasingly being used as a transit point by Latin American cartels flying or shipping cocaine to Europe and other markets.
Interior Minister Baciro Dabo told Reuters more than 1.2 tonnes of cocaine were seized by Guinea-Bissau police in interceptions since September "but the current government does not know what has happened to half of this quantity".
"High-level state authorities are implicated in drug trafficking, that is why this commission has been created," Dabo said. He did not identify any suspects.
Luis Vaz Martins, president of Guinea-Bissau's Human Rights League, said state representatives involved in drug-smuggling included senior army officers.
"Guinea-Bissau risks becoming a narco-state," he said.
Police in Guinea-Bissau seized 635 kg (1,400 lb) of cocaine in April but officers lacked the manpower or vehicles to stop smugglers making off with almost two tonnes more.
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) experts said then the drugs were part of an estimated 2.5-tonne consignment flown into a military airstrip in the small, poor country.
The country's biggest drugs bust occurred in September when police seized 674 kg (1,490 lb) of cocaine with an estimated street value of around $25 million following a tip-off from international police agency Interpol.
Two Colombians suspected of smuggling the drugs walked free weeks later when a regional judge ordered their release with no legal explanation, to the embarrassment of the justice minister at the time who called the decision "regrettable".
This first seizure subsequently disappeared from the public treasury where it had been stored, Vaz Martins said.
If left unchecked, he said the activities of the drug gangs could threaten the authority of the state in the country. Guinea-Bissau has no properly-equipped prison and police have to beg for gasoline from foreigners to be able to chase criminals.
Vaz Martins said small planes were continuing to fly into Cufar in the south of Guinea-Bissau and to the offshore Bijagos islands to unload drugs consignments unimpeded by authorities.
UNODC says cartels trafficking cocaine from Colombia take advantage of Guinea-Bissau's corruption, poor policing and remote, inaccessible and island-dotted coastline to set up clandestine airports, embarkation points and storage depots.
Interior Minister Dabo said the government urgently needed aircraft, patrol boats, vehicles and satellite communications to be able to take on the drugs gangs and he appealed to the international community for assistance.
