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guinea-bissau

Results for guinea-bissau

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Author: Kaczynski, Vlad M..

Title: Illegal Activities in Marine Protected Areas: The Case of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa

Summary: At the time when many industrialized economies enjoy healthy economic growth, many developing countries including these located in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer an outright decline in welfare, economic crisis and deterioration of their natural environments. In many poor countries, in spite of great potential of their coastal resources, technological, economic and managerial capabilities to use them do not exist or in order to gain badly needed hard currency they export or allow to take away by foreigners their natural resources thus feeding other markets including these in rich industrialized countries. As a result deficit of food and malnutrition is deepening in the developing countries and Africa is the most appealing example of this trend. Coastal lands in poorest African countries are increasingly cleared of mangroves, their fishery resources are exploited by foreign operators and drug trafficking is expanding because of weak or absent capabilities of these states to control these pressures and activities. The United States interests in successful economic growth and good governance in developing countries of Africa are multifaceted. Some of these interests are economic: the economic success or failure of these countries determine the gains from trade and investment that the United States reaps in its economic relations with many African countries. Other US interests are of security nature and illegal resource exploitation combined with growing smuggling of drugs to Europe and the US are of great concern for the US Home Security Department as well as to the US development and aid programs. The poor state’s failure is both the cause and consequence of international criminality, including pirate operations and international drug trafficking. Such states are easy prey for criminal groups, pirates and drug smugglers. The poor coastal African country of Guinea-Bissau cannot afford to establish or maintain necessary controls and surveillance system to prevent these negative trends and these include environmental degradation that is caused by tropical deforestation, overfishing, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and long-term climate change. Additional challenge this country faces is quickly growing drug trafficking that transits through Guinea-Bissau waters and land routes to push drugs from Africa and South America to the industrialized markets, particularly Europe and the United States. Is there a strategic significance of inequities in income levels, economic growth and, in capabilities of poor nations to assure good governance and sustainable use of their natural resources and if so, which policy might the industrialized countries pursue to address those strategic concerns? The similar question may be posed in regard to ther ocean policy toward developing countries having in mind continuing deterioration of their marine and coastal environments and declining possibilities to produce food of aquatic origin for their growing populations.

Details: Seattle, WA: School of Marine Affairs and Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington; Republic of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa: Ministry of Interior, 2006. 11p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 15, 2011 at: http://akson.sgh.waw.pl/~trusek/globalization/papers/kaczynski-djassi.pdf

Year: 2006

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Drug Trafficking

Shelf Number: 122390


Author: O'Regan, Davin

Title: Advancing Stability and Reconciliation in Guinea-Bissau: Lessons from Africa's First Narco-State

Summary: A string of crises stretching back more than a decade has rendered Guinea-Bissau one of the most fragile states in Africa. This recurring cycle of political violence, instability, and incapacitated governance, moreover, has accelerated in recent years, most notably following a military coup in April 2012. Exploiting this volatility, trafficking networks have coopted key political and military leaders and transformed Guinea-Bissau into a hub for illicit commerce, particularly the multibillion dollar international trade in cocaine. This has directly contributed to instability in Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and elsewhere in Africa. European and African organized criminal groups have likewise established ties to the Guinea-Bissau trade. Drawn by the lucrative revenues, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other militant groups in West Africa have also been linked to Guinea-Bissau trafficking. Now commonly referred to as Africa’s first narco-state, Guinea-Bissau has become a regional crossroads of instability. Responses to Guinea-Bissau’s bouts of crises, however, have tended to be short lived and neglect the country’s deep institutional weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Clashes within the military, coups d’état, and strings of politically motivated killings have been met with condemnation from regional and international partners followed by calls for investigations or a transitional election—but with few genuine reforms. Oftentimes many of the perpetrators of Guinea-Bissau’s crises retain or even expand their influence and stature. Meanwhile, economic growth has been episodic, human development indicators have been stagnant, and a humanitarian emergency imperiling 300,000 people looms. Given the sensational nature of these crises, root drivers of instability are consistently overlooked, including a political system marked by the concentration of authority in the executive branch and a security sector that has gradually expanded its involvement in politics. As a result, crises inevitably reemerge. While narcotics traffickers initially targeted Guinea-Bissau because of its weak oversight and governance capacity, the drug trade has dramatically compounded these drivers of instability while spawning others. Despite Guinea-Bissau’s serious challenges, some groundwork for reform has been laid by the country’s emerging civil society actors and democratic institutions. An independent media sector, several prominent and well-organized human rights groups, an improved police force, and a national legislature that has on occasion demonstrated its influence, represent a potentially vital reform network. These civil society actors and independent reformers are under growing pressure from the increasingly emboldened military and political leadership that has captured escalating trafficking revenues, however. At the heart of Guinea-Bissau’s instability is its winner-take-all political system. To break its cycle of violence and instability, Guinea-Bissau will need to institute stronger checks and balances in order to diminish the concentration of authority in the Office of the President. This includes codifying the role of other branches of government in authorizing public expenditures and government appointments, among other responsibilities. The armed forces will also need to undergo an objective and balanced review of its management and mission. To become a constructive actor, this top-heavy institution will need to upgrade its policies of promotion, retirement, and recruitment to create a more dynamic, ethnically balanced, and threat-based force structure. Stabilization will similarly require protecting civil society actors as they represent the drivers for change internally. Institutional reforms in the political and military spheres will be contingent on reconciliation efforts to bridge entrenched inter-elite and state-society rifts following years of unresolved abuses, coups, killings, and political machinations. Given the level of polarization within Guinea-Bissau, stabilization cannot be achieved through domestic efforts alone. Instead, it will require the sustained engagement of international partners. Moreover, while Guinea-Bissau is frequently perceived as solely a domestic challenge, its instability is part of a transnational criminal threat affecting regional and international security. As such, neighboring states, as well as Europe and the United States have vested interests in a stable Guinea-Bissau. To advance this objective, international partners should expand their efforts to detect and interdict the sea and air traffic conveying bulk drug shipments to Africa via Guinea-Bissau. Additionally, international actors should investigate and prosecute trafficking networks, many of which clearly hold assets and operational bases in jurisdictions well beyond Guinea-Bissau. Countering trafficking within Guinea-Bissau will require capable multinational engagement to reconstitute the judicial sector, law enforcement, and associated legal and regulatory frameworks. Such an effort could be modeled on a unique joint United Nations-Guatemalan initiative to combat organized criminal activity and strengthen government counter-crime capacities. Efforts to stabilize Guinea-Bissau hold numerous insights on preventing and reversing the rise of other narco-states in Africa. This is an increasingly real prospect given the growing levels of cocaine, heroin, and amphetamine trafficking on the continent. Guinea-Bissau may be Africa’s first narco-state, but worrying signs in Mali, The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique, Kenya, and elsewhere indicate that it is not the only country struggling against the hollowing effects of drug trafficking on security, development, and governance.

Details: Washington, DC: Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2013. 58p.

Source: Internet Resource: ACSS Special Report No. 2; Accessed June 25, 2013 at: http://africacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/SpecialReport-Guinea-Bissau-JUN2013-EN.pdf

Year: 2013

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Drug Trafficking (Guinea-Bissau, Africa)

Shelf Number: 129150


Author: Reitano, Tuesday

Title: The End of Impunity? After the kingpins, what next for Guinea-Bissau?

Summary: In April 2013 a successful sting operation and an indictment by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) targeted two of Guinea-Bissau’s most notorious cocaine kingpins: the former chief of the Guinea-Bissau navy, Rear Admiral José Américo Bubo Na Tchuto, and the head of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces, General António Indjai. This is a victory for the law enforcement response to organised crime. In the decade since the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) first warned that Guinea-Bissau had become a 'narco-state', the country has been caught in an accelerating cycle of political fragility that is driven in part by the desire to control lucrative cocaine connections. Impunity has become part of the fabric of Guinea-Bissau as trafficking is an essential survival strategy for many, which has disintegrated any basis for a society predicated on the rule of law. The DEA intervention is significant because it has ended impunity in a dramatic way, but the risk is that without the proper follow-up Guinea-Bissau will become a flashpoint for further instability and conflict, when the country should instead be preparing for democratic elections.To avoid this, a sustained and comprehensive strategy should be put in place to strengthen the criminal justice system in the country and to build citizens’ confidence that the state has the capacity to deliver justice and uphold the rule of law.

Details: Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2013.

Source: Internet Resource: ISS Policy Brief 44: Accessed August 19, 2013 at: http://www.issafrica.org/publications/policy-brief/the-end-of-impunity-after-the-kingpins-what-next-for-guinea-bissau

Year: 2013

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Drug Trafficking

Shelf Number: 129634


Author: Bybee, Ashley Neese

Title: Narco State or Failed State? Narcotics and Politics in Guinea-Bissau

Summary: Drug-funded insurgencies in Latin America and more recently in Afghanistan have prompted the use of the term "Narco-State" to describe those countries that have fallen victim to drug cultivation, narco-corruption, trafficking and related activities. In around 2005, West Africa emerged as a major transit hub for Latin American Drug Trafficking Organizations transporting cocaine to Western Europe, prompting many observers to label several countries in the region as the world's newest "Narco-States." The absence of a standard definition for a "Narco-State," however, has compelled many to question the purpose of this designation, asking not only "what is a Narco-State" but "so what?" Moreover, the vulnerability of Transit States - i.e. states through which drugs are transported - to these pressures adds another interesting dimension, begging the question "can Transit States also succumb to the pressures of an illicit drug trade without cultivating drugs within their borders?" and "to what extent?" Lastly, the latest trend of drug traffickers to exploit weak and failed states, such as Guinea-Bissau and its neighbors in West Africa, adds yet another layer of unanswered questions such as "how do the impacts of drug trafficking differ in states with various degrees of institutional strength and capacity?" Using Guinea-Bissau as the primary case study and comparing it with the experiences of four other geographically, economically, and institutionally diverse Transit States, this research seeks to clarify the impacts that the drug trade has on weak and failing states, and how - if at all - those states can become destabilized by this phenomenon.

Details: Washington, DC: George Mason University, 2011. 450p.

Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed April, 2, 2016 at: http://digilib.gmu.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1920/6618/BYBEE%20Signed%20Dissertation%20Failed%20State%20or%20Narco%20State%20Politics%20and%20Narcotics%20in%20Guinea%20Bissau.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Year: 2011

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Corruption

Shelf Number: 138529


Author: Jakobsson, A.

Title: From Gold Coast to Coke Coast: Politicians, Militaries and Large-Scale Trafficking of Cocaine in Guinea-Bissau

Summary: The tiny West African nation of Guinea-Bissau made the news as the first narco-state in Africa during the mid-2000s. Guinea-Bissau had out-of-the-blue become a key transit point for cocaine out of South America on route to Europe. What's more, high-ranking government and military officials were supposedly deeply complicit in the illicit drug trafficking. This master's thesis applies the state crime theory of Penny Green and Tony Ward in order to explain the emergence of Guinea-Bissau as a predatory state. No previous criminological studies have ever revealed the reasons for these dynamics. In this thesis, I illustrate how weak institutions, corruption, unsustainable economy, porous borders, and a lack of military legitimacy have conspired to facilitate the development of the predatory state in this country. State power has become fundamental to individual gain, as state elements fused with crime. Consequently, I demonstrate that the large-scale trade of cocaine has greatly contributed to the rise of Guinea-Bissau as a predatory state.

Details: Stockholm: Stockholm University, Kriminologiska institutionen, 2015. 46p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 7, 2016 at: http://www.criminology.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.257044.1448011357!/menu/standard/file/2015m_15_Jakobsson_Angelina.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Cocaine

Shelf Number: 138594


Author: Van Riper, Stephen K.

Title: Tackling Africa's First Narco-State: Guinea-Bissau in West Africa

Summary: The U.S., Europe and regional African players must tackle drug smuggling in West Africa to prevent that region from falling into chaos. Today, West Africa is a significant nexus for the illegal trafficking of oil, weapons, cigarettes, drugs and other commodities. The United States has labeled Guinea-Bissau Africa's first narco-state and it has become the epicenter of a region where Transnational Criminal Organizations are corrupting governments and societies at an alarming rate. Their nefarious efforts, and Guinea-Bissau's state failure, conflict with U.S. stated interests. Tackling corruption, neutralizing spoilers, and increasing the societies' culture of lawfulness are necessary steps to save West Africa. This will be challenging in Guinea-Bissau due to geography, culture, government structure, and a corrupted military. But with the right adjustments to resources, authorities and priorities, it can be done.

Details: Carlisle Barracks, PA: United States Army War College Press, 2014. 47p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2016 at: http://pksoi.army.mil/default/assets/File/VanRiper_monograph_Final.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Guinea-Bissau

Keywords: Drug Trafficking

Shelf Number: 146013