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Guinea Bissau: In Need of a State
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AfricaFocus (Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
28 July 2008
Posted to the web 4 August 2008
"Drugs arrive by boat or by air from Venezulea, Colombia, or Brazil to be stored in Guinea-Bissau before being redistributed in smaller lots to Europe. The process is relatively easy for the traffickers. The state of Guinea-Bissau has no logistical capacity to control its territory, particularly some 90 coastal islands." - International Crisis Group
Spurred in large part by the need to combat the drug trade, international support for Guinea-Bissau is likely to increase, as critical elections are scheduled for November this year. Nevertheless, as noted in the International Crisis Group report "Guinea-Bissau: In Need of a State," released in early July, the country still lacks functioning state institutions, more than three decades after its independence from Portugal.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the executive summary of the International Crisis Group report and excerpts from a visit to Guiniea-Bissau by a delegation from the UN's Peacebuilding Support unit. The full Crisis Group report is only available in French, at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5549&l=2 Given that international attention to Guinea-Bissau is so infrequent, and that this report provides a very clear analysis and summary of events in Guinea-Bissau since independence, the web version of this AfricaFocus Bulletin also includes excerpts from the full report, in French below.
For additional links and background on Guinea-Bissau, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/guineabissau.php
There is also extensive background information in Portuguese and English, including regular UN reports, at the site of the United Nations Peace-Building Support Office in Guinea Bissau (UNOGBIS)http://www.unogbis.org/homepage.html and on the United Nations website at http://www.un.org/peace/peacebuilding/pbc-countrymtgs.shtml#gb
For the latest report on drug trafficking in Guinea-Bissau and other African countries, see
http://www.incb.org/pdf/annual-report/2007/en/chapter-03.pdf
For a recent news report on Guinea-Bissau's only major export crop (cashews), see http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL1146527220080716
For a Washington Post report on new Pentagon interest in drug control in Guinea-Bissau and other West African states, see http://tinyurl.com/3ues4j
For a selection of books on Guinea-Bissau available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, covering both pre-independence and postindependence history, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/books/afbooks.php#gb1 or
http://www.africafocus.org/books/afbooks_uk.php#gb1
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
@@@@@@@@@@@New in AfricaFocus Bookshop@@@@@@@@@@@
Visit http://www.africafocus.org/books/afbooks.php (Amazon.com) or http://www.africafocus.org/books/afbooks_uk.php (Amazon.co.uk)
In addition to books on Guinea-Bissau, noted above, the country section now contains selections of ten books each on ten countries, including Botswana, Eritrea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, and Sudan. If your country of interest is not yet included, check out http://www.africafocus.org/books/aboutbooks.php to find out how to make a selection of your own and send it in.
And special thanks to AfricaFocus subscriber Rae Hendriksz, of the Priority Africa Network in the San Francisco Bay Area, for sending in a selection of African prison memoirs to be featured. Check them out at http://www.africafocus.org/books/themes.php (Amazon.com) or http://www.africafocus.org/books/themes_uk.php (Amazon.co.uk).
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Guinea-Bissau: In Need of a State
Africa Report N 142
2 July 2008
International Crisis Group
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5549&l=1
Executive Summary
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Guinea-Bissau needs a state. Its political and administrative structures are insufficient to guarantee control of its territory, assure minimum public services or counter-balance the army's dominance. This core weakness has been at the root of recurrent political crises, coups d'etat and the proliferation of criminal networks. Despite advancing little in 35 years of independence, Guinea-Bissau appears to have gained new momentum thanks to the signing of a Stability Pact by the three most important political parties in March 2007. Nevertheless, there is real risk of it becoming a narco-state and a political and administrative no-man's-land, attractive to trafficking and terrorist networks in the Maghreb. The international community should urgently support the government's efforts to consolidate democracy, reform the security sector and construct viable state structures.
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