Bissau: o pior-narco-estado africano

A sizable increase in drug trafficking in this troubled country since the military took over has raised suspicions that the (interin) president’s sudden removal was what amounted to a cocaine coup. The military brass here has long been associated with drug trafficking, but the coup last spring means soldiers now control the drug racket and the country itself, turning Guinea-Bissau in the eyes of some international counternarcotics experts into a nation where illegal drugs are sanctioned at the top. “They are probably the worst narco-state that’s out there on the continent,” said a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his work in the region. “They are a major problem.” Since the April 12 coup, more small twin-engine planes than ever are making the 1,600-mile Atlantic crossing from Latin America to the edge of Africa’s western bulge, landing in Guinea-Bissau’s fields, uninhabited islands and remote estuaries. There they unload their cargos of cocaine for transshipment north, experts say. The fact that the army has put in place a figurehead government and that military officers continue to call the shots behind the scenes only intensifies the problem. The political instability continued as soldiers attacked an army barracks on Oct. 21, apparently in an attempt to topple the government. A dissident army captain was arrested on an offshore island on Oct. 27 and accused of being the organizer of the countercoup attempt. Two critics of the government were also assaulted and then left outside the capital. From April to July there were at least 20 landings in Guinea-Bissau of small planes that United Nations officials suspected were drug flights — traffic that could represent more than half the estimated annual cocaine volume for the region. The planes need to carry a one-and-a-half-ton cargo to make the trans-Atlantic trip viable, officials say. Europe, already the destination for about 50 tons of cocaine annually from West Africa, United Nations officials say, could be in for a far greater flood. Was the military coup itself a diversion for drug trafficking? Some experts point to signs that as the armed forces were seizing the presidency, taking over radio stations and arresting government officials, there was a flurry of drug activity on one of the islands of the Bijagós Archipelago, what amounted to a three-day offloading of suspicious sacks. That surreptitious activity appears to have been simply a prelude. “There has clearly been an increase in Guinea-Bissau in the last several months,” said Pierre Lapaque, head of the regional United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for West and Central Africa. “We are seeing more and more drugs regularly arriving in this country.” Mr. Lapaque called the trafficking in Guinea-Bissau “a major worry” and an “open sore,” and, like others, suggested that it was no coincidence that trafficking had spiked since the coup. Joaquin Gonzalez-Ducay, the European Union ambassador in Bissau, said: “As a country it is controlled by those who formed the coup d’état. They can do what they want to do. Now they have free rein.” The senior D.E.A. official said, “People at the highest levels of the military are involved in the facilitation” of trafficking, and added: “In other African countries government officials are part of the problem. In Guinea-Bissau, it is the government itself that is the problem.” United Nations officials agree. “The coup was perpetrated by people totally embedded in the drugs business,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the political environment here. The country’s former prosecutor general, Octávio Inocêncio Alves, said, “A lot of the traffickers have direct relationships with the military.” The civilian government and the military leadership that sits watchfully in its headquarters in an old Portuguese fort at the other end of town reject the United Nations drug accusations. “People say I’m a drug trafficker,” said Gen. Antonio Injai, the army chief of staff, raising his voice in an interview. “Anybody who has the proof, present it! We ask the international community to give us the means to fight drugs.” Mr. Gonzalez-Ducay, the ambassador, responded, “I can’t believe that the one who controls the drug trafficking is going to fight the drug trafficking.” Relaxed and wearing a colorful two-piece outfit and gold chains, General Injai sat under a giant kapok tree surrounded by uniformed aides. He laughed when asked whether he was the real power in Guinea-Bissau and blamed the deposed prime minister, Carlos Gomes Jr., for provoking the coup through his military alliance with Angola. In 2010, the United States government explicitly linked the country’s military to the drug trade: the Treasury Department declared as drug kingpins both the ex-chief of the navy, Rear Adm. Bubo Na Tchuto, and the air force chief of staff, Ibraima Papa Camara, and froze whatever assets they may have had in the United States. Now, however, American officials are making overtures to the transitional government, despite other Western embassies’ hands-off approach to protest the military’s continued meddling in politics. General Injai expressed appreciation for the American position, and called the United Nations special representative here a “bandito.” Russell Hanks, the American diplomat responsible for Guinea-Bissau, said: “You will only have an impact on this transition by engagement, not by isolation. These are the people who came in to pick up the pieces after the coup.” Mr. Hanks is based outside the country because the United States closed its embassy here during the civil war in 1998. Officials point to several indicators, besides the increase in plane flights, to show that Guinea-Bissau has become a major drug transit hub. They cite photographs of a recently well-cleared stretch of road in a remote rural area near the Senegal border, complete with turning space for small planes. The clearing was created under the supervision of military authorities, officials say. They also note mysterious absences of fuel at the tiny international airport in the capital, presumed stolen by traffickers. Four months before the coup, a plane, with the aid of uniformed soldiers, landed in a rural area in the center of the country, which is the size of Belgium, said João Biague, head of the judicial police. The landing took place not far from General Injai’s farm. Mr. Biague heads what is nominally the country’s antidrug agency, though he made it clear that he and his staff are largely powerless to practice any form of drug interdiction despite receiving frequent tips about small planes landing from abroad. “The traffickers know we can’t do much,” he said. The agency is so starved of funds that he does not have money to put gas in its few vehicles, Mr. Biague said. Paint is peeling on the outside of the judicial police’s two-story colonial building downtown, and mold blackens the ground-floor pilasters. It is allocated $85 a week from the country’s Justice Ministry. “The agents we have in the field want to give up because they have nothing to eat,” Mr. Biague said. In the last three years, there have been more than a half-dozen unsolved political assassinations here, including of the longtime president and the former army chief of staff, as well as at least two coup attempts, besides the successful coup. Nobody has been successfully prosecuted, though drugs were linked to many of them. Last month, the justice minister of the transitional government warned opposition politicians not to speak publicly of “cases that don’t concern them,” under threat of criminal penalty. This week, the repression appeared to tighten. General Injai threatened journalists with death if they asked questions about the assassination of the former president, and he warned that there would be many arrests as a result of the countercoup attempt. There is remarkably little public talk of the unsolved political killings or of the country’s relations with the drug business. There have been no demonstrations; no discussion in the Parliament, shut down since July; no news conferences. “A country that’s not capable of discussing its own problems — it’s not a country, it’s not a state,” said Mr. Alves, the former prosecutor general. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Cavaco: três anos de rumores sobre doença incapacitante

A doença de um cidadão anónimo é um assunto do seu foro pessoal e da sua família. Uma doença grave de um político eleito pelo povo para altas funções, é um assunto de Estado. É assim em todo o mundo e terá de ser também em Portugal. Recordemos o exemplo recente do presidente Mitterrand em França, em que à custa de omissões e falsidades do seu próprio médico, escondeu durante alguns anos dos franceses que tinha uma doença terminal. Agora quando se especula e se afirma em voz baixa, da boca para a orelha como o povo diz, que o Presidente Cavaco sofrerá já há muitos meses de uma doença grave que afecta e condiciona o seu cérebro, é mister que o próprio venha a terreiro esclarecer de uma forma clara e terminante a sua situação clínica. Vem isto a propósito de um comportamento político errático que o mesmo vem assumindo há vários meses, e já agora da sua alocução recente, em que procurou (não sei se conseguiu) esclarecer boatos e insinuações várias. Tem agora uma oportunidade de o fazer em relação à sua própria pessoa, para que os portugueses possam saber com o que podem contar para o futuro, sem boatos nem especulações, que só servem para minar a opinião pública e a própria credibilidade dos altos dignitários do Estado. publicado por Manuel de Cascais Cá para mim, como se costuma dizer, a sua "doença" terá mais a ver com a qualidade dos seus assessores e com os fins que os movem. No caso de Fernando Lima, é fácil deduzir-se que, na ânsia de defender o Presidente, saiu do Palácio com um dossiê debaixo do braço para entregar a um jornalista... e o resultado deu no que deu. Outros, escrevem-lhe "explicações" sobre escutas e foi o que se viu... Se o PR está doente, então a doença reflecte-se, antes de tudo, nas personagens que o rodeiam... Vítor de Portugal a 1 de Outubro de 2009 Infelizmente penso que CS está mesmo doente. É uma informação com base em fonte médica, que ouvi há perto de um ano. Dado o tipo de doença invocada, explica facilmente os receios de perseguição que estão em cima da mesa. Se fôr verdade, não será possível manter-se em funções. Deveria renunciar de imediato. Cruzei esta informação com vários amigos geralmente bem informados na praça, um da área do PS outro da área do PSD, e ambos confirmaram terem ouvido o mesmo de outros correspondentes. Então de que é que os jornalistas e o País estarão à espera para confrontar CS? Se fôr mentira é mister que o afirme o mais rapidamente possível, a bem da normalidade institucional. Manuel de Cascais a 2 de Outubro de 2009 às 00:04 Curiosamente, em conversa privada, tive também agora a informação que o Presidente sofre de Alzheimer. Será verdade, ou um mero boato? Vítor de Portugal a 2 de Outubro de 2009 às 15:36

Mauritânia: o Presidente convalesce em Paris

(AfriSCOOP) — Il n’est pas question de « parler de la vacance de l’institution de la présidence » en Mauritanie. C’est ce qu’a indiqué mercredi le président de l’Assemblée nationale mauritanienne, à l’issue d’un entretien téléphonique avec le chef de l’Etat en convalescence en France. Le président Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz , qui est âgé de 55 ans, avait été hospitalisé en France le 14 octobre après avoir essuyé des coups de feu, selon la thèse officielle mauritanienne, tirés par des militaires de façon accidentelle sur son véhicule près de Nouakchott. Le président de l’Assemblée nationale, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, cité par l’agence Xinhua, a indiqué avoir eu « un entretien téléphonique de 5 à 6 minutes avec le président de la République Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz », pour s’enquérir de son état de santé « qui s’améliore de façon continue ». Le président Aziz est sorti de l’hospitalière militaire la semaine dernière. Mais ses médecins français lui ont conseillé, dimanche 28 octobre, de prolonger son séjour de convalescence dans la capitale française. Cette absence prolongée donne libre cours à des rumeurs des plus folles dans la capitale, certaines évoquant une vacance du pouvoir susceptible d’entraîner l’instauration d’une transition dans le pays. Jeudi soir lors d’un meeting à Nouakchott, la Coordination de l’opposition démocratique (COD), coalition d’une dizaine de partis, a appelé à l’instauration d’une période de transition suivie d’élections transparentes. « Il est nécessaire (de) combler le vide clairement constaté au sommet de l’Etat et dont les conséquences sont dangereuses pour le pays, le peuple et la gestion quotidienne de l’Etat », a déclaré le président de la COD, Saleh Ould Henenna, devant des milliers de personnes.

Líbia: a paz precária

TRIPOLI, Nov 4 (Reuters) - A gunbattle between two Libyan rival militias raged around a Tripoli security headquarters building on Sunday, highlighting the precariousness of peace in the capital more than a year after a popular armed revolt ousted Muammar Gaddafi. At least five people were wounded in the clash, and a bullet pierced into a nearby hospital, causing panic. Residents in the south Tripoli district of Sidi Khalifa said the fight erupted just after midnight on Sunday when two militia units authorised by the official Supreme Security Committee got into an argument over a detained member of one of the militias. "We called the police early in the morning to help us stop the shooting, but no one came," resident Khaled Mohamed told Reuters. A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was fired at the SSC base, damaging the building. The militia based in a post office building returned fire with another RPG. Gunfire rang through the neighbourhood as civilians were forced to block off the al-Zawiya street where the fighting raged, to prevent cars from driving into the battleground. Many civilians went home to get their own private arms. A bullet shot through the building caused panic at the nearby Tripoli Central Hospital, with doctors and nurses running for cover. Dr. Khaled Ben Nour said five casualties from the fighting had been brought in. "We have real patients with real needs. These rogue militias need to leave us in peace so we can do our jobs," Ben Nour said.

Bissau: o que diz o International Crisis Group

Guinea-Bissau took another dangerous turn on 12 April 2012, when the army arrested Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Júnior, who was about to be elected president. A military junta accused him of conspiring with Angola to curtail the military’s power and quickly installed transitional authorities, before officially stepping aside on 22 May. International condemnation was swift, but differences developed between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP). The former, pushed by Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, supports a year’s transition, the latter, especially Portugal and Angola, immediate resumption of the presidential vote. Coup and transition may have opened a way for vital reforms, which must go beyond changes in the army and combating the drugs trade. But for that to happen, ECOWAS and CPLP must reach a consensus on working with international partners to mobilise resources for security, judicial and electoral reforms and refusing to validate Gomes Júnior’s illegal exclusion from political life. Crisis Group warned three months before the coup that two related factors posed significant risks for stability: the likely victory of the prime minister in the presidential election and the military presence in the country of his ally, Angola, including its part in security sector reform (SSR). Both caused the military (Forças Armadas da Guiné-Bissau, FAGB) to fear what might be in store for it under a Gomes Júnior presidency. The coup that suspended the constitutional order and broke off the second round of the presidential election (scheduled for 29 April) was not a mere reflex of an isolated minority of narco-military against a reformist civilian government. Rather, it demonstrated that the tense relations between civilian and military elites that have marred progress since independence in 1974 remain unresolved and that these in turn feed into broader grievances around issues of citizenship, entitlements, the rural/urban divide, regional inequalities and the mounting sense of historical marginalisation felt by the Balanta ethnic group that depends on its majority in the army to champion its cause. Controversy rages over the role opposition leaders may have played. Both Serifo Nhamadjo, a rival within Gomes Júnior’s Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) and political heir to the deceased president, Malam Bacai Sanhá, and Kumba Yalá, a former president whose Partido para a Renovação Social (PRS) is rooted in the Balanta community, have influence in the military. But the coup was also stimulated by the inability of the electoral process to deliver uncontroversial results. Nhamadjo and Yalá, as well as Henrique Rosa, a former transition president, rejected the March first round results, claiming registration flaws and voting fraud. The coup also confirmed that Gomes Júnior’s divisive style made him many enemies among politicians as well as soldiers. The legitimacy he gained by improving the lives of ordinary citizens was weakened by opposition accusations of nepotism and that he was implicated in not yet credibly investigated political killings in 2009. While he denied the accusations, many citizens put their lives on the line in his defence during the April 2010 military turmoil but failed to do so two years later. The events likewise raise questions about why international efforts to help the tiny, poor, aid-dependent country have so persistently failed to bring real change. After the European Union (EU) pulled out as a result of the April 2010 troubles, and in the absence of other major international patrons, Angola did much to produce stability, but it has not been able to stimulate transformation or build and maintain consensus at the national and international level on shaping the future. It allowed itself to become an object of suspicion in the country and locked in jurisdictional fights with some key ECOWAS member states, which weakened its credibility, acceptability and efficiency. Guinea-Bissau is unlikely to receive substantially more attention in the near future for several reasons: the international community’s preoccupation with other, much bloodier situations; the capacity of the transitional authorities to maintain domestic order so far and play the dialogue game; and the willingness of ECOWAS to engage with them. The CPLP’s tough stance – seeking a stabilisation force and completion of the presidential election – has encouraged Gomes Júnior and the PAIGC to refuse all compromise and made ECOWAS the military’s favourite with which to broker a deal. The regional organisation has obtained two significant concessions: preservation of the parliament and release from detention of Gomes Júnior, who left the country two weeks after the coup. The price has been ECOWAS support for a one-year transition, to end with new elections. Nhamadjo took over as transitional president, and Rui Duarte Barros, a PRS associate, became prime minister, formed a cabinet and presented his transition program on 21 July. ECOWAS deployed a 629-man strong police and army contingent (ECOWAS mission in Bissau, ECOMIB) to help with security sector reform, support the transition and facilitate the departure of the Angolan military mission, which was completed peacefully on 9 June. Transitional structures are now in place, and new elections have been set for April 2013. But the transition remains unsteady. The new authorities are a mix of technocrats and opposition politicians of varied stripes, and a new sharing of spoils is under way the impact of which on state capacity is yet unclear. THE PAIGC remains in control of the parliament and hostile to the transition authorities, while politicians backing the transition are trying to keep Gomes Júnior at bay through their accusations. The military has formally retreated from public life with the dissolution of the junta in May but remains influential. Factionalism persists within it, and rumours of a new coup circulate endlessly. The withdrawal of much international assistance and disruption of the cashew nut export sector herald rough times for the transition authorities. But though there are limits to the transition as engineered by ECOWAS, it is the only game in town at this point. The more radical demands Gomes Júnior and the PAIGC are making with encouragement from Angola and Portugal could make the transition a riskier exercise. Tempting as it may be for some to hold back in the not unrealistic hope it will collapse, it is more prudent to work through ECOWAS and in the present framework. In their quest for a negotiated settlement, ECOWAS and its key member states have allowed themselves to be perceived internationally as letting the junta get away with too much and doing away with elective democracy, all in order to neutralise Angolan influence. The bulk of the international community has nevertheless been pragmatic in accepting the regional organisation’s leadership – it is the player with the ear of the military and the transitional government – but uneasiness persists in diplomatic circles over its handling of the situation. This makes it difficult for the transitional government to gain international recognition and recover suspended aid, without which it will be hard to mobilise resources for a successful transition and necessary reforms. ECOWAS and several of its member countries have legitimate interests in Guinea-Bissau, as well as leverage over the new authorities. That leverage can and should be used to work out a peaceful solution. However, ECOWAS, which has put a good deal of its prestige on the line, should learn from Angola’s experience: it must not act in isolation from the rest of the international community and become party to the complex conflicts that have divided Guinea-Bissau. It should instead help the transitional government realise and then do what is needed to rebuild international good-will: demonstrate its sincerity about reform. There would be a much better chance for this to happen if especially ECOWAS and CPLP would put aside their turf wars and develop a common strategy. The CPLP and its member countries should show greater flexibility, and the African Union (AU) should help facilitate discussions between the two organisations. RECOMMENDATIONS On international coordination To the international partners of Guinea-Bissau, in particular CPLP and its member states: 1. Support the lead of ECOWAS, while helping it to establish clear benchmarks for progress on the transition roadmap that the transition authorities are to prepare; and tie renewal of international development assistance and investment to achievement of those benchmarks. To the African Union (AU): 2. Support, through the AU Special Representative in Bissau, efforts to achieve better coordination between international partners, particularly ECOWAS and CPLP. To ECOWAS and its member states, in particular Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Senegal: 3. Elaborate, on the basis of consultations, particularly with CPLP and the transition authorities, a mandate for the ECOWAS mission in Bissau (ECOMIB) and seek UN Security Council approval of that mandate. On the transition To the transition authorities: 4. Elaborate, in line with the 21 July transition program and on the basis of consultations with the PAIGC majority in the assembly and with ECOWAS and other international partners, a detailed and inclusive transition roadmap that includes the following elements: a) election of a new speaker of the assembly and a partial reshuffle of the government to make room in the transitional institutions for the various groups within PAIGC; b) free, fair and transparent presidential and legislative elections no later than May 2013, and a guarantee that Carlos Gomes Júnior can participate; c) adequate resources and legal framework for the electoral commission (Commissão Nacional de Eleições, CNE) to revise the electoral roll and create a biometric electoral register; d) guarantees of full freedom for the media, public and private, including during the electoral campaign and beyond; e) renewal of open dialogue between the armed forces, civilian authorities and the general public over the position of the military in Guinean society; f) launch of security sector reform (SSR), beginning with the quick-start program for the Special Pension Fund, to which ECOWAS has pledged funding; g) replacement of informal, erratic and potentially criminal income arrangements within the armed forces (FAGB) by decent wages paid through a transparent biometric payment system; and h) request for an international commission of inquiry into the assassinations of key political and military figures not covered by the 2007 amnesty law. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP 17 de Agosto de 2012

Bissau: António Indjai é um golpista

O Governo e o Presidente da Guiné-Bissau fizeram em 2010 a vontade ao chefe do levantamento do dia 1 de Abril, general António Indjai, nomeando-o Chefe do Estado-Maior General das Forças Armadas. Quanto ao anterior titular do cargo, o almirante Zamora Induta, foi detido e exonerado. O Governo do PAIGC fez a vontade aos militares golpistas e ao PRS, principal força da oposição, propondo ao Presidente Malam Bacai Sanhá a legalização das alterações verificadas no dia 1 de Abril de 2010. Depois, Indjai não descansou enquanto não acabou com o Governo de Carlos Gomes Júnior e impediu este de chegar a Presidente da República, por vontade expressa de uma grande parte da população. Indjai fala de conjuras por parte de Carlos Gomes Júnior, mas se acaso estas existissem, nestes últimos meses, não seriam mais do que tentativas de regresso à legalidade, com reposição de um Governo que das demitiram e com o reatar de um processo eleitoral que se encontrava bem encaminhado. Decerto que Carlos Gomes Júnior e Zamora Induta terão erros que se lhes possam apontar, mas isso é para ser julgado por outras instâncias; e não pelo general que deu sucessivos golpes para ficar à frente do Estado-Maior e afastar do seu caminho um dirigente partidário de que não gostava. António Indjai é réu, e não juiz, de coisas menos correctas que nos últimos anos se fizeram na Guiné-Bissau. Ele e uma série de outros oficiais generais e oficiais superiores deveriam ser erradicados das Forças Armadas e mantidos bem longe dos quartéis. Se a ONU tivesse algum poder, era isso o que de há muito já deveria ter feito. JH

Bissau: Pansau foi ao engano

Pansau Ntchama caiu no engodo do CEMGFA António Indjai, e até a sua mulher foi usada como isco neste jogo do gato e do rato. António Indjai prometeu 'esquecer' todas as acusações, não maltratar a sua mulher e, cereja no topo do bolo, prometeu dar-lhe o comando do batalhão de Mansoa, seu bastião, ou dos pára-comandos - Pansau teria total liberdade para escolher o cargo que lhe assentaria melhor. Pansau Ntchama, apurou o DC junto de uma fonte no EMGFA, estava já na Guiné-Bissau há mais de um mês, e ele e Indjai tiveram mesmo alguns encontros. Depois, o general enganou-o a vir até Bissau com o intuito de o limpar - Pansau, pensou Indjai, seria a última testemunha. Enganou-se. Afinal, ainda em Portugal, soube igualmente o DC de fonte segura, Pansau Ntchama salvaguardou-se: deixou gravações comprometedoras, acusando Indjai de vários crimes, entre eles, dos assassinatos políticos e militares de 2009 em que o próprio Pansau participou... As gravações, com a sua própria voz, a que Ditadura do Consenso terá acesso brevemente, prometem um terramoto em Bissau... AAS --- Como já escrevi há dias, este processo faz-me lembrar muito a forma como em Timor-Leste o major Alfredo Reinado foi atraído a uma cilada na qual acabou por morrer, tendo sido acusado de um ataque que possivelmente não cometeu.