Folks Given that there are lot of looming failed states in West Africa I hope you will find this article from the World Politic review interesting. Read the article and make critical evaluative analysis with reference to our advocacy for the efficiency of rule of law and functional democracy for peace and political stability in the region. An important area of academic research for students of West African politics. Below is the article!! Thematic:- Cocaine and Failed States in Africa The Coke Coast: Cocaine and Failed States in Africa Joseph Kirschke | World Politics Review Exclusive Continue: 1 | 2 | Next Page >> Stepped up U.S. drug enforcement and interdiction in Latin America, coupled with a falling dollar and a surging demand for cocaine on the streets of Europe, is leading to political and economic chaos across West Africa, where international narco-traffickers have established their most recent, and lucrative, staging grounds. In fact, the drug trade is fast turning large parts of the region into areas that are all but ungovernable -- with major implications for international security. "The former Gold Coast is turning into the Coke Coast," said a 2008 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). "The problem is so severe that it is threatening to bring about the collapse of some West African states where weak and corrupt governments are vulnerable to the corrosive influence of drug money." Though hardly alone in West Africa, Guinea-Bissau, the world's fifth poorest country, with a population of 1.5 million, has for all intents and purposes become the textbook example of the African "narco-state." Due to its relative proximity to South America, its hundreds of miles of unpatrolled coastline, islands and islets, along with the fact that Portuguese is its lingua franca, Guinea-Bissau has been increasingly targeted by South American drug lords as a preferred traffic hub for European-bound cocaine, according to the UNODC. What's more, as citizens of a former Portuguese colony, Guineans do not need visas to enter that EU country, further facilitating the movement of drugs. Authorities there can do precious little about it. "Guinea-Bissau has lost control of its territory and cannot administer justice," declared Antonio Maria Costa, the UNODC executive director, in a statement before the U.N. Security Council in December. "There is a permeability of judicial systems and a corruptibility of institutions in West Africa," he added. "Guinea-Bissau is under siege. Literally under siege." Part of the problem, as Costa explained, is that the value of the drug trade entering the country, where about 6 grams of cocaine is roughly equal to the average annual salary, is far higher than its entire national income. One drug bust last year in Guinea-Bissau -- 600 kilograms of cocaine found in the boot of a car -- had a street value equivalent to approximately 10 percent of the country's entire GDP of $340 million. Another raid netted 635 kg of cocaine, although the smugglers were believed to have escaped with more than two tons. But Guinea-Bissau enjoys plenty of company among its neighbors: To varying degrees, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Cape Verde, Guinea-Conakry, Togo, Benin, Senegal, South Africa, and other West African and sub-Saharan states (including already-challenged states like Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Liberia) are all beginning to feel the long reach of cocaine smuggling. Though cocaine has been smuggled through West Africa for most of the last decade, the trade has increased sharply in recent years, says Yahia Affinih, a sociologist and professor of African American studies at John Jay College in New York. The two main reasons, says Affinih, are that "unemployment is very high, and law enforcement is weak." Despite growing international awareness of the problem, serious efforts to combat it remain embryonic. As a result, authorities have been unable to paint a complete picture of what is actually happening on the ground. Nevertheless, they worry that drug smugglers are actively probing countries in the region for weaknesses, of which there are many. U.N. officials are far from optimistic. According to Costa, "a string of nations along the African coast are rapidly becoming narco-states." Even countries in East Africa are being affected, albeit to a far lesser degree, with some law enforcement officials estimating that as much as $100 million worth of cocaine could be transiting through Kenya on an annual basis. In fact, according to Kenya's Sunday Nation newspaper, by 2005 saturation of supply combined with a low demand had combined to lower the value of cocaine there by as much as 300 percent. In Uganda, meanwhile, reports are emerging of systematic efforts by local drug rings to entice foreigners -- more than a few of whom have been caught -- into bringing cocaine into Europe from that nation. But for now, West Africa remains the destination of choice for international narco-traffickers. "In countries that have such weak institutions, it's going to be a mess," Costa noted. Worse still is a phenomenon that drug enforcement officials have yet to encounter in West Africa, but that Costa considers inevitable: "I have no doubt we're going to see production." Joseph Beduako Asare, of Ghana's International Narcotics Control Board, says this is already happening. Officials in Ghana, he told the U.K.-based publication Africa Report, have identified an escalating trade in devices needed to refine cocaine between gangs in Ghana and South Africa. As a result, he added, cocaine production is now underway in Ghana. Many experts fear that, along with security issues, the drug trade in West Africa is threatening basic development and economic progress in the region, where countries are emerging from civil war, resettling refugees, or just struggling to cope with the ravaging spread of HIV/AIDS. "The money from the drug trade is competing with the institution-building," Emmanuelle Bernard, West Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group told Reuters, "which is what these countries need to be doing now." High Demand, High Volume The cocaine trade is believed to be worth between $56 and $70 billion globally and, according to the UNODC, annual global production has increased to nearly 700 tons in recent years. There is no question that America continues to consume, by far, more cocaine than any other nation in the world. A July report by the World Health Organization underscored this point, reporting that 16 percent of all Americans had used or tried cocaine at some point in their lifetimes, compared to 4.3 percent for the next highest country rated, New Zealand. Nonetheless, the consumption of cocaine in the U.S. has remained more or less stagnant since 1995, say U.S. law enforcement and drug policy experts. Meanwhile, on the streets of European cities, its use continues to soar to unprecedented levels. Specifically, the UNODC estimates that of the 14 million people who use cocaine annually, more than 4 million live in Europe alone -- more than triple the number 10 years ago. What's more, 20 percent of all Europeans have tried cocaine at least once in their lifetimes. And with the euro trading at $1.45 against the U.S. dollar as of early September, profit margins for cocaine sales in Europe (ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 percent) have skyrocketed. According to U.N. figures, two pounds of uncut cocaine can now fetch as much as $45,000 on the streets of Europe, as opposed to less than half that price ($22,000) in the U.S. Not surprisingly, many drug traffickers are now actively shunning the dollar for the euro, as evidenced by the confiscation of vast amounts of Euros from cocaine traffickers by drug enforcement agents across the Americas. Should profits continue to surge, some have voiced concerns that European cities could witness the kind of all-out gang warfare that is now ravaging Mexico, and that has plagued Colombia in years past. For the time being, it is a scenario that has yet to play out. The majority of European cocaine makes initial landfall in either Spain or Portugal where, by all accounts, officials are seeing an increase in confiscation. In 2007, for example, Spanish police netted some 1,358 kilos of cocaine at Madrid's Barajas International Airport, more than double the 570 kilos seized in 2006. Last year, officials arrested 426 people on drug charges at the airport, also twice the number detained in 2006. This makes Spain, according to officials in Madrid, the leading point of entry for the world's cocaine as it makes its way to Europe. It is all but impossible to know the true amount of cocaine that is smuggled through West Africa at any given time. A 2006 report by the European police agency, Europol, asserted that 250 tons of cocaine enters the EU by sea or air every year and, in the two years leading up to 2007, according to UNDOC statistics, more than 30 tons of cocaine was seized en route from Africa to Europe. But according to U.N. officials, these intercepts represented a mere "tip of the iceberg." Equally telling may be the fact that seizures to or from West Africa jumped from just 273 kg in 2001 to more than 14.6 tons in 2006. While exact numbers remain elusive, the UNODC estimates that the total amount of cocaine smuggled from Africa is worth at least $1.8 billion at wholesale prices, and far more when distributed at street level after hitting European cities. Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 19:39:20 +0000 From: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: The United States of Guinea - A proposal by Haruna Darbo To: [log in to unmask] HIaruna: This is your good friend, just wanted to find out the rationale of your proposal in this instance, and will it be applicable in the case of Senegal & Gambia. Thanks Musa Jeng ----- Original Message ----- From: "Haruna Darbo" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 7:48:46 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: The United States of Guinea - A proposal by Haruna Darbo I suggest advisedly that Guinea Bissau become a semi-autonomous region of La Guinea now, to lead toward total union in 2 years. That the union of the tow Guineas be called simply Guinea, dropping the definite article from the La Guinea. It is the right time now. The United states of GUinea will have one army, navy, airforce, police, and para, with one defense department. A corps of amphibious troops to patrol the longer coastline. I encourage President Dadis Camara of La GUinea, the interim President of Bissau, President Wade of Senegal, President ATT of Mali, the President of Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria and SierraLeone to form themselves into an emergent contact group. The aim of this contact group will be to encourage and resource the setting up of an amalgamated armed forces and police and to coordinate the development of a constitution for the new union government. I encourage the UN, AU, ECOWAS, EU, The US, Portugal, and France to give this paradigm their blessing and support. No petit colonial squabbles or mining interest tussles. Haruna. 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