Monday - March 02, 2009

The Newest Narco State?

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau — Renegade soldiers killed Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira in his palace on Monday, hours after a bomb blast took the life of his rival, the fragile West African nation’s armed forces chief.

It was not immediately clear whether a coup was under way, and the capital, Bissau, was tense but calm.

Luis Sanca, security adviser to Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Jr., confirmed the president’s death but gave no details.

A bomb blast Sunday night killed armed forces chief of staff Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie at his headquarters in Bissau, according to a state radio report.

The two men were considered staunch political rivals.

Guinea-Bissau has suffered multiple coups and attempted coups since 1980, when Vieira himself first took power in one. The United Nations says the impoverished nation on the Atlantic coast of Africa has become a key transit point for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe.

Just hours after Waie’s death late Sunday, volleys of automatic gunfire were heard for at least two hours before dawn in Bissau and residents said soldiers had converged on Vieira’s palace.

Guinea-Bissau, a tiny country in West Africa, has had a long history of instability and numerous attempted coups since independence from Portugal in 1974. For 23 of the past 29 years, the country was ruled by President Joao Bernardo Vieira.

RISE AND FALL OF VIEIRA: Vieira came to power in a 1980 coup and weathered numerous coup attempts until being forced out 19 years later at the onset of the country’s civil war in 1999. Vieira went into exile in Portugal. A transitional government was formed and opposition leader Kumba Yala became president, but he was ousted in a 2003 coup. The country organized elections in 2005. Vieira returned from exile and ran, winning the vote.

MILITARY PURGE: The military is made up primarily of members of the Balanta ethnic group, who have long resented being under the rule of Vieira. He belonged to the Papel ethnic group, which represents roughly 5 percent of the population. After one of many failed coup attempts in the 1980s, Vieira set up a military tribunal and condemned to death several Balanta officers in an attempt to purge the military of his ethnic enemies.

COCAINE TRADE: In recent years, Guinea-Bissau has become a key transit point for South American cocaine. The drugs are flown from South America in small planes and then parceled out to dozens of drug mules that carry them north to Europe. The huge influx of money from the drug trade has been a major destabilizing force for the small nation.

Military coup? I doubt it, other than that the soldiers may have been the ones doing the actual killing. Bought and paid for. No, I’m fairly certain that this was the drug lords taking over. They run the country in all but name anyway; everyone in power is deeply involved with narcotics because that’s where all the money is.

And do you know what is going to happen? Nothing. Not a damn thing. The rest of the world will hardly even notice. The UN won’t do a damn thing. They probably won’t even bother to draft a mildly worded letter of protest. Who cares? It’s shithole west africa, that poorest corner of the piss poor continent where the primitives animists local populace hasn’t been able to get past absolute tribalism for 10,000 years. That same corner where never ending civil war rages. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, the Niger Delta. All neighbors, all soaked in blood. Tribalism is the curse of africa, and it keeps the people in a stone age mindset. And that makes them weak. And violent. And into that weakness the drug barons come.

So tribalism probably fueled this conflagration, but the narco-traffickers are going to be the victors. Guaranteed. Even islam can’t save this place.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/02/2009 at 08:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Africa • Crime • Politics • Tyrants and Dictators •  
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