It could not be long before Guinea-Bissau becomes as well-known as Sudan, though for much different reasons. In the end, the media attention will almost surely be a good thing. At the very least, it puts the country on the map.
An excerpt:
Guinea-Bissau, one of the world's poorest nations, has become a major transshipment hub and the epicenter in Africa for the cocaine trade, according to U.S., European and U.N. officials. The shift demonstrates how the flow of drugs adapts not only to law enforcement pressure but also to the forces of global economics.
Officials said some of the world's richest criminal gangs are exploiting barely functioning countries such as Guinea-Bissau, which has 63 federal police officers, no prison and a population that still lives largely in thatched-roof homes on dirt roads with no electricity or running water."West Africa is under attack," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, who recently visited Guinea-Bissau and concluded that it is so overrun by the cocaine trade that it could become Africa's first "narco-state."
