A Critical Review of Drug trafficking in Guinea - Conakry

BY
EMMANUEL UZUEGBU - WILSON (PhD)
Department of International Law and Security Studies,
School of Law and Security Studies,
Babcock University, Iperu-Campus, Ogun State, Nigeria.
E- mail : uzuegbu-wilsone@babcock.edu.ng, uzuwilson@yahoo.com.
Abstract
Abstract

The rising trend of the drug trade in Guinea-Conakry began from 2004 and the extent of the
illicit trade came to limelight after the military coup in 2008. Many observers then feared that
Guinea-Conakry maybe “West Africa Next Narco State”. This paper therefore critically reviewed
the trend of drug trafficking in Guinea-Conakry by adopting a desk-review research approach with
the reports and evaluations obtained from secondary sources of data analyzed through content
analysis. The study found that the “narco-state syndrome” has remained a dangerous trend
within the West African sub-region with negative impact and effects in states like Guinea-
Conakry that are caught up in the drug trade. This study concluded that Guinea-Conakry is at
risk of being captured by drug traffickers as crime governance was noted to be interlinked with
drug trafficking with high complicity of higher level elites in the illicit drug trade. The study
therefore recommended that government of Guinea-Conakry should address the fragility and
weakness of state institutions by putting in place sustainable development policies directed
towards improving human security. Also, counter-narcotics framework should prioritize and
encourage cooperation between law enforcement agencies and relevant stakeholders to ensure
that drug use and its consequences are reduced to the barest minimum.

Keywords: Captured State, Drug Trafficking, Narcotics, Narco-State.

Introduction
The rising trend of the drug trade in Guinea-Conakry began from 2004 and the extent of the
drug trade came to the fore after the military coup in 2008 when it became fully known that
strong ties existed between drug traffickers and the top military elites, the political class and the
presidency. Also records of low volume arrests and convictions of drug traffickers observed in
Guinea- Conakry pointed to the fact that considerable protection was being offered to traffickers
to enable them ply their trade (McGuire, 2010, p.23; Uzuegbu-Wilson,2018).

An earlier survey conducted over a decade ago between January 2006-May 2008 indicated that
the greatest courier volume for cocaine departed from Guinea-Conakry when Air traffic was
factored in the rate of seizures per 100,000 international air passengers, based on data from the

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International Civil Aviation Organization. It was found that the number of courier’s detected
coming from Guinea (Conakry) was remarkable in proportion to overall passenger volumes.
Guinea-Conakry therefore had more seizures than air flight volumes would predict, suggesting
that other factors caused traffickers to favor the use of Guinea-Bissau as embarkation point
(UNODC, 2008, p.16). This is illustrated in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: Detected cocaine couriers on flights to Europe per 100,000 international

passengers by embarkation country (January 2006-May 2008)

Source: (UNODC, 2008, p.16).

In Guinea-Conakry “law enforcement at the national level has been weak or non-existent, which
critically undermines international and regional efforts” aimed at combating the drug trade
(Gberie,2015,p.4). Findings also reveal that though the military junta that took over government
after the 2008 coup in Guinea-Conakry “revealed the involvement of senior government
officials in the drug trade in an effort to score political points … once the immediate political
crises were over, new drug traffickers emerged and the drug trade rebounded” (Gberie,
2015,p.14).

The President of Guinea-Conakry - Alpha Condé’s and his cabinet upon resumption in office
unfortunately relied on key players from former President Conté regime who are equally
accused of involvement in the drug trade and after an assassination attempt against the President
in July 19, 2011, his enthusiasm about reforming the military which was acknowledged to have
strong ties with the drug trade diminished (Gberie, 2015, pp.11-12). Various reports also from
2

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analysts indicate an increase in narcotics flows in Guinea-Conakry. More recent investigation
report by Reuters reveal that some traffickers actually relocated from Guinea-Bissau to Guinea-
Conakry as a result of the arrest of top Guinea-Bissau military commander by the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency in 2013 and also due to the fact that protection are often provided to
traffickers by “senior civilian, military and police officials” (Arieff, 2014,p.10). Furthermore,
international cooperation efforts towards combating the drug trade in Guinea-Conakry have
been complicated owing to the fact that the “head of the country’s top counter-narcotics agency
remains an individual implicated in the September 2009 security force massacre of protesters in
Conakry”(Arieff, 2014,p.10).

Configuration and Demography

Guinea-Conakry is a neighboring country to Guinea-Bissau and is more than 6 times the
population size of Guinea-Bissau with an estimate of 12,865,998 people according to
(Wordometers, 2019). The country is situated in the West Coast of Africa and share borders with
Guinea-Bissau, Senegal Mali, Cote d’ Ivoire , Liberia and Sierra Leone (United Kingdom Home
Office, 2009). The country is divided into four zones that include the Narrow Coastal Belt,
North-Western Hill Region, Central Savannah and the South Eastern Region. The Republic of
Guinea administratively has eight (8) regions which include “Conakry and Kindia in Lower
Guinea, Faranah and Kankan in Upper Guinea, Labé and Mamou in Middle Guinea, Boké in
Coastal Guinea and Nzérékoré in Forest Guinea” (GIABA, 2013, p.9).

Political History and Economic Structure

Guinea - Conakry, a former French colony and a neigbouring town to Guinea - Bissau gained
independence from France in 1958 and since then, Guinea-Conakry have had in the first fifty
(50) years only two Presidents. Firstly, the country was ruled from 1958 to 1984 as a “one-
party, socialist “revolutionary” state under the charismatic but repressive leadership of Ahmed
Sékou Touré” (Arieff, 2011, p.5). After his death, Lansana Conte seized power until 1993 when
General Conte was elected President and also re-elected in 1998 and 2003 even though the
elections were marred in irregularities. President Lansana Conte ruled the country for 24 years
and within this period, the country did not experience any armed conflict unlike several other
West African states. From early 2006 to 2008, strikes and demonstrations grew most especially

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from “public discontent with the economic stagnation and high inflation” coupled with the high
level of corruption and semi-autocratic style of Conte’s leadership until his death on 23rd
December 2008 (Arieff, 2011,p.5). A military junta led by Daddis Camara seized power in a
bloodless coup after Conte’s death on 23rd December 2008 which led to the suspension of
Guinea from ECOWAS and AU in January 2009 (United Nations Home Office, 2009, p.7).

A “September massacre” occurred in 2009 when in reaction to protest by thousands of people

who gathered on the national stadium and protested against the “repeated election delay” and
the intention of Daddis Camara to run for President led to government security forces opening
fire on the crowd, killing not less than 150 people and left over 1000 people injured. Capt.
Moussa Camara was eventually shot and seriously wounded in December 2009 by his own body
guard and this ushered in a military-led transitional government (Arieff, 2011, p.6). The June
2010 election was won by “long time exiled opposition leader” Alpha Conde. Even though,
Guinea-Conakry since independence has experienced political turmoil, the country was however
considered “a locus of relative stability during much of the 25 years during which time each of
its six neighbors suffered armed internal conflicts”(Arieff ,2011).

Is Guinea-Conakry West Africa’s Next Narco-State?

Many observers fear that Guinea-Conakry maybe West Africa next Narco State, as the state by
all indication is at risk of being captured by drug traffickers. While citing other scholars like
(Ellis 2009,p.172 ;Wechsler,2012,p.5), (Brown, 2013) captured the situation in Guinea-Conakry
as follows:
Since a coup in Guinea in December 2008, there have been reports of
Latin American cocaine traders moving in significant numbers to
Conakry, where some relatives of the late President Lansana Ousmane
Conte have an established interest in the cocaine trade... In 2010, the
U.S. Government designated Ousmane Conte, the son of Guinea’s late
President, as a Tier I Kingpin. Although Alpha Condé became Guinea’s
first democratically elected President in November 2010, his tenure has
been weakened by delays in legislative elections and a lack of progress
in security sector reform, which has left a bloated military bureaucracy
that is more interested in its own prerogatives than in fighting against
the drug trade. As with Guinea-Bissau, the international community
urgently needs to work together with the Condé government to turn the
tide against state-capture in Guinea by drug traffickers (p.36).

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The “narco -state syndrome” is a dangerous trend within the West African sub-region as the
negative impact and effects in states caught up in the drug trade can be very devastating. It is
also important to note that most of the information that are made available about the country’s
increasing role in the drug trafficking is “based on anecdotal evidence and media reports” and in
the country within the West African sub-region is generally believed to be a major drug
trafficking hub in West Africa where South American drugs transit and traverse to other notable
routes leading to Europe (Gberie, 2015,p.10). Further reports also have it that all drug-related
information is supposed to be collated at the bureau, but the data is not made public and may be
unreliable (Gberie, 2015,p.12; Uzuegbu-Wilson,2018).

In Guinea- Conakry, just as similar to the Guinea-Bissau case, the authoritarian rule of former
Guinean-Conakry President Conte which “had extensive power concentrated in the presidency”,
created an enabling environment in facilitating the drug trade throughout the country
(USAID,2013,p.28). In a detailed account credited to (Gberie,2015), the major role of Guinea-
Conakry involvement in the international drug trade came to limelight following the military
coup of December 23, 2008 after the death of President Lansana Conté, who led the country
since 1984. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara who led the military junta known as the National
Council for Democracy and Development that overthrew President Conte regime paraded
“members of Conté’s overthrown government on TV, accusing many of them of actively
participating in drug trafficking” (pp.10-11).

One of those paraded was former President Conté’s son - Captain Ousmane Conté who certainly
was an influential military officer accused for his involvement in the drug trade. This he
admitted publicly to being a godfather facilitating the drug trafficking networks. He was
thereafter arrested along side with other alleged accomplices and sent to prison in Conakry
(Gberie, 2015,pp.10-11). The involvement of President Conté’s son alongside with other
relatives in the illegal drug trade suggests that more people in the upper echelons of power are
complicit in the drug trade. According to reports, “drug flights from South America were
allowed special entry into the Faranah and Boké airfields by night; visiting Latin American drug
barons enjoyed presidential escorts, security, and hospitality; and drugs were shipped to Europe
via Guinean diplomatic pouches” (Gberie,2015,p.11).

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Further accounts show that after the public confession of Ousmane Conté about his complicity
in the drug trade “45 others including 14 police officials, 10 army personnel, and six navy
personnel, eight Nigerians, a Ghanaian, and an Israeli” were also arrested and charged with drug
- related offences by Dadis Camara - led military junta in a nationwide televised trial which was
largely dubbed by analyst as “farcical affairs, meant to humiliate former regime officials rather
than to elicit the truth about Guinea’s entrenched corruption” (Gberie,2015,p.11). Civil society
activist also agreed that most people tried publicly were actually involved in the drug trade,
something that came to be supported by the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables (Gberie, 2015, p.11).
Not much was however reported about the drug trend in 2014. That was the period of Ebola
epidemic outbreak which diverted attention from drug trafficking trends.

Institutional Framework for Combating Drug trafficking

Narcotics control efforts in Guinea-Conakry have suffered considerably over the years (INCSR,
2013). A specialized police anti-drug unit existed for decades and specifically dedicated to
counter-narcotics. The country did not have a national counter-drug strategy or other counter-
drug initiatives (Public Library of US Diplomacy, 2007), not until a secretariat designed to
combat drugs and organized crime was created in 2008 by the government of Guinea and the
Central Anti-drug Office (OCA) placed under it. Shortly after President Alpha Condé was
elected in December 2010 and in order to prioritize drug trafficking counter narcotics effort, he
attached the anti- drug department with headquarters in Conakry directly to the presidency. This
agency comprises of 230 officials, which include gendarmerie and the police across the whole
country and also in the borders with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali and Sierra Leone (Council of
the European Union, 2013, p.41).Narcotics control efforts in Guinea - Conakry have therefore
suffered considerably over the years (INCSR, 2013; Uzuegbu-Wilson,2018)

Conclusion and Recommendations

This study concluded that Guinea-Conakry is at risk of being captured by drug traffickers as
crime governance is interlinked with drug trafficking with high complicity of higher level elites
in the illicit drug trade. The study therefore recommended the following:

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1. Government of Guinea-Conakry should address the fragility and weakness of state
institution by putting in place sustainable development policies directed towards
improving human security.
2. Counter-narcotics framework should prioritize and encourage cooperation between law
enforcement agencies and relevant stakeholders to ensure that drug use and its
consequences are reduced to the barest minimum.

3. The institutions of government and legislatives frameworks must be strengthened and

stringent measures like fines, prosecution and imprisonment, asset confiscation and
extradition adopted against drug trafficking.
4. The involvement and participation of the private sector and local and international
agencies is equally crucial. Therefore the national strategies for combating drug
trafficking in Guinea-Conakry must be complemented with regional and international
strategies through collaboration in intelligence and policy formulation.
5. Security sector reforms and initiatives should be fully operationalized and interdiction
strategies tailored towards responding to the challenges of drug trafficking. Reforms
should also aim at curtailing the power of the military forces and restricting them to their
core professional duties.
6. In Guinea-Conakry, crime governance is interlinked with drug trafficking as a state-
sponsored industry with complicity of higher level elites in the illicit drug trade than
lower level official as a result of the huge profit made from it. Therefore policy measures
directed towards combating the drug trade should consider a top-down approach in order
to sanitize the system from where complicity to the drug trade is observed most.

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