Since 2021, West Africa has witnessed a wave of military coups.
As well as successful military takeovers in Mali,
Guinea and Burkina Faso, there was an attempted coup in Niger.
The most recent addition to the list was the small coastal state of Guinea-Bissau.
On 1 February 2022, members of the military waged a five-hour gun battle
to oust the country's president.
While the takeover failed, it nevertheless cast attention on
a country that not only has a long history of military interventions,
but also has an extraordinary and seemingly continuing link to international drug trafficking.
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflicts, security and statehood.
Within the international system there are many countries that sit outside the established order.
These include pariah states, which seek to subvert the international system: such as by
exporting revolutionary ideology, sponsoring terrorism, or waging wars of aggression.
And failed states, countries that are officially recognised by the international community
but have essentially ceased to carry out the basic functions of an independent sovereign state.
Then there are also those countries where many, if not most, of the institutions of the state - such
as the national and local government, the legal system, police, and military - are effectively
captured and directed towards a criminal activity; most usually drug production and trafficking.
Perhaps the most obvious example of what we now call 'narco-states' was Colombia.
But one of the most interesting other examples in the modern international system is Guinea-Bissau.
Over the course of the last 20 years, it's come to be regarded
as Africa's first and most persistent narco-state.
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is in West Africa.
To its north lies Senegal.
Guinea lies along its east and southern border.
To its west, the country is made up of more than 100 small islands
stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean.
At 36,000 square kilometres, or 14,000 square miles, it is
the 134th largest of the 193 members of the United Nations.
Its population is estimated to be around 1.9 million.
This is made up of over 20 different ethnolinguistic groups.
Around half the population a muslim and approximately a quarter a christian,
with the rest following traditional local religions.
The country is also one of the poorest states in the world.
According to the latest World Bank data, its gross domestic product per capita is around US$730.
This puts it in the bottom 15 countries in the world.
The history of human settlement in Guinea-Bissau stretches back at least a thousand years.
However, for our purposes, the story really begins in the mid 15th century
when Portuguese explorers established a trading presence in the region.
Although Portugal at one stage dominated the west coast of Africa,
by the 19th century it had lost control to the other European colonial powers.
The most notable of these was France, which dominated most of the region and had established a
range of colonies; including Guinea to the south of what now became known as Portuguese Guinea.
While the end of the Second World War saw the other European colonial
powers start to contemplate the end of their imperial rule in Africa and Asia,
Portugal had little intention of giving up its holdings.
In 1951 it transformed its colonies into overseas
territories - essentially parts of the Portuguese state.
This refusal to consider independence would come to a head at the start of the 1960s.
As well as anti-colonial insurgencies in Angola and Mozambique, in southern Africa,
an independence struggle also broke out in Portuguese Guinea.
In the end, Portuguese rule would continue for another decade.
However, in April 1974, Portugal's dictatorship was overthrown by a left-wing military coup
and a rapid process of decolonisation finally began.
Five months later, on 17 September 1974, the new state of Guinea-Bissau - which took the name of
its capital to differentiate it from neighbouring Guinea - was admitted to the United Nations.
Following independence, the country came under the one-party rule of the
African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Its leader, Luís Cabral, became the country's first president until,
on 14 November 1980, he was overthrown by a military coup organised by the
prime minister and former commander of the armed forces João Bernardo Vieira.
Although the country officially returned to civilian rule in 1984,
Vieira remained president and one party rule continued.
By the early 1990s, the country was facing mounting problems.
After years of stagnant growth, pressure was now growing for economic and political reforms.
In 1994, the country's constitution was changed to allow for a multi-party democracy.
Despite this, Vieira won yet another term of office.
However, opposition to his rule increased.
This came to a head in 1998 when Vieira dismissed the commander of the armed forces.
An ensuing uprising against Vieira quickly escalated into an 11-month civil war.
And although a peace agreement was eventually reached, and the UN Security Council established
a mission to oversee peace building in the country, in April 1999 the sides clashed again.
At this point, Vieira was overthrown and went into exile.
Despite holding democratic elections in 2000, the political situation continued to decline.
The new president, Kumba Yala, was soon accused of authoritarianism and was ousted in 2003.
At this point the country sank into deep and chronic political
instability with a succession of coups and counter coups.
In the decade that followed, as the UN noted, Guinea-Bissau would have no less than ten prime
ministers and three elected presidents; none of whom were allowed to complete their mandates.
It would also have three interim presidents following military interventions.
On top of this, four commanders of the military were ousted by their own troops,
with two of them being assassinated.
It was this combination of extreme poverty and political instability, coupled with the
country's geographical location, that opened the way for the link with drug trafficking.
During the 1980s, the international drugs trade had grown massively as
cocaine produced in South America went to the ever-expanding market in the United States.
However, concerted efforts to combat drug smuggling had made this increasingly difficult.
New routes were needed.
With its Atlantic coastline, a myriad of small and secluded islands, and an
unstable and highly corrupt central government, Guinea-Bissau was ideal.
As a result, over the course of the first decade of the millennium
the country became the hub of a major new cocaine trafficking operation.
This grew so far and so, fast penetrating all levels of society,
that by 2008 the country was now being termed Africa's first 'narco-state'.
Indeed, reports at the time noted that the country's capital was awash with drugs money
as various South American drug lords bought properties in Bissau and were spending freely.
Meanwhile, despite ongoing efforts by the UN to stabilise the situation,
the political situation continued to be bad.
In 2009, Vieira, who'd made a political comeback as president in 2005, was assassinated.
Then, in April 2012, yet another military coup took place.
This time in the midst of another presidential election.
Dubbed the 'cocaine coup', this new regime appeared to be
directly involved in running the country's drug smuggling operations.
This was highlighted when, in April 2013,
the former head of the country's navy was arrested by U.S. law enforcement officers.
By 2014, the situation looked like it might be improving.
As well as new presidential elections,
there were also signs that drug trafficking might be declining.
However, by 2019 problems were emerging again.
Against the backdrop of increasing cocaine seizures,
the country went to the polls to elect another new president.
This led to a runoff between two former prime ministers:
Domingos Simões Pereira and Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
While Pereira claimed victory, Embaló became the country's president.
Notwithstanding the controversial circumstances of his presidency,
Embaló insisted that he would continue to crack down on the country's ties to
drug trafficking and, by October 2020, he was proclaiming success.
However, many observers were sceptical.
It's against this backdrop that the latest coup attempt occurred.
On 1 February 2022, gunfire erupted around the government palace,
where the cabinet was holding a meeting.
After a fierce five-hour battle that left 11 dead, the rebellion was put down.
In the aftermath of the attack, Embaló was quick to link the uprising
to drugs - directly pointing the finger of blame at three military officers who had
close ties to trafficking and were wanted by the United States for drugs offences.
However, observers have painted a far more complex picture.
Despite previous claims that the ties to the drug trade had been broken,
the wider view is that the country remains very much linked to trafficking.
Indeed, and notwithstanding his tough words, there are suggestions that the president
hasn't done nearly as much as he promised to crack down on smuggling.
Meanwhile, other wilder theories have also surfaced.
There have even been suggestions that the coup attempt was in fact orchestrated by the president
to bolster domestic and international support for his administration.
Narco-states one of the most fascinating and unusual entities
in the modern international system.
While failed states are countries where the government ceases to be able to carry
out the functions of administration, these are countries where large part - if not most - of
the state apparatus is geared towards the growing and or distribution of drugs.
One of the most significant of these has been Guinea-Bissau.
One of the smallest and most impoverished countries in Africa,
having once been a Portuguese colony since gaining independence in 1974 it's gradually
descended into political instability and has faced numerous military coups.
It's this instability, coupled with its unique geography,
that saw it become a haven for international drug trafficking at the start of the 2000s.
And despite systematic international efforts to address the problem,
especially over the past decade, those links appear to continue.
Whatever the truth behind the most recent coup attempt in the country,
what is clear is that Guinea-Bissau remains marred in political instability.
More to the point, for all the claims of the president, it also appears that
the country has yet to throw off its mantle as Africa's first and most enduring narco-state.
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