Finally getting down to reading one of the recent rare reports on #GuineaBissau - on its part in the global cocaine trade and that part's part in its politics. globalinitiative.net/analysis/cocai… (thanks to @FrancoisPatuel) (a Portuguese version is available too)
It makes for a sad read, I must say. And it echoes with what I have been hearing this last year. Now as before, some networks within the military and the military-controlled Guarda Nacional keep the Judiciary Police at bay and protect the trade.
Either these military leaders vouch for the traffickers, or the traffickers bring on board a number of civilian politicians and officials too. I did not know that the son of Interior Minister Botché Candé was the head of one Bissau's police corps...
The account of the brief arrest of a senior official of the Police of Public Order who reportedly stole seized drugs is a gem - it was "another case of a thief robs a thief... and the military trying to get their drugs back".
Another higlight is that amazing picture from Feb 2020. President Sissoco & military officials (color version below)... The presence of former Defence Chief of Staff Antonio Injai (red shirt), a retired military wanted by the United States for drugs trafficking, says a lot. 
However, singling out the cocaine economy is a problem, though I understand why it's done. For local political and military actors in Bissau, it's just one of the many rents that some resort to for politics, on a spectrum ranging from legal to dodgy toillegal to frankly criminal.
It is important, because it is part of the reason why a number of local actors do not see any problem with drugs trafficking. It's just politics as usual.
Sadly, Bissau has vanished from international radars. UN pulled out its mission, ECOWAS pulled out its force. There is little leverage left. Perhaps the one thing that works is international arrests of top-level political and military officials involved, like the US did in 2013.
Otherwise, there is really no incentive (other than morality, I mean...) for any BG official to stay away from a profitable and politically strategic rent. Since the cocaine trade is the result of Western consumption, it's only fair the West cleans up the mess.
Individual sanctions resulting from the 2012 coup have been maintained (though with a list much reduced) as a signal of international concern, even though the 2012 coup situation has long been resolved. But they clearly do not work.
Another caveat is that while it is pretty clear that the post-electoral tug-of-war of 2020 was only resolved when the security forces, unopposed by ECOWAS troops, and took over the ministries, it does not mean that Sissoco did not win the election legit.
Probably we will never know whether there was fraud or not, but there is reason to believe Sissoco & his large anti-PAIGC coalition did a lot of mobilising in Bissau and in the bush, finally forming the Balanta/Muslim coalition that Kumba Yala had been dreaming of for years.
After the election, the PAIGC mounted a powerful obstruction campaign, and it is quite possible that Sissoco felt it was simpler to cut it short and put to work his military friends.
Well done @Mark_Shaw_ Tagging @dox49 @debarros_miguel @DidierM13 @MauriceToupane @ricci_sh @y_arvanitis @axelklein2
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