By William Tucker
On any given day there are many events around the world that deserve attention and analysis. Unfortunately, it is near impossible to give each the attention it deserves. Today we’ll take the opportunity and discuss Guinea-Bissau and the recent arrival of ECOWAS peacekeepers to the small West African nation.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent peacekeeping troops to Guinea-Bissau today to help ensure that the transition to an elected government takes place as agreed upon with the leaders of the recent coup. Although Guinea-Bissau is a nation that is capable of producing a functioning economy and seems to be a prime location for representative government, the nation has endured several political coups and turmoil since its independence from Portugal in 1974. The political instability has created an economy that quite simply cannot function properly. This has led to unrest among the population, however the complaints of the population seem to be a world apart from the continuous struggle for political power among high ranking members of the military and some civilian politicians. In fact, there have been several coups or coup attempts, in the last five years alone.
Despite the political instability and chaotic economy, Guinea-Bissau is strategically placed making the country a prime location for criminal activity. In this case it is the smuggling of illegal narcotics from South America into Europe. Naturally, some of the more corrupt members of the military have used the outlying islands for this very purpose. These operations are typically carried out by smugglers from Venezuela with protection run by some assets of the Guinea-Bissau navy. The U.S. has even gone so far as to name two top military officials as drug kingpins and froze their U.S. based assets. Additionally, the chaos in the outlying islands has led to a spike in piracy. Although the drug running is a serious problem it is not helped by the crushing foreign debt and large requirements for foreign aid. Because Guinea-Bissau is so small, and not necessarily a geopolitical heavyweight, the assistance packages are typically provided without imposing any form of discipline to help reform the system. Of course, this wouldn’t solve the situation, but it is problem that hasn’t been adequately addressed.
All of these issues have turned, what should be a vibrant nation-state, into a country with little chance of turning the situation around without massive external influence. This is where ECOWAS comes in. Unlike their EU peacekeeping predecessors, ECOWAS has a more localized concern with the nation-states of West Africa. While it is difficult to say that the peacekeepers will be able to stay beyond the transition – considering the ECOWAS involvement in the Mali mess – the political involvement will certainly be long term. Interestingly enough, there is opportunity to be found in the current situation. Cooperative economic initiatives led by ECOWAS and backed by parties in the West or East Asia could provide growth while tempering local corruption. Regardless, Guinea-Bissau has been in an unrelenting spiral of chaos and the current presence of peacekeepers, and the local interest of ECOWAS, provides an opportunity to make a few changes. Doing otherwise would make the current international involvement another failure in the long string of inadequacy typically found in peacekeeping missions.
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