| Page 3 of 5 < > |
Route of Evil
![[MAP: Guinea-Bissau, a major hub on the cocaine route to Europe, has become Africa's first narco-state.]](http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/05/25/GR2008052500077.gif)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Guinea-Bissau has so far escaped the violence common in Mexico and other drug transshipment countries. But officials here said police and journalists have received death threats.
Allen Yero Emballo, 51, who spent 15 years as a reporter for Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale in his native Guinea-Bissau, said that in June 2007 he witnessed uniformed navy sailors in a boat pulling bricks of cocaine out of the ocean.
He said he suspected the sailors were working with traffickers and confronted Adm. José Américo Bubo Na Tchut, the navy chief of staff. He said Tchut told him: "Journalists have to choose. If you talk, you die. If you are quiet, you are free."
Tchut, in an interview, said he had never met Emballo and denied threatening him or having any connection with the drug cartels. "I have served my country for 45 years, and I don't lie," he said.
Emballo said that in July, masked men burst into his house and confronted his wife and children. He said they ransacked the place and took his computer, notebooks, audiocassettes, camera and photos.
On the way out the door, he said, they told his family: "This time we took his things. Next time we will take his head."
"These drug traffickers, they are able to do anything," Emballo said in a telephone interview from Paris, where he has fled and is seeking asylum. "They have money, they have guns; they can buy the government."
Jarring Inequalities
The city of Bissau is what charming looks like after decades of neglect. Dozens of once-grand houses with red-tiled roofs on tree-lined boulevards are abandoned and crumbling. The presidential palace has been empty since 1999, when its roof was blown off by bombs during the civil war.
The few paved streets are filled with deep potholes, and rusting cars sit on the roadsides, stripped clean and covered with red dust. Piles of garbage smolder constantly, while flocks of vultures spar with skinny dogs for the tastiest bits.
In a nation where those lucky enough to have a job earn about $25 a month and many government workers haven't been paid in months, sweaty men push wheelbarrows full of odds and ends to unknown destinations.
At night, bereft of power, the city is virtually pitch-dark except for the dim glow from cooking fires, oil lamps and candles. Many people live on bowls of a mushy mix of rice, ground cashews and sugar.
Yet new, expensive SUVs and big Toyota pickups ply the rutted streets. Bruno Vallance, director of a Toyota dealership, said that last year, a man came into his office and said he wanted to buy two pickups. Vallance said the man didn't want to see the vehicles, didn't want any receipts and produced nearly $66,000 in cash from a briefcase.
