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The murder of an African President (over cocaine?)

I did not know much about the African state Guinea-Bissau apart from it being a former Portuguese colony, until I was alerted that the president Joao Bernardo Vieira has been killed in his palace, just hours after his rival General Batiste Tagme na Waie (The head of the military) was killed in a bomb attack. Days later a group of unidentified soldiers went to the president’s palace and assassinated him? This news was somewhat strange to me because I wonder how a person so powerful can so easily be assassinated even under so much protection so I began to ask questions. Why did they go through such extreme lengths to murder the president of Guinea-Bissau? Is it only because his rival was killed in a bomb blast? Was Vieira involved? All these questions came to mind, then I found out that Guinea-Bissau is now one of the key transportation points for cocaine smuggled from South and Central America to Europe.

This country has gone through many coups over the years, however this one isn’t a coup according to the military and the perpetrators were a group of unidentified soldiers.  You can read between the lines all you want as this is exactly what I did. I believe this was retaliation from Tagme na Waie’s people as it was reported that soldiers surrounded the president’s palace and fired with guns and rockets for two hours until they got their target.

With Guinea-Bissau being such a small population of only 1.5 million and very poor with regards to wealth, the impact of the assassination of President Joao Bernardo Vieira will be huge as many will wonder what the successor will bring to the table? Will he/she try to stop the cocaine route from Latin America?

As the usual cocaine route tightens, this new route through the coast of Africa, will make cocaine even cheaper in Europe. The startling this is the effect that this will bring on countries like Guinea Bissau which is the world’s 5th poorest country (according to The United Nations). We will see what this cocaine trade brings; opportunity, greed, guns, deaths and eventually an epidemic. Then I begin to wonder when this will start on the other states on the West African coastline such as Sierra Leone. I myself went on the African coastline and see the people struggling yet they are happy. I also saw potential growth in the way of life for the everyday Sierra Leonean. Straying from the point you may ask? However I believe this ‘new’ drug market through West Africa could spell the next chapter of Instability on the African continent.

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