Last week field work took me, of all places, to a Monrovia drug den run by Charles Taylor’s former head of security. Cocaine has hit the streets of Monrovia, and I’m looking into a program to help get street youth–mostly ex-combatants–off drugs and back to business and farming in their rural homes.
I knew marijuana was common across Liberia, but I didn’t expect coke to be the drug of choice. Today I see the venerable Stephen Ellis has given us a history of the drug trade in West Africa:
South American cocaine traders are reacting against the saturation of the North American market, the growing importance of Mexican drug gangs, and effective interdiction along the Caribbean smuggling routes. These factors have induced them to make a strategic shift towards the European market, making use of West Africa’s conducive political environment and the existence of well-developed West African smuggling networks.
Some leading Latin American cocaine traders are even physically relocating to West Africa and moving a considerable part of their business operations to a more congenial location, just as any multinational company might do in the world of legal business.
…Some observers believe that the next step for Latin American cocaine traders might be to commence large-scale production in West Africa.
…indeed there is evidence that drug money is funding political campaigns and affecting political relations in several West African countries.
…expertise in smuggling, the weakness of law-enforcement agencies, and the official tolerance of, or even participation in, certain types of crime, constitute a form of social and political capital that accumulates over time.
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