WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States named two of Guinea-Bissau’s top military officers as international drug kingpins yesterday, underscoring fears the West African state is being destabilised by the narcotics trade.
Air Force chief of staff Ibraima Papa Camara and former Navy chief of staff Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto are the first Bissau officials overtly accused by Washington as involved in the drug trade. The influential Na Tchuto appears to have been central to the ousting of military leadership by an army faction last week.
“Today’s action underscores the harmful role that narcotics-related corruption plays in West Africa, especially in Guinea-Bissau,” Adam Szubin, head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.
US citizens will be banned from financial or commercial transactions with the two, who will see any US assets frozen. Szubin said the action “impedes their ability to profit from the narcotics trade and engage in destabilizing activities”.
The Treasury Department said both Na Tchuto and Camara are involved in drug trafficking and are linked to an aircraft suspected of flying a multi-hundred kilogram shipment of cocaine from Venezuela to Guinea-Bissau in July 2008.
