Guinea-Bissau called 'narco-state'

A flurry of drug trafficking since the ouster of the Guinea-Bissau president in April has some officials suspecting the sudden removal was a cocaine coup. The military, long associated with drug trafficking, took control of the government April 12, and since then sources said more twin-engine planes than ever have been arriving from Latin America, The New York Times reported Friday. The sources said the planes land in remote fields, uninhabited islands and estuaries in the country and unload cargoes of cocaine for shipment north. To make the 1,600-mile trip across the Atlantic worthwhile, the planes would need to carry at least 1.5 tons in cargo, officials said. A senior Drug Enforcement Administration official in the United States, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the coup now means illegal drugs are sanctioned at the top of Guinea-Bissau's government. "They are probably the worst narco-state that's out there on the continent," he said. "They are a major problem." "In other African countries government officials are part of the problem. In Guinea-Bissau, it is the government itself that is the problem," he said. Gen. Antonio Injal, the army chief of staff, denied he is a drug trafficker. "We ask the international community to give us the means to fight drugs," he said.