UNITED
NATIONS, May
10 -- With all
the talk about
Guinea Bissau
being a
narco state
run by drug
kingpins, it
was surprising
on May 9 to
hear
Brazil's
Ambassador
Maria Luisa
Viotti says
that the UN
Office of
Drugs and
Crimes had
closed its
program in the
country.
Spain
said the same
on May 10, and
UN envoy Jose
Ramos-Horta
got more
specific. He
said he was
reaching out
for funding
from the
European
Union and the
UN's
Peacebuilding
Fund in order
to re-start
the UNODC
program.
But
then the bomb
shell: the
UNODC program,
such as it
was, consisted
of
a single
"lonely'
consultant.
In
essence, the
reinstatement
of this
consultant has
become the
litmus
test of the
international
community's
commitment to
Guinea Bissau.
Meanwhile,
Ramos-Horta
explained that
he speaks of
army
"modernization,"
not "reform"
since "in some
of our
cultures,"
reform means
"putting you
on the shelf."
Likewise
he
told member
states that
Guinea Bissau
is "not the
typical
case of a coup
d'etat" in
that those in
power now are
not
Generals. But
by whom were
they put
there?
Given
Ramos-Horta's
roots in Timor
L'este and
thus the
Portuguese
speaking
CLPL grouping,
it was
surprising
that
Ramos-Horta
heaped praise
instead on the
West African
group ECOWAS.
The
outgoing chair
of the Guinea
Bissau
peacebuilding
"configuration,"
Brazil's
Viotti, is now
leaving (as
Inner City
Press first
reported,
to become
Brazil's
Ambassador to
Germany). She
has fought
hard for
the CPLP's
positions. But
now is ECOWAS
coming to the
fore? Watch
this site.
, 
