While the government and international agencies are making what the UN
calls "considerable" progress on reducing drug trafficking in Sierra
Leone, the trafficking – coupled with youth unemployment and corruption
– remains one of the most destabilizing forces in the country,
officials say.
Sierra Leone – along with Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Senegal – is part of a regional transit axis for drugs passing from
South America to Europe, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The country's anti-corruption commissioner Abdul Tejan-Cole told IRIN: "Corruption, drugs and youth unemployment are
the biggest destabilizing forces in Sierra Leone. Unless urgent steps are taken, [these] could pose serious risks." Drug
trafficking in Sierra Leone risks undermining government efforts to
fight corruption – part of reforms that include security sector
restructuring, infrastructure building and job creation, said a UN
official who requested anonymity. "One of the international community's
biggest priorities must be to contain trafficking and protect Sierra
Leone's territorial waters." Stability in Sierra Leone remains fragile despite the government having made impressive
gains to rebuild, UN Secretary-General l Ban Ki-moon said in a 10 June communiqué. Local
business leader Solomon Wilson of Sierra Leone Investment Information
told IRIN: "Drug trafficking can seriously undermine the work of the
country's anti corruption strategy because these [drug] deals are never
done in isolation…traffickers use unregulated money to bribe people at
all levels, from executive level to the junior ranks." An anti-corruption unit,
set up in 2000, last year drew up a strategy to stamp out corruption at
all levels of government. Security officials have already been
investigated and charged on drug trafficking offences, said Cole. "We
need to accumulate these examples. We are making progress in creating
cleaner systems…but everyone wants things done yesterday," he said. Antonio Mazzitelli, head of UNODC in West
Africa, told IRIN Sierra Leone has made steady progress in its fight on
drugs, partly evidenced by a drop in seizures, arrests and drug
operations in recent months. The amount of drugs trafficked in
Sierra Leone is unknown, but the latest major seizure was a
700-kilogram cocaine haul at the airport in the capital Freetown in
July 2008, according to Mazzitelli, who said the seizure indicated
Sierra Leone was a "major hub". Since then there have been few reports
of major drug operations. The
government has set up a task force to fight drug trafficking, made up
of police, the Office of National Security, immigration officials,
military and marine forces. Its aim is to gather intelligence, execute
seizures and patrol Sierra Leone's porous borders with Guinea and
Liberia. Security
sector reforms, underway since 1999, have raised the number of police
officers from 6,000 in 2001 to 9,500 today, according to Berhanemeskel
Nega, head of the Integrated UN Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone
(UNIPSIL). Of these, as a start, 72 are currently being trained to
fight drug trafficking and related crimes, said Assistant Inspector
General of Police Richard Moigbe. But keeping the
police on the right side of the fight goes beyond training, said Nega.
"We also need to continue to improve police working conditions to keep
them on board – a junior officer earns just US$39 a month," he said. International efforts A
number of international agencies and governments are providing support
for Sierra Leone's drug fight, among them the International Criminal
Police Organization (Interpol), the US government, the UK special crime
investigation unit, UN police, the Peacebuilding Commission, Department
for Peacekeeping Operations and UNODC – all of which are part of
UNIPSIL. "International
pressure on traffickers and decision-makers in the region – including
in Sierra Leone – is starting to pay off," said Mazzitelli. "For the
first time, foreign drug traffickers are being sentenced in West Africa
– that includes Sierra Leone and Senegal." "The impunity that was once
the rule is being broken." According
to police inspector Moigbe, 15 people involved in the July 2008 seizure
were investigated and charged including two police officers, a national
security officer, two air traffic controllers and eight foreigners, two
of them West African. As
concern over the links between drugs, instability and corruption
mounts, political leaders are also starting to have to answer both to
international players and their own constituents on progress in the
drug fight, said Mazzitelli. In Ghana the government's action on drug
trafficking featured highly in election campaigns, he said. But Sierra Leone needs to speed up its
efforts to avert a potentially destabilizing internal drug market from
forming, said Sierra Leone National Drug Control Agency officer,
Michael Sesay. While internal consumption of the trafficked
drugs is currently low, Sesay said is worried about long-term fallout
if the country remains a hub. "Drug trafficking in Sierra Leone spells
doom for our post-war development efforts, as most of the youths who
were conscripted in the rebel forces were drugged, making them to
resort to indiscriminate destruction of lives and property." Thousands of child soldiers were drugged with
amphetamines and marijuana during the civil war, leaving many of them
addicted with no recourse to drug rehabilitation after war, according
to Sierra Leone's Drug Enforcement Agency .
