RELACIÓN CON LAS TIERRAS O TERRITORIOS (PARTICIPACIÓN Y CONSULTA)

As in the Caribbean Basin, local crimes in the Gulf of Guinea are interwoven with national and transnational themes. This can be seen in an array of issues, from illegal fishing, to smuggling, to oil theft. These crimes are interrelated, often using the littorals as a shared domain for transferring illicit commodities. The resultant security crisis has bred the proliferation of vigilantes and militias, which present yet more obstacles with similarities to our discussions on the relationship between perception and vigilantism found in Chapter Three. In this section, we highlight several such issues in brief. In so doing, we illustrate the context in which security and disorder are framed in the Caribbean, and demonstrate further the multidimensionality of local crimes, just as in Chapter Three.

3.1 IUU

In coastal communities, human security includes the ability to fish for sustenance and profit. Fish account for more than half of all protein consumed by those in the Gulf of

Guinea,*127 the poorest forty percent of whom depend critically on this supply.128 Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing challenges this dependence. A 2013 report by the International Labour Organization concluded that West Africa is “particularly

vulnerable to illegal fishing,” and that more than a third of catches were illegal in the time studied.129 Rear Admiral Osinowo regards these waters as the most abused on the planet.130 The European Union reinforces such a claim, relaying a World Bank estimate assessing the annual damage to coastal economies at $350 million.131 Ships engaging in IUU fishing off West Africa have also been documented as perpetrators of other crimes, including forced labor.132 _{European and Asian trawlers in West African waters have}

become increasingly predominant, and trafficking victims have been detected on lakes in Ghana.133 IUU fishing and related toxic dumping pose serious risks to the socioeconomic health of coastal communities (environmental degradation is a push factor for

migration).134 As of 2014, more than one-and-a-half million tons of petroleum had spilled in the Niger Delta, making it one of the most oil-drenched places on earth (and an

obvious correlate to the physical Broken Windows of Chapter Two).135 Moreover, as noted in commentaries on Somali piracy,136 the loss of traditional fishing grounds can increase the likelihood of piracy.137 And while some IUU fishing is the product of local fishermen, organized crime is also a contributor.138 In recognition of IUU fishing’s relationship to crime and piracy, Chatham House notes that it may even be “far more important in West Africa than piracy,” the most publicized regional maritime issue.†139 3.2 Forgeries and Smuggling

The Gulf is rife with forgeries and contraband smuggling. In Lagos, one survey of pharmacies found that eighty percent of merchandise was counterfeit.140 The UNODC estimates the annual value of fake and low-quality anti-malarial medications at over $400 million.141 Cigarette smuggling from the Gulf of Guinea to Europe and North America approaches low-end estimates on the region’s cocaine trade.142 Guns too are a problem, which circulate with relative impunity. By some accounts, Africa houses twenty percent (100 million) of the world’s stock of illegal small arms and light weapons (SALW).143 Audra Grant, a RAND political scientist and former State Department analyst, writes that the trade in SALW is particularly worrisome in West Africa, where she estimates seven million firearms are in circulation.144 The region has also emerged as a producer of craft firearms. Ghana boasts more than two thousand manufacturers selling pistols for as little as six dollars.145 The smuggling and production of SALW, as from Angola into Nigeria, makes regional insurgencies “almost intractable.”146 Liberia similarly funneled weapons to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, as did Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. Togo was likewise a staging ground for SALW transshipping to the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).147 _{Blood diamonds, themselves a}

smuggled commodity, have been used routinely to finance weapons procurement.148 The

* _{In Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Sao Tome and Principe, for example, fish comprises roughly sixty}

percent of protein consumption. See, Raymond Gilpin, “Enhancing Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea,” Strategic Insights 6, No. 1 (January 2007): 2, (https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/11174).

† _{In line with our assessment, the report also goes on to call for a widening of perspective on maritime}

security issues, to include the illicit trade in people, guns and contraband. See, Chatham House, Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea (London: Chatham House, March, 2013), 16.

Framing Littoral Maritime Security Through the Lens of the Broken Windows Theory diamond trade from Sierra Leone has even been accused of enriching al-Qaeda, though the evidence is disputed.149150151 _{Grant relays an estimate that Al-Qaeda earned $15} million in the trade.152 Doug Farah, reporting for the Washington Post, records that the organization, after its assets were frozen by the U.S. in 1999, leveraged connections in Liberia to shelter millions of dollars in diamonds in Sierra Leone.153 The diamond trade, bound up as it is in gunrunning, commodity smuggling and money laundering, is

representative of yet another multidimensional and “difficult to control” transnational trade.154 Commodity smuggling is, consequently, “deeply tied to African civil wars” and insecurity.155 _{Even more so, they have turned parts of the region into “a ‘duty free’ port} for organized crime.”156