Aohell

Corruption? Try the Opposition Party

Most of the politicians on a list compiled by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission belonged to parties in opposition to the ruling party.

Amazing how neatly that worked out. Of course, everyone denies the charges of corruption and claims the real corruption is to be found among those whose names aren't on the report.

Knowing Nigerian politics, the EFCC could very well have printed a directory of all politicians, opposition and ruling, to be totally fair.

When the LRA Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

The leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, has had it with negotiations in Sudan. If Uganda can't find another place to negotiate with him, the 20-year-old war between the LRA and the Ugandan government will continue. This war has it all, too. Mutilations, tortures, rapes, child soldiers, child prostitutes, murdered foreign aid workers. Why should all the excitement be in Iraq? The LRA is there to show that there are crackpot killers leading mass movements all around the world.

How crackpot are these guys? Well, they've got no hope of winning, yet they insist they're gonna invade Uganda and kick some serious butt. It's more likely they'll hack and slaughter a lot of civilians and then run when the army shows up. They're brutal bandits, and it's a damn shame someone gave them enough support to buy guns. They've been supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum against the Ugandan government, but that was when Uganda supported the southern resistance to the Khartoum government. Since those factions patched up their differences, the LRA has been on the outs as far as getting supporters.

Don't worry about them, though. Africa's messed up enough, there's bound to be some other conflict erupt somewhere, probably the Congo, that will result in some faction there wanting to support the LRA against Uganda, seeing as how Uganda likes to pick sides in regional conflicts. Until then, who needs Idi Amin when you've got Joseph Kony?

Guinea-Bisseau Next Narcostate?

Guinea-Bisseau isn't having much luck these days. Its civil war is over, but it's drug traffickers doing all the rebuilding.

It's got lots of tiny, uninhabited islands, a relatively small population, and extreme poverty. Add to those assets a stretegic location in between South America and Europe, and you got prime real estate for up-and-coming cocaine smugglers. Guinea-Bisseau can't even keep its own population policed, so demands from Europe and the US to clean up the uninhabited islands aren't going to go very far in that nation. Even if those demands came along with cash grants, corruption in Guinea-Bisseau's economy would probably divert a big chunk of that money to hands not originally intended to receive it.

The drug dealers are already paying for the army to provide security for drug shipments. The army has already denied this, so you know it's gotta be true. The justice system is in great shape, and I mean that most sarcastically: there aren't any prisons in the nation, so anyone convicted of any crime - any crime - serves at most one year in detention before release. Police units claim to destroy captured drugs, but there is no independent confirmation those supposedly destroyed drugs actually met their reported fate. These aren't tiny packages, either. The latest collapse in the chain of custody involved 674 kilos of cocaine, about $39 million worth at current prices.

The only big infusions of cash into Guinea-Bisseau are from the drug dealers. They're effectively buying a nation to serve their needs.

Watch out.