VZCZCXRO5120
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DE RUEHDK #0412/01 0901326
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R 311326Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY DAKAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2157
INFO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
RHMFIUU/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE// SPP-ENGAGE//
RHMFIUU/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE// SPP-SCP//
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1201
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0389
RUEHPA/AMEMBASSY PRAIA 0515
RUEHJL/AMEMBASSY BANJUL 5430
RHMFIUU/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE//SOJ3/SOJ7/3DSFGLNO//

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 DAKAR 000412 
 
STATE FOR AF/RSA, AF/RSA/ACOTA, AF/W AND PM 
PARIS AND LONDON FOR AFRICA WATCHERS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
TAGS: MARR MOPS PGOV PREL SU KPKO SG
SUBJECT: SENEGAL MARITIME SECURITY 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary: Following meetings with senior officials of the 
Senegalese Armed Forces, the United Nations Office for West Africa 
(UNOWA), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 
Post concludes that Senegal's maritime security remains sparse.  The 
Senegalese Navy is among the largest in West Africa yet does not 
have the capability to maintain surveillance over its EEZ or 
reliably patrol the entirety of its coastline.  This leaves their 
waters unprotected and provides an unobstructed sea-route for 
traffickers.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Meetings were held with the Senegalese Chief of Naval 
Operations, Captain Jean Francois Baptiste Faye, the head of the 
West African Office of UNODC, Regional Representative Antonio 
Mazzitelli, the senior military advisor from UNOWA, Colonel Walter 
Stoffel, and the Senegalese Gendarmerie G2.  Discussions focused on 
how to reduce clandestine migration, primary drug trade routes 
through coastal waters, the inability of West African states to both 
maintain situational awareness at sea and actively interdict 
traffickers, and the inability to detect narcotics at West African 
ports.  The facts, assumptions, and opinions of the different 
agencies did not vary greatly. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Post's assessment on clandestine migration is that overall 
activity has decreased due to the combined effects of the global 
recession, tougher legislation by European and Senegalese 
authorities against illegal immigration and human-trafficking, 
outreach and education programs, and FRONTEX's (European Agency for 
the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of 
the Member States of the European Union) increased enforcement 
efforts.  Open sources report that Senegalese in the diaspora are 
returning home due to their inability to sustain a higher quality of 
life abroad and still send remittance payments.  While stories about 
clandestine migration and human trafficking are hardly seen in 
national newspapers and no longer seem to be the focus of public 
attention, there is a danger that immigration smugglers could shift 
to narcotics trafficking in an effort to make up for loss of demand 
for human smuggling.  According to UNODC, there is no hard evidence 
that links specific West African criminal organizations to Latin 
American drug dealers.  However, Latin American drug dealers are 
widely believed to use local criminal networks to facilitate 
transportation onward to Europe.  Latin Americans could use groups 
of former human-traffickers, who are well-experienced at 
infiltrating European coastal waters, as an alternate or even 
primary means of transporting their product to its final market.  So 
far, the only demonstrated ties are between apprehended clandestine 
migrants and human mules or local cocaine retailers.  Clandestine 
migrants have been caught with relatively small amounts of cocaine; 
no more than 1-2 kilograms.  It is believed that they used the 
cocaine as a form of currency because it is easier to transport than 
bulky cash and is easily safeguarded when ingested. 
 
¶3. The Cape Verdean Minister of Defense recently told the UNODC 
Regional Representative, that she believes 20 percent of the world's 
cocaine transits though or very near her coastal waters.  This is in 
line with a previous INL report that states 25 percent of world 
cocaine pases through West Africa.  The key point of this coment 
is that she believes the majority of cocain trafficked through West 
Africa is via sea-goingvessel.  Thus far, UNODC, UNOWA-Mil, EU, and 
ECOWAS lac hard evidence to prove her hypothesis but i would be 
the most cost-effective mode of transprtation for Latin American 
drug dealers.  Sea-gong vessels can carry several times more 
product han aircraft and hundreds more than human mules.  Mreover, 
it has been easier to hide bulk cocaine entering at European ports, 
which until this past year, did not consider West African sea 
containers as "high-risk." 
 
¶4.  The overall assessment by Mazzitelli, is that drug trafficking 
can never be entirely defeated but can be diminished or severely 
disrupted to an acceptable level.  He argues that rule of law must 
exist to a certain degree in order for an individual state to be 
successful in countering narcotics trafficking whereas drug 
traffickers want a certain amount of state instability to be able to 
maintain influence over key governmental leaders and facilitate 
their operations.  Rule of law will never return to a state overrun 
by drug trafficking.  The UNODC regional representative argues that 
drug traffickers must be denied access to their preferred West 
African and European seaports and that they must be interdicted at 
sea so that they no longer have a routine or primary corridor.  He 
went on to say that this will make coordination and logistics so 
difficult that they cannot maintain a reliable system of 
distribution and that it would force traffickers to adopt riskier 
 
DAKAR 00000412  002 OF 002 
 
 
means of distribution until cocaine sales become unprofitable.  This 
also aids individual states by preventing them from becoming 
completely overwhelmed and totally corrupted by the drug trade.  He 
also maintained that states and their people must understand the 
risk that drugs and trafficking pose to their countries and have the 
political will to fight against them. 
¶5.  Comment.  Counter-narcotics operations alone will not return 
rule of law to a state but certain measures can reduce the negative 
impacts that are inherent to drug-trafficking.  Post agrees with 
Mazzitelli that more must be done to disrupt the operations of drug 
traffickers using West Africa as a platform to ship to Europe.  The 
drug trade will exacerbate corruption, undermine democracy, weaken 
the rule of law, and ultimately result in regional instability. 
Preventing this will require facilitating the development of states' 
judicial processes from investigation and apprehension to 
prosecution, conviction, and incarceration.  Post is working with 
INL and  USAFRICOM to develop counter-narcotics strategies for 
Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, as a part of the larger regional effort 
being led by INL.  Additionally, the increased presence of U.S. Navy 
and U.S. Coast Guard vessels and immediate implementation of the 
Maritime Security Capability Enhancement (MSCE) project will boost 
West African security and help regional states deter traffickers 
from using their littoral waters with impunity. End Comment. 
BERNICAT