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Bissau (AFP) Jan 18, 2011 Guinea-Bissau said Tuesday it would boost surveillance of airstrips used by drug traffickers and has threatened to destroy any aircraft flying illegally over the country. The small west African country, six hours by plane from South America, has become a major hub for drug cartels moving cocaine to Europe. A cabinet statement released Tuesday said government planned to make the Cufar airstrip, some 300km (180 miles) south of the capital Bissau, "inoperative" as it was "used for questionable activities." Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, has also instructed the ministers of defence and the interior to "heighten vigilance" on all runways around the country, read the statement. Guinea-Bissau has a total of 24 airfields built during the Portuguese colonial era some of which have in the past been used by South American drug cartels. Army chief General Antonio Indjai has threatened to give the order to shoot down any aircraft flying over the country without permission. "Shoot them, I will take responsibility afterwards," he told officers at the Buba garrison, 250km south of Bissau. "What do these people want on our territory? As everyone knows Guinea-Bissau has no means, and so we are given a bad name, we are described as a country of drug traffickers. It is over now, shoot any plane that violates our airspace." There have been reports that aircraft have landed in parts of the country with the complicity of military officers. Between 2007 and 2009, over 40 tonnes of cocaine passed through the country, according to a report from United Nations drug office (UNODC).
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