By Lansana Fofana
FREEOWN, Jul 16 2003 (IPS)

Army officers seized power in the tiny West African state of Sao Tome and Principe Wednesday, while President Fradique de Menezes was away on a private visit to Nigeria.

Sources, contacted by IPS in the capital Sao Tome, named the coup leader as Major Fernados Pereira, head of the island’s military school.

They said Pereira spoke on national radio on Wednesday and ordered legislators and senior government officials to report at the police headquarters.

"I can confirm that Prime Minister Maria das Neves and several senior government officials have been arrested and taken into custody by the military," a source in the capital told IPS. "As for President Fradique de Menezes, he is out of the country."

Residents of Sao Tome said they heard gunshots and exploding rockets and grenades at around 3am.

"But the situation is calm at the moment and we haven’t heard of any casualties yet," the source added.

Details of the coup are still sketchy.

But what is known is that the island’s army stormed the Presidential palace and the official residence of the Prime Minister and other government officials picking them all up and taking them into custody.

Sao Tome’s army numbers 200, just above two military companies and not enough for a battalion. The country has enjoyed relative peace and only hit the headlines because of the discovery of crude oil.

Oil politics in this impoverished island state – with an average annual income of 280 U.S. dollars – has dominated the news there. Its powerful neighbour Nigeria has vested interest in the country’s potential oil wealth and had signed concessionary deals with the previous government.

But President Menezes, a wealthy man with a huge business empire that stretches from Africa to Europe, has been leaning more to the Americans.

Nigeria, with a population of 120 million, offered to enter a defence pact with its weak neighbour, which will see the deployment of Nigerian soldiers in Sao Tome and Principe. When IPS visited Sao Tome recently, political analyst Miguel said: "President Menezes was suspicious of the Nigerian offer and would prefer going along with the Americans."

Menezes has been paying frequent "official" visits to the United States. And recently he asked the Americans to "offer some security help" to the country in the event that oil drilling and explorations commences.

Sao Tome’s population is estimated at 140,000 and is generally thought to be one of Africa’s poorest countries. In 1975, the country gained its independence from Portugal, but in time the cocoa industry, the mainstay of the economy, experienced a crash.

Revenue from the industry plummeted as a result of the break-up of the cocoa plantations. However, the country – off the Gulf of Guinea – is being wooed by rival powers, the Americans and the Nigerians. It is said that the island country sits on around two billion barrels of crude oil.

The oil production is expected to start in 2006-2007.

There is no connection yet of this potential wealth to the unfolding coup in Sao Tome.

The coup comes just four days after the end of the African Union (AU) summit in Maputo, Mozambique. The union, which has yet to make a statement about the coup in Sao Tome and Principe, is against military coups on the continent.

The new Central African Republic’s military leader, Gen. Francois Bozize, who toppled President Ange-Felix Patasse in Mar., has been suspended by the African Union.

The coup was also condemned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who called for the "speedy restoration of the constitutional order" in the Central African Republic (CAR).

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