Africa, Headlines

POLITICS-GUINEA BISSAU: Military Coup Derails Democratic Process

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Sep 15 2003 (IPS) - "The military of Guinea Bissau has taken this action because the government is abusing the constitution and seems incapable of resolving the country’s mounting political and economic problems," says Verissimo Correia Seabre, the army General who led Sunday’s coup.

Seabre says incumbent president Kumba Yallah is in military custody and is free to stay in the country or choose a country to go into exile.

It all began on Sunday morning, when dissident soldiers took over strategic government buildings in Guinea Bissau’s capital, Bissau, pronouncing the overthrow of Yallah’s government which had been in power for about three years.

"It was long coming," says controversial journalist Angelo Regala, proprietor of Radio Bombolom in Bissau. "There was disaffection, not only in the army, but also among the civil population," Regala told IPS in a telephone interview Monday.

Guinea Bissau has been going through political and economic crisis over the past year. Salaries of workers, including the military, have not been paid in eleven months.

In the months leading to the coup, civil servants were on a nationwide industrial action with virtually all sectors staying away from work – doctors, teachers, utility workers and all.

Legislative elections were scheduled for Oct. 21 this year after being postponed several times before. The government is in an economic straight-jacket and did not have the money to conduct the elections.

"I think there is no way those elections were going to go ahead because we simply didn’t have the funds," confirms Filomena Lobo de Pina, the executive secretary of the electoral commission.

Since Yallah was elected president, his government had been fraught with a constitutional crisis. He dissolved the national assembly last December and had sacked several ministers over the same period.

Yallah himself came to power in 1999 following the overthrow of then president Nono Vierra in an army mutiny. His rule was characterised by the hounding of opposition politicians, shutting down of private radio stations and detention of real and perceived opponents.

The coup in Guinea Bissau has so far been bloodless. Soldiers are out and about the streets but there seems to be no resistance yet to the puschists. The general consensus is that everyone in the West African state of 1.5 million people was fed up with president Yallah’s dictatorial tendencies.

People lived on between one U.S. dollar and 25 U.S. cents a day and unemployment was rife. The country is one of the poorest in Sub-Saharan Africa with gross national product (gdp) of just over 200 U.S. dollars.

Coup leader General Seabre says he does not intend to stay in power indefinitely and that civil society and other stakeholders would be involved in what would become a national council.

Already, the coup has been condemned by the regional body ECOWAS, or the Economic Commission of West African States, the African Union, the United Nations and the Association of Portuguese Speaking Countries. And mediation efforts are underway.

But General Seabre has said he would not hand over power until the country’s political and economic mess is sorted out. The General has a record of involvement in coup d’etats. He was very much involved in the coup against President Luis Cabral and later General Nino Vierra. He was in fact the second in command of that rebellion, a trained military officer of the resistance war against Portugal in the 1970s and a graduate of prestigious military academies in Portugal and Europe.

In the meantime, neighbouring Senegal has closed its border and there is apprehension in the other neighbouring state of the Gambia. It is not clear how events will unfold but it seems the latest coup in Guinea Bissau has just added a chapter to that country’s turbulent history.

Guinea Bissau, which has a predominantly agricultural-base economy, has faced crisis after crisis. In 1999, a year-long civil war devastated many of the country’s infrastructures and it seemed the international donor community was in no hurry to help its rehabilitation and put the country back on the course of democracy.

There was also the problem of constitutionality. Efforts by members of the national assembly to amend the constitution to include a clause on impeachment of the president, had been fiercely resisted by the Yallah.

The increased decline in the economy had forced the country’s unpredictable army to go haywire. Even before the Sep. 14 coup, there had been repeated news of military coup or some form of army insurrection.

 
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