By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 5 2004 (IPS)

The pressure that the military frequently applies on Guinea-Bissau’s democratic leaders threatens to mortgage the future and international credibility of the small West African nation that won its independence from Portugal in 1974.

The latest warning was sounded this week in Lisbon by a meeting of the council of foreign ministers of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), which condemned any use of force that restricts the action of the democratic government of Guinea-Bissau.

The only point on the agenda of the council’s meeting was the unstable situation in that country that has dragged on since Oct. 6, when a group of mutinous officers killed armed forces chief General Veríssimo Correia de Seabra and the director of military information Colonel Domingos de Barros.

The killings were linked to ethnic conflicts, since the victims were from the Papel ethnic group, and those who killed them belong to the Balanta, the country’s largest ethnic group, the president of the Guinean Social Solidarity Association, Fernando Ká, told IPS.

The mutinous officers did not formally seize power, but have merely demanded payment of back wages and protested the "inhuman conditions" suffered by troops in military barracks throughout the country, as well as the "high level of corruption" among the military brass and in the armed forces promotion system.

But although the military did not actually stage a coup d’etat, its actions have had a decisive influence on the conduct of the country’s civilian authorities.

Armed troops continue to roam the streets of Bissau, the capital, and are exercising pressure on the civilian government, which the CPLP said confirmed the alarming weakness of the country’s democratic institutions.

Guinea-Bissau, a country of 1.2 million, is wedged between Senegal and Guinea on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. Its people are among the world’s poorest.

The foreign ministers of the CPLP, which is made up of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, expressed their total support for the government of Guinea-Bissau in its efforts to re-establish normalcy in the country.

According to the CPLP, actions like the Oct. 6 revolt only tend to isolate Guinea-Bissau and undermine the willingness of international donors to send development aid.

After the mutiny, Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio warned that if the military did not return quickly to the barracks, "this could become Guinea-Bissau’s last chance, in the eyes of the international community."

The CPLP’s eight member states, which have a combined population of around 220 million, decided to send a mission to Bissau headed by Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta of East Timor, to work with local authorities, the military, political parties and civil society to help achieve democratic stability.

The CPLP council of foreign ministers also pledged to work to bolster the flow of international development aid to Guinea-Bissau, with "the urgency required by the situation", in coordination with other international efforts, especially by the United Nations and the African Union.

Guinea-Bissau Minister of Economy and Finance, Joao Fadiah, one of the few government officials who has dared to openly criticise the military, said in a press conference Wednesday that the country has "slid back three or four years" since the October mutiny, which he described as a "punch in the stomach" for the economy because "it undermined the confidence of international investors."

Ká said that "Unfortunately, I was not at all surprised by the tragic event that further compromised Guinea-Bissau’s international reputation."

In Guinea-Bissau, "there is true military terrorism," said the Guinean-Portuguese activist, a former Socialist Party parliamentarian in Portugal.

"The recent criminal insubordination by the military was an attack on the interests of the country and its people because it perpetuates the climate of instability, jeopardising the internal peace necessary to development," he said.

On Tuesday, 14 groups belonging to the Platform of Convergence of Non-Governmental Organisations of Guinea-Bissau sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, requesting support for a programme of in-depth reforms in the armed forces, to make them "truly republican".

There can be no solution for Guinea-Bissau "without a restructuring, from top to bottom, of the armed forces, purging them first of the strong tribal identification, and in second place achieving ethnic balance in the recruitment process, with a preference for those who know how to read and write," said Ká.

Only those who have completed the basic level of schooling that is mandatory in the country should be eligible to become soldiers, non-commissioned officers should have completed secondary school, and officers should have a tertiary-level education, he said.

That is the only way "they will be properly prepared for performing their military duties in a democratic state of law," he argued.

In order for Guinea-Bissau to live in peace and achieve development, "the international community, with the staunch determination of the CPLP, must move ahead from words to action," and "provide technical and financial means to help implement profound structural reforms in the Guinean armed forces," said Ká.

But he made no effort to conceal his scepticism with respect to Guinean President Henrique Rosa, "a head of a state where neither political nor judicial power exist."

"The best thing would be for him to step down" if he cannot even keep "the military from running around the country from north to south, stealing livestock from poor farmers," he said.

The activist said Rosa had created "a scandalous situation" by naming General Tagnoi Noi, "one of the accomplices in the murder of Veríssimo de Seabra", as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He said Noi is "illiterate, and his only merit is having been a guerrilla fighter during the (1961-1974) anti-colonial struggle."

After 30 years of independence, "military promotions should be based on democratic principles, not on who killed more Portuguese soldiers during the war," he said. "We cannot continue to allow whoever has arms just to use them and make decisions."

The international community, including the CPLP, "must not limit itself, as it always does, to merely condemning criminal acts by the military, which periodically (takes action) that defers any prospect of normalcy for the country, with the aggravating factor that it causes the loss of human lives as well, while feeding the spirit of hatred and revenge," said the former parliamentary deputy.

"This kind of situation must be avoided at all cost," because otherwise "the country will be pushed towards a tribally-motivated civil war," he warned.

What we are seeing is an "ethnic cleansing" taking place in the upper levels of the armed forces, "and there is no doubt that this military revolt was politically and tribally motivated," said Ká.

"I am ashamed to be Guinean, and it hurts me to see the way my country is treated abroad" because of the actions of troops who "do not know what their real duties and rights are with respect to the country and their fellow citizens," he said.

"Those who use arms to achieve their objectives work against the force of reason and democratic coexistence," complained Ká. "Instead of placing themselves at the disposal of the state that they supposedly serve, they take a stance that runs counter to the interests of the country," a "cowardly position," by "threatening the physical integrity of their defenceless fellow countrymen."

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