By Alberto Dabo
BISSAU (Reuters) – Soldiers in
Guinea-Bissau dispersed anti-military demonstrators and closed down private radio stations on Sunday as their commanders put
in place a transitional council that effectively consummated their coup.
Batista Tagme Na Wai at the military headquarters in Bissau, March 8, 2009. REUTERS/Luc Gnago
Politicians in the poor West African state were summoned by armed forces
chiefs at the weekend to discuss the formation of a temporary administration to organise elections after the army toppled the
country’s leaders and government on Thursday. The coup cut short a presidential election process already
underway.
But the prospects of forming a representative government appeared impossible after Guinea-Bissau’s main
party, the PAIGC, which holds two-thirds of seats in parliament, rejected what it called the army’s “anti-constitutional”
actions.
After two days of talks, the around 20 political parties who met with the military – without the PAIGC –
agreed to create a “national transition council” whose composition and tenure still had to be decided, a spokesman for the
parties, Fernando Vaz, said. All existing constitutional bodies were “dissolved”.
An interim president and prime
minister for the transition to new elections would be named after further meetings.
The military, which has a history
of coups, revolts and political meddling in the former Portuguese colony, has interim President Raimundo Pereira and former
Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior in custody. They were hauled from their homes amid machine gun and heavy weapons fire on
Thursday.
As the international community heaped condemnation on the army for carrying out the latest coup in West
Africa, there were signs that ordinary citizens in one of the world’s poorest and most fragile states were also
unhappy.
About 300 young protesters, carrying a banner that read “Enough violence”, marched to the National Assembly
on Sunday only to be dispersed by soldiers who threatened them with their guns, witnesses said. At least one demonstrator was
injured.
The protesters shouted slogans calling for the restoration of constitutional rule and for the release of
Gomes Junior, a PAIGC leader who had looked set to win a presidential election run-off scheduled for April 29, now halted by
the coup.
Soldiers also occupied the facilities of at least three private radio stations in Bissau – Radio Bombolom,
Radio Pidjiguiti and Radio Nossa – apparently to stop them broadcasting criticism of the military.
In an apparent
attempt to ward off international and domestic condemnation, the military command had earlier issued a communique saying it
would work “to create the necessary conditions for the rapid re-establishment of constitutional order and above all a climate
of peace and security”.
ECOWAS MISSION
But international and regional bodies were unimpressed, keeping up a
drumbeat of criticism.
ECOWAS, the West African grouping of regional states, was sending a high-level delegation which
was expected to tell the military on Monday that Thursday’s coup was “unacceptable”, an ECOWAS spokesman said.
The
Guinea-Bissau putsch was the second such military power grab in West Africa in a month, after a coup in Mali in March that
has raised fears of worsening instability in the region.
Meeting in Lisbon at the weekend, the Community of
Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP), which counts Guinea-Bissau among its members, backed the idea of a U.N.-mandated
intervention force for Guinea-Bissau to be formed with the cooperation of the African Union and the European
Union.
The expected presidential election winner, Gomes Junior, was unpopular with military chiefs because he backed
an initiative to reform and downsize the bloated army, which is accused of involvement in drug-trafficking by western
security agencies.
“These events all highlight the terrible need for security sector reform,” a Bissau-based diplomat
told Reuters.
“In Guinea-Bissau, the military don’t really want power, they are not interested in running the state
… they just want to be able to go on with their businesses, their drugs business, their fishing business,” the diplomat
added, referring to the army summons to the political parties to form an administration.
Guinea-Bissau, whose weak
governance has made it a hub for Latin American drug cartels shipping cocaine to Europe, was in the middle of electing a
president to replace Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in a Paris hospital in January after an illness.