[ 2012-04-28 ]

G.Bissau junta frees PM, president seized in coup
BISSAU (AFP) - Guinea-Bissau's coup leaders
released the country's ousted prime minister and
interim president after more than two weeks of
captivity, allowing the former leaders to travel
to Ivory Coast.

The generals now in charge of the small, unstable
west African country also pledged a one-year
transition back to democracy, a day after regional
bloc ECOWAS decided to send hundreds of troops to
the country.

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, has a
history of coups and other political violence and
has in recent years become a major cocaine
trafficking hub between South America and Europe.

The military launched the latest coup on April 12,
in the middle of a two-round presidential election
in which outgoing prime minister Carlos Gomes
Junior was the frontrunner and the opposition
claimed fraud.

Troops then attacked Gomes' residence with
rocket-propelled grenades and detained him, along
with interim president Raimundo Pereira, in a
power grab that sparked regional and international
condemnation.

On Thursday, a summit of the Economic Community of
West African States or ECOWAS gave the junta 72
hours to agree to a return to constitutional order
and to allow in 500 to 600 troops or face targeted
sanctions.

The 15-member bloc, which also condemned a coup in
Mali, told both countries to restore democracy and
hold elections within a year.

France on Friday welcomed the ECOWAS move and said
it was ready to help.

"It was a very good decision," said Foreign
Minister Alain Juppe, adding that Paris could give
"logistical, material or intelligence support".

On Friday the junta in Guinea-Bissau agreed to a
12-month transition period, having earlier
proposed a period twice that long, and agreed to
free the detained leaders, military spokesman Daba
Na Walna said.

Gomes and Pereira were later welcomed at Abidjan
airport by Ivory Coast's Foreign Minister Daniel
Kablan Duncan and the African Integration Minister
Adama Bictogo, an AFP reporter said.

Pereira thanked Ivory Coast President Alassane
Ouattara, current head of ECOWAS, for his role in
their liberation, saying that Ivory Coast "is also
our country", without further comment.

Bictogo called their liberation "a good sign". It
was not immediately known how long the two would
stay in Abidjan.

Pereira and Gomes were also due to meet with
Ouattara.

The president has pledged a firm response to the
recent instability in two countries "to prevent
our sub-region from giving in to terrorism and
transnational criminality".

Earlier Friday a team of West African leaders left
Guinea-Bissau after several hours of closed-door
talks with Antonio Indjai, who is widely thought
to have masterminded the coup.

Spokesman Na Walna sought to downplay the regional
concerns, saying the "return to civilian rule is
on track" and adding: "The right place for
soldiers is the barracks."

The future transition government "will be a
government of technocrats and neutral
personalities who will have to oversee a
transition period of 12 months", he added.

Since 1998, the country of 1.6 million people has
been through one war, four military coups and the
murder of one president and four military
chiefs-of-staff. No president has ever completed a
full term in office.

The Guinea-Bissau army has claimed it staged its
coup this month because of an alleged secret deal
by the government with Angola, also a former
Portuguese colony, to destroy the armed forces.

Angola on Thursday denied its troops had any role
in Guinea-Bissau's coup, as the parliament in
Luanda agreed to the the recall of about 600
soldiers who had been sent as part of a training
project.

"The presence of Angolan troops in Guinea-Bissau
was essentially based on a bilateral cooperation
pact to train soldiers of the army," junior
defence minister Salviano Sequeira told AFP.

Source - AFP

... go Back