CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by A. Gnonlonfoun, Guinea-Bissau, May 1999
THEME = POLITICS
The military takeover of 7 May 1999
has destroyed many people's hopes
It was thought that the peace agreements signed in Abuja (Nigeria) on 1 November 1998 would constitute an important step in the process of restoring peace and stability to Guinea-Bissau, "a country brought to its knees" by the ongoing war (since 7 June 1998) between loyalist soldiers and the rebel military. What a disappointment! Following the putsch, bitterness replaced the joy brought on by the new climate of "dialogue and tolerance" resulting from the Abuja Agreement. The junta's military action has made a mockery of the security mission set in motion by the West African Intervention Force (ECOMOG).
General Ansoumane Mané had endeavoured to "clear his name" from a charge of supplying arms to rebels in Casamance (southern Senegal). charge. He then embarked on an armed rebellion and has succeeded in depriving President "Nino" Vieira of his presidency. He thus seems to have achieved his long-term aims. Now what? From a situation when dialogue between the warring parties was a distinct possibility, we are now reduced to what amounts to settling old scores.
Malam Bacaï Sanha is Vieira's successor. In fact, it was only after several days of procrastination that he had finally signed the official decree ending Nino Vieira's rule. Vieira, together with his family had taken refuge in the Portuguese embassy and requested political asylum in Lisbon. The political vacuum left by his departure was all too clear. It took four days to find another Head of State. Seeking to follow a democratic path, the military junta was forced to choose the Speaker of the National Assembly, Malam Sanha, in order to give some semblance of continuity in the democratic process. Malam Sanha is a transitional President who will lead the country through the period of transitional leading up to the presidential elections planned for 28 November 1999.
He's got a job on his hands. His field of action is much wider than that of Parliamentary Speaker where he was guardian of the House's freedoms. He's got the same kind of job, but on a national scale - analyzing and weighing up the nation's problems. He's also got the none-too-easy task of instilling a democratic heart into the transition process.
The rebels succeeded, therefore, in outwitting the "loyalists" who were strictly observing the conditions of the Abuja Agreement. The Agreement had inspired confidence among the general population, but inadvertently allowed the rebels to develop ways and means of taking over power and overthrowing Nino Vieira. General Mané was well aware that the State's intelligence services were defective; consequently, President Vieira became ever more isolated because of the false information distributed about what the President was up to.
With communications not operating at a presidential level, and given that the 600 poorly equipped ECOMOG personnel could not intervene effectively if fighting resumed, the rebels put the finishing touches to their strategy. General Mané and Commander Zamora Induta, one of Nino Vieira's fiercest opponents, jointly led the operations. From their fortified camp at Bra, to the north of Bissau, they decided to move on to the offensive on the morning of 7 May 1999, knowing that none of the loyalist forces could stand up to them. The junta had considerable stocks of heavy weapons - guns, mortars and rocket-launchers - and controlled almost all the underground defences built during the war for independence from Portugal.
It should perhaps also be stated that the junta's main weapon was its ultra-secret communication methods. The military junta had succeeded in creating an intelligence system at all levels in both the military and civilian sections of the population. As a result, any warning signs of trouble ahead, were successfully prevented from being noticed among Vieira's loyalist followers. The fighting resulted in more than a hundred deaths and hundreds of people wounded.
Yesterday, there were serious hopes for peace. Today...? It would perhaps be helpful to analyze the events leading up to the 7 May coup d'état in order to help understand the present situation.
On the day before his departure to attend the summit conference of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) on 7 June 1998, President Vieira had announced the appointment of Brigadier Humberto Gomes to head the armed forces, replacing General Mané, accused of supporting the Casamance separatist movement by trafficking in arms. This was the spark which ignited the fire storm. In the early morning of 7 June 1998, Mané launched a military rebellion.
Faced with this turn of events, President Vieira, in the name of the people who had democratically elected him, asked his neighbour, President Abdou Diouf of Senegal, to intervene, "to assist him in putting down a military mutiny", under the terms of a defence agreement concluded in 1975. When addressing the French National Assembly on 21 October 1998, the Senegalese President was thus able to defended his intervention in Guinea- Bissau and his army's activity in Casamance, justifying his action by the defence agreement. "The Senegalese army, in co- operation with a military contingent from Guinea-Conakry, foiled the coup d'état, protected the legal and legitimate institutions of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, and allowed foreign nationals to be evacuated. The events in Guinea-Bissau are not unrelated to the situation in Casamance", stressed President Diouf, alluding to the fact that the leader of the rebels, General Mané, was accused by President Vieira of having supplied arms to the independence fighters in Casamance.
In other words, for Senegal, this putsch was intended to overthrow President Vieira, who had come to power himself in November 1980 as a result of a military coup against Luis Cabrel. Elected President in May 1984, Nino Vieira was re-elected in 1990 and 1994. This followed an abortive coup d'etat in June 1986. From time to time, he was under attack not just from the Opposition, but also from the disaffected wing of his own party, The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. (PAIGO).
It's easy to imagine that this situation would cause rancour, and that the government would be reproached for being more concerned with what was going on in neighbouring Senegal than with Guinea- Bissau's internal economic situation.
This reproach appears to be ill-founded. It was actually the very overt support provided by Vieira for the Senegalese government, faced with the separatist movement in the south, which was criticised. His about-face in 1996 to promote several cease- fire agreements between the Senegalese government and Casamance's democratic movement, was not intended to please. Another criticism of Vieira related to his acceptance of the famous agreement to share the oil common to the two countries of the Casamance coast (85% compared to 15%).
Leading from what's just been mentioned, yet a further criticism concerned Guinea-Bissau's entry into the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa (UEMOA) in June 1997, at the instigation of Senegal, supported by France. This can also be seen as the beginning of a gradual opening up of areas previously reserved to Portuguese-speaking countries. The rebels also criticised Vieira for his increasingly solid adherence to the former French colonial areas, at the expense of the Portuguese-speaking zone, considered by its former colonial power as its private hunting ground.
The rebellion, therefore, erupted under pressure from both internal and external factors. Although related, the internal factors were more important, even though the external pressures were not insignificant.
For the first five months of the rebellion, it could be wondered if Guinea-Bissau was ever going to recover its former equilibrium. After bloody confrontations, however, both sides climbed down and once more took the path towards dialogue and tolerance.
It was, however, necessary to shed light on a subject which General Mané clearly found annoying: arms trafficking with Casamance and the part he was accused of playing. For this reason, a parliamentary Commission of Inquiry was formed, to investigate the allegations. On 12 April 1999, the Commission reported back to the National Assembly. It's well-known that General Mané was always saying he was innocent of having any part in this arms trafficking, stating that he had rebelled in order to clear his name. The result - Mané was exonerated.
Everyone knows what happened next: the 7 May coup d'état. Observers of what was happening within Guinea-Bissau were taken by surprise. Both Nino Vieira and Ansoumane Mané had both been fed on a diet of war, so the question was now being asked - which of them would do best in politics? But then came the coup.
Members of Parliament, the government and the putschists, don't seem to know what to do. What's to be done with Nino Vieira? Some Members and General Mané, himself, want him to be brought to trial, but Prime Minister Francisco Fadul has asked for mercy and hopes the former Head of State will be treated with respect. "The outside world is watching us", he said, "and we need financial backing, because the country is on its knees."
These days it seems as though the country is being run by a three- headed body, wrestling with each other. There's General Mané, who wants a full part in all political decisions. This does not please the Prime Minister, nor the new President, Malam Sanha, a white-bearded man with an imposing stature.
It seems clear that the road to peace is long and full of pitfalls.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1999 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement