By Alberto Dabo
BISSAU (Reuters) – Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau attacked the residence of
former Prime Minister and presidential election front-runner Carlos Gomes Junior on Thursday in what regional ministers
condemned as an attempted coup in the small West African state.
inked finger after voting in the capital Bissau, March 18, 2012. Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau attacked the residence of
presidential election front-runner Gomes Junior on Thursday in what regional ministers condemned as an attempted coup in the
small West African state. REUTERS/Joe Penney REUTERS/Joe Penney
Confusion and fear reined in the crumbling riverside capital, Bissau, after automatic weapons fire
and several explosions sent residents scurrying for the shelter of their homes.
State television and radio went off
the air and armed soldiers were on the streets and controlling major roads in and out of the capital, witnesses and diplomats
said.
They said the target of the evening attack by unidentified members of the military was the residence of Gomes
Junior, candidate for the ruling PAIGC party, and they added the action appeared aimed at derailing the unfinished
election.
Gomes Junior won close to an outright majority in last month’s first round of voting in the poor former
Portuguese colony, which has a history of coups and barracks revolts.
A second-round run-off had been set for April
29.
The whereabouts of Gomes Junior, who was known to be unpopular with some members of the military because of his
support for downsizing and reforming the bloated army, was not immediately known.
Rumours circulating among some
Bissau residents that he had been killed in the attack, which set at least one house on fire, could not be
confirmed.
In Bissau, one political source, who asked not be named, said soldiers had arrested the
country’s interim president, Raimundo Pereira, a former parliament speaker who is also a PAIGC member.
On one radio
station that was broadcasting, RDP Africa, the son of Guinea-Bissau national election commission chief Desejado Lima da Costa
said soldiers had invaded and looted his father’s house. “They didn’t find my father or mother, they are in a safe place,”
Camilo Lima da Costa told the radio.
“ATTEMPTED COUP D’ETAT”
Late on Thursday, foreign ministers of the West
African regional grouping ECOWAS, who were meeting in the Ivory Coast to discuss the situation in another regional state,
Mali, that suffered a coup last month, condemned the events in Guinea-Bissau.
“As in the case of Mali, ECOWAS formally
and rigorously condemns such an attempted coup d’etat,” Ivorian Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said. “It’s
unacceptable and it’s not accepted by ECOWAS.”
Guinea-Bissau Foreign Minister Mamadu Djalo Pires, who was at the
meeting, called for an “energetic reaction” from the international community against what he called “a coup
d’etat”.
Guinea-Bissau, whose weak governance has made it a haven for Latin American drug cartels transshipping
cocaine to Europe, is electing a president to replace Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in a Paris hospital in January after a long
illness.
Gomes Junior’s rival in the run-off, Kumba Yala, had said he would boycott the vote over alleged first-round
rigging.
Only hours before the attack, Yala, a former president who claims ethnic ties with the mostly Balanta
military, had warned of “consequences” if campaigning for the second round went ahead.
Guinea-Bissau, a former
Portoguese colony which won independence in 1974, is one of the world’s most fragile and volatile states. Its main official
export is cashew nuts and an ordinary Bissau Guinean lives on less than $2 a day.
Political assassinations, health
problems and meddling by an oversized military have prevented any president from serving a full term since multi-party
politics began in 1994. Gomes Junior had supported downsizing the military
Top military officials in Bissau have been
accused by the United States of being drugs runners. Gomes Junior’s critics say even he is complicit in the trade, a charge
he denies.
But it was not clear what faction or factions of the military had carried out Thursday’s
attack.
The shooting came just days after news that Angola, also a former Portuguese colony, was ending its
two-year-old military mission to help modernise the army in Guinea Bissau. The mission was designed to help end military
coups in the country.
