After coup, Ecowas to deploy stabilisation force in Guinea-Bissau
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has agreed to deploy a stabilisation force to Guinea-Bissau following the ‘failed coup attempt’ Monday.
The decision was made Thursday in an extraordinary session held in Accra, Ghana.
Apart from the situation in Guinea-Bissau, the meeting also assessed the situation in Burkina Faso, Guinea-Conakry and Mali.
An Ecowas communiqué said the mission comprising the military and police will be drawn from The Gambia, where a stationary force of the bloc has been located since the elections that removed ex-leader Yahya Jammeh from power in 2017.
The last Ecowas stabilisation mission was sent to Guinea-Bissau between 2012 and 2020, and left the country after President Umaro Sissoco Embaló’s inauguration, when he said he did not need “foreign forces”, saying he trusted the country’s army.
Meanwhile, Guinea-Bissau’s public prosecutor’s office has compiled a list of 20 people allegedly involved in the coup attempt, VOA Radio reported on Thursday.
Senior interior ministry officials, leaders of the country’s main opposition party PAIGC and army personnel allegedly linked to former navy chief of staff José Américo Bubu Na Tchutu are among those involved, the VOA report said.
The revelation comes as President Embaló visited the government palace, where the coup attempt took place. He was with army officers, Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam and other government officials.
“I am not here to accuse anyone or conduct a witch-hunt”, President Embaló told journalists, adding that the attorney-general’s office was investigating. He directed the media to the prosecutor when asked if he already had the names of those involved in the attempted coup.
Shortly after the visit to the palace, President Embaló chaired a meeting of the Superior Council for National Defence to analyse the latest events in the country.
Officials in Guinea-Bissau had linked the coup attempt to an escalation of the campaign against drug trafficking. Moments after government forces retook control, President Embaló said “isolated elements” opposed to government reshuffles and seeking control of trafficking channels may have tried to oust him.
The military has been sanctioned in the past for aiding trafficking. In August, the US State Department announced a reward offer of up to $5 million for information that could lead to the arrest and or conviction of Guinea-Bissau’s national Antonio Indjai, a former head of the country’s armed forces.
Meanwhile, Russia has expressed concern over the latest events in Guinea-Bissau. In a statement released Thursday by the mission in Bissau, Moscow urged all political forces to “refrain from actions that could provoke violence and instead seek a political solution to existing disagreements”.
