Guinea-Bissau: Shots Heard Not Far From The Government Palace

Heavy gunfire was heard Tuesday afternoon in the area of ​​the government palace in Bissau, capital of Guinea-Bissau.

The government palace, where President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to be for an extraordinary Council of Ministers, was surrounded by heavily armed men. No information was initially available on the exact cause of the shootings.

The military around the government palace, on the outskirts of town not far from the airport, kept people at bay.

The surroundings were plagued by movements of inhabitants fleeing the places. The markets emptied and the banks closed their doors. Many military vehicles loaded with soldiers crisscrossed the streets.

Guinea-Bissau, a small country of about two million inhabitants bordering Senegal and Guinea, is a subscriber to political coups. Since its independence from Portugal in 1974 after a long war of liberation, it has experienced four putsches (the last in 2012), a host of coup attempts and a waltz of governments.

Endemic corruption

Since 2014, it has been committed to a return to constitutional order, which has not saved it from repeated turbulence, but without violence. The country suffers from endemic corruption. It is also considered a hub for cocaine trafficking between Latin America and Europe. The armed forces play a prominent role.

Since the beginning of 2020, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, a former general, has been the head of state, following a presidential election whose result is still disputed by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), dominant formation since independence.

Umaro Sissoco Embalo, 49, had forced his destiny in February 2020 by putting on the president’s sash and settling in the presidential palace, despite the persistence of the dispute. No news was given publicly by the president on Tuesday afternoon.

Serial coups

Tuesday’s events, the cause of which is still unknown, inevitably evoke the serial putsches that have shaken West Africa since 2020: in Mali in August of that year and again in May 2021, in Guinea in September 2021 and in Burkina Faso in January this year.

The situation in these different countries was to be discussed this week at a summit of the Organization of West African States (ECOWAS).