Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is in Senegal after being detained during a military coup in his country, the government in Dakar said on Thursday, as a prominent opposition figure accused him of orchestrating the uprising.
The military in volatile Guinea-Bissau named a general as the country’s new leader on Thursday, a day after seizing power and derailing the announcement of election results.
Embalo arrived “safely” in Senegal on a military plane chartered by his government, the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The coup occurred just a day before authorities announced the provisional results of the presidential and parliamentary elections.
He took the oath at army headquarters on Thursday and declared: “I have just taken the oath to lead the High Command.”
Opposition candidate escapes
N’Tam is considered to have been close in recent years to Embalo, whom he now replaces.
Dias, who said he was safe and in hiding, was Embalo’s main rival after the Supreme Court blocked the main opposition candidate, Domingos Simoes Pereira, from running.
“I am the (elected) president of Guinea-Bissau,” Dias told AFP by phone, adding that he believed he had obtained around 52 percent of the vote.
“There was no coup d’état,” he alleged. It was “organized by Mr. Embalo.”
Dias said he escaped from his campaign headquarters on Wednesday when armed men came to arrest him.
Pereira, who endorsed Dias after being excluded from the election race, was arrested on Wednesday.
The army on Thursday appointed General Tomas Djassi, President Embalo’s former chief of staff, as chief of staff of the armed forces.
‘Necessary measures’
Bissau, the capital of the West African country, was paralyzed on Thursday, AFP journalists observed.
The new military leaders banned “all media programming” and banned protests.
Surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, N’Tam said at a news conference on Thursday that the military had acted “to block operations that aimed to threaten our democracy.”
He said the evidence had been “sufficient to justify the operation” and added that “the necessary measures are urgent and important and require the participation of everyone.”
Gen. Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, told reporters that the army was assuming control “until further notice” after uncovering a plot involving “drug lords” that included “the introduction of weapons into the country to disrupt the constitutional order.”
Land, air and sea borders, all closed on Wednesday, have reportedly reopened.
The curfew was lifted throughout the country and the High Command ordered the “immediate reopening” of markets, schools and private institutions.
‘Serious violation’
Members of the Guinea-Bissau diaspora and researchers told AFP they questioned the true motives behind the power grab, which they say could ultimately benefit Embalo.
Researchers interviewed by AFP said unverified preliminary results circulating before the coup showed opposition candidate Dias as the election winner.
“This is a coup d’état aimed at preventing the opposition candidate, Fernando Dias, from taking power,” a West African researcher who requested anonymity told AFP on Thursday.
“This is the ideal scenario for Mr. Embalo, who, after negotiations, could be released and potentially repositioned for the next elections.”
The African Union on Thursday condemned the coup and demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Embalo, while the president of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, Julius Maada Bio, called the matter a “serious violation of the constitutional order of Guinea-Bissau.”
The European Union urged “a rapid return to the constitutional order and the resumption of the electoral process.”
Located between Guinea and Senegal, Guinea-Bissau has experienced four coups since its independence from Portugal in 1974, as well as multiple coup attempts. Their electoral results are often questioned.
“Every time we have hope in the country, a crisis occurs,” said Mamadou Woury Diallo, a soap seller struggling to make a living at a market in Bissau. “This cannot continue.”
(AFP)
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