Coup d'état in Guinea Bissau (it's a country in Africa)

[Kuya]

The military has taken over control of a central district in the capital of Guinea-Bissau, a senior diplomat has told the AP news agency.

There were reports of heavy arms fire, including mortar shelling, from the area late on Thursday night.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AP that the country's interim president and prime minister are missing.

The country was due to hold a runoff election on April 29, pitting Junior against former president Kumba Yala.

Guinea-Bissau's opposition - led by second-placed Yala, who claims the first round vote was rigged - have called for a boycott of the run-off vote and warned against campaigning.

Guinea-Bissau has weathered successive coups and attempted coups since winning independence from Portugal in 1974.

The emergency election is being held after the death of former leader Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in January after being rushed to Paris for treatment for end-stage diabetes.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa...055817993.html

Few details right now about what's going on.

[Cadsuane]

No espaço de meia hora, militares da Guiné-Bissau detiveram quinta-feira à noite o Presidente interino e atacaram com granadas e armas de fogo a residência do primeiro-ministro e candidato às presidenciais.

The interim president, and probably the prime minister and presidential candidates are in the custody of the military or in the process of getting shot. Sounds like the old president, Kumba Iala is staging a coup.

Cinco candidatos da oposição, entre eles Kumba Ialá, pediram “aos militantes e simpatizantes para não votarem a 29 de Abril”, e adiantaram: “Quem se aventurar a fazer campanha assumirá a responsabilidade por tudo o que aconteça”.

Translation: Five opposition candidates, among them Kumba Iala, implored "soldiers and sympathizers to not vote on the 29th of April", and added: "Whomsoever ventures to do so will take responsibility for all that will follow."

[Pirian]

A military takeover in Africa you say? Do go on!

[Salodin]

Has Team America made a statement yet?

[Cadsuane]

Shut the fuck up with the stock comments.

[Kuya]

The interim president, and probably the prime minister and presidential candidates are in the custody of the military or in the process of getting shot. Sounds like the old president, Kumba Iala is staging a coup.



Translation: Five opposition candidates, among them Kumba Iala, implored "soldiers and sympathizers to not vote on the 29th of April", and added: "Whomsoever ventures to do so will take responsibility for all that will follow."

Are any of Guinea's neighbors concerned enough to act?

[Cadsuane]

No, since they didn't the last few times this has happened in Bissau. The Portuguese, Chinese, and Brazillians will intervene to protect their citizens and interests, and everybody will probably pull back from the table before a civil war happens. Some politicians and generals are going to end up assassinated though.

[Kuya]

I suspect that since this news hasn't been a very big hit in US media, that the USG has little to nothing at stake in that country. Anyway, how much do you know about this particular country? I'd like to ask why this keeps happening in Bissau, but i suppose i might have to ask why it keeps happening in so many other places.

[Cadsuane]

Ex-portuguese colony, achieved independence after the carnation revolution in Portugal which resulted in the dissolution of the empire, wherein Portugal ceded the colonies to the various independence militants that has sprung up in each of them. what happened in Bissau afterwards is basically what happened in all the African Portuguese colonies: Whatever anti-NATO communist backed regime took the place of colonial authorities was often disorganized and barbaric, so the new sovereign countries over which they took stewardship went to shit. Because they were also very nationalistic and sometimes ethno-centric, those Portuguese who hadn't interbred enough to still be recognizably white were best advised to get the fuck out of dodge, much like the whites did in former Rhodesia. This mass exodus make up what is called in Portuguese the "retournados", after they returned to mainland Portugal with little more than the clothes on their backs. A big part of the reason why the colonies did so poorly in the 80's and 90's (and up to today, in some cases), is that the retournados made up most of the educated class of skilled labour and they weren't around anymore.

The reason this keeps happening in Bissau? Drug trade, apparently. The corruption that comes from the oil industry in like, Angola for instance, which is comparable, is a bit more benign than the sordidness of dealing with heroine smugglers. The military makes a big living off of this and consequently has the gall to circumvent the civil authorities on most manners. If I had to venture another guess, and this one is uneducated, it'd be that sometimes you just don't have the dumb luck of having enough competent civil servants and little enough morally bankrupt generals.

[Kuya]

One of my IP professors had said once about some African countries that they suffer the consequences of colonialism. I thought it was just some lefty sentiment, but of course i didn't know enough about these countries to discard it. What you're saying now makes what she said sound like a realistic explanation of at least countries like Bissau, to some extent.


How did you learn about this country in particular? I've been meaning to learn more about the history of some African countries.

[Cadsuane]

Well, I'm Portuguese. The Portuguese media actually gives a fuck about these things, so piecing together what I've read in Publico and watched on RTP, a quick glance at wikipedia, and conversations I've had with people, tells me Bissau is just Angola but shittier and without oil.

More specifically the Portuguese African colonies reap the consequences of the cold war, which is really the same thing with a new name. About the consequences of colonialism in particular, a Portuguese academic explained it to me this way: After the discoveries, the sons and daughters of aristocrats and merchant families without the good fortune of being firstborn into inheritance had to seek careers in the clergy, military or merchant navy. For those without pedigree the mainland didn't have many opportunities, but the colonies sure did, and the place most fertile for going to ground as nouveau riche was Brazil, not backwaters like Bissau. Mass emigrations happen throughout history but they often comprise different social classes coming from different civic realities; in this instance the diaspora included labour and aristocrats, unlike the diaspora of Salazar ruled Portugal which was comprised mostly of farmers. So Brazil had this bustling class of elites, disseminating language (in the opinion of some, the Brazillians speak nicer Portuguese today than the actual Portuguese do) and wealth and fine taste and prestige and a little bit of slavery and exploitation too. So the reason Brazil achieved it's independence so early during the Napoleonic wars is that after the crown fled there together with the entire Lisbon court, it must have seemed a little bit silly to continue ruling from overseas the people who had grown so large and diverse, culturally different, and overall so sophisticated, who had just finished saving your ass and feeding you. So they didn't, and the rest is history. The Portuguese in Africa did go native like they did everywhere else, but not for as long and not in as great numbers and with fewer resources, so they never flourished, and the institutions they built didn't survive the revolution in most cases. The ones that have done best are the least isolationist ones, branding themselves pan-african or pan-lusophone or both.

[Ashmada]

Coup d'état in Guinea Bissau (it's a country in Africa

Why doesn't it surprise me anymore that the bold part was deemed necessary?

[Cadsuane]

Apparently Guinea-Bissau has a newspaper in Portuguese (and French and Creoul which is a pretty fucked up language that I can almost understand apparently)

Spoiler: show

O comando militar que reivindica o golpe de Estado, convocou os partidos políticos para uma reunião nas próximas horas, com o objectivo de encontrar as possíveis saídas para a actual situação.

Muito embora a vida na capital Bissau esteja a regressar à normalidade, com a reabertura do aeroporto internacional, do comércio e com os táxis em funcionamento, o facto é que os militares mantêm ainda encerradas as ruas que dão acesso às embaixadas, ao edifício da Presidência e ao Ministério do Interior.

Continua a desconhecer-se o paradeiro tanto do presidente interino, Raimundo Pereira, como primeiro-ministro e candidato à presidência, Carlos Gomes Júnior, presumindo-se que ambos estejam sob custódia dos militares.

Sabe-se que o Ministro do Interior se encontra refugiado na missão da União Europeia em Bissau e que um dos homens fortes do governo deposto - o ministro do Comércio – se encontra em regime de prisão domiciliária, depois da sua residência ter sido vandalizada.

O chefe do Estado Maior da Forças Armadas, o general António Injai, encontra-se no quartel de Mansoa, a 60 quilómetros de Bissau, onde estará a funcionar o centro de comando e controlo das operações militares.

So basically this Gazeta Nacional reports the military head honcho guy Antonio Injai has invited the political parties for a meeting. Also that things are going back to normal in the capital with businesses open and the international airport back in service, however the embassies are guarded by soldiers, the minister of the interior is hiding in the EU mission, and the prime minister and president are presumed to be in military custody. Article taken with a grain of salt.

Meanwhile in Brazil nobody seems to give a fuck. In Portugal the president is rattling sabres and placing the military on high alert. Paternal post-colonial foreign policy like what happened with Timor is good politics.

[Lucavi]

The fuck are Portugese doing in Africa?

Oh yeah, a bunch of white people took over the continent and divvied it up for scraps over the last few hundred years.

Have fun with whatever's going on as a result.

[Cadsuane]

Another interesting headline from Bissau: Miltary alleges that the government requested that Angolan forces attack the GB military. They have a secret document to prove it and everything. Angolan government issues flat denial, and apparently some Timorese nobel peace prize recipient guy might be named a mediator in the upcoming summit or whatever.

... the fuck is going on.

[Kuya]

Why doesn't it surprise me anymore that the bold part was deemed necessary?

I put it there for people who don't know where the country is.

[Priran]

kumba yala my lord

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Is there a reason to care about this African country? Diamonds? Oil? AIDs? These are things we need imported, not Portuguese words.

[Cadsuane]

It's interesting to see how diplomacy is handled between states that aren't U.S. satellites as a contrast, and in particular how the CPLP and to a much lesser extent the UN will deal with a rogue state, and also how this affects the greater tapestry of west Africa. We also have to remember that while the U.S. has few interests in Africa, China for instance has many. It's an important place with many geopolitical players.

Headlines from today:
Condemnations from the UN, Washington, and CPLP. CPLP (commonwealth of Portuguese speaking countries) meets this weekend in Lisbon to discuss the affair and possible courses of action. Portuguese military still on high alert, at the very least they'll send a boat over with a bunch of guns to secure the exit of Portuguese and other foreign nationals, ferry them back once the shit settles.

edit: Military invites opposition parties to form a transitional "national unity" government, with the condition that the posts of minister of the interior and minister of defense be filled by candidates chosen by the military. The opposition leader is that lovely fellow Kumba Iala we've mentioned complaining about the election being rigged, with close ties to the military, and who was staged to compete against Carlos Gomes, the current prime minister, in a runoff election.

[Cadsuane]

Portuguese warships en route to Guineau Bissau. CPLP looking for a security council mandate to intervene and not just evacuate nationals. Military chief in Bissau states that he wants a peaceful resolution.

Some interpretation: Well no fucking kidding he's interested in a peaceful resolution. The military in Bissau has never been interested in ruling the country, but only in ousting politicians who didn't represent their interests of money, priveleges and the ability to be paid off by latin druglords. The CPLP, and Portugal in particular, is interested in protecting it's foreign diaspora, sick of cleaning up their colonial shit every five years, and of dealing with the results of African drug smuggling, so wants boots on the ground to restore civil authority and secure the coastline, and maybe put some pricks before the Hague. Will a shitstorm ensue? Stay tuned.