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Guinea‐bissau: military fightingbreaks outLars Rudebeck aa Uppsala, SwedenPublished online: 25 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Lars Rudebeck (1998) Guinea‐bissau: military fighting breaks out, Reviewof African Political Economy, 25:77, 484-486, DOI: 10.1080/03056249808704328

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03056249808704328

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484 Review of African Political Economy

productive system and for which finan-cial outlets have to be created continu-ously. It is not that the technocrats of theIMF or World Bank have thought of thesystem, they do not think of anything,they just implement. That is why we mustcreate social and political forces whichcompel the system to adjust.

Guinea-Bissau: MilitaryFighting Breaks OutLars Rudebeck

At 5 o'clock, in the early morning ofSunday, 7 June, shooting was heard fromthe military installations at Santa Luzia innorth-eastern Bissau, capital of the WestAfrican republic of Guinea-Bissau, gov-erned under multiparty constitutionaldemocracy since elections held in 1994.Fighting spread quickly to the militarybase at Bra, near the international airport,in the north-western parts of the city. In aradio broadcast the same day, presidentJoao Bernardo 'Nino' Vieira held formercommander-in-chief, brigadier AnsumaneMane, responsible for an armed revoltagainst the legal government.

Two days later, on 9 June, spokesmen ofAnsumane Mane announced that a mili-tary 'junta' had been formed. It de-manded the resignation of the presidentin order to create proper conditions,according to the rebels, for democraticelections to be held within sixty days. Asthe holding of elections before the end ofthe year was the stated ambition also ofthe legal government, the real causes andmotives behind the uprising did notstand out very clearly at this stage.

The initial impression conveyed by inter-national media, based largely upon offi-cious declarations from Bissau, was that

this was a mutiny by a disgruntled groupof military men that would in all prob-ability be put down quite rapidly. Therewas also sincere surprise and consterna-tion, both inside and outside Guinea-Bissau, that something like this couldhappen under the democratically electedregime which had recently begun toshow some signs of good governance andeconomic efficiency.

Conflict Rapidly RegionalizedVery soon, however, the situation ap-peared considerably more complex. Asearly as on 9 June, the very day of therebels' initial declaration, 1,300 soldiersfrom Guinea-Bissau's northern neigh-bour Senegal, were already in place inBissau on the president's demand tosupport the few loyalist troops, who didnot even have access to munitions. On thefollowing day, the Senegalese were joinedby 400 soldiers from Guinee-Conakry,the neighbour in the south. Thus theconflict was almost immediately region-alized.

Legality vs. Political LegitimacyQuite soon, too, it became clear that theimage of a simple mutiny against thelegal, democratically elected governmentwas very far from the whole truth.Legality and political legitimacy appearin this case to be far apart. Constitutionaldemocracy reigns in Guinea-Bissau since1994, true enough. But dissatisfactionwith the corrupt presidential power andthe harsh conditions of life is rampant,both among common people and withinthe power apparatus, not least the mili-tary. After the first days of the war, thepresident appeared politically isolatedand abandoned by most of his army,reduced to relying on the military force ofthe Senegalese army to remain in office,and thus totally dependent upon foreigntroops.

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Briefing: Guinea-Bissau: Military Fighting Breaks Out 485

Military & Diplomatic Stalemate

As the sixth week of war began, the imageconveyed by well informed observersand the Lisbon daily O Publico, withseveral journalists on the spot, was thatthe rebels were still in military controlaround the capital, including the interna-tional airport. President 'Nino' and hisgovernment remained confined to themore central parts of the city - and eventhis thanks only to the Senegalese troops,the number of which had increased bysome hundreds since the first days. As faras the rest of the country was concerned,the situation was less clear. Governmen-tal forces seemed to have made someadvances to the north and north-east ofthe capital.

No military solution was within sight.Efforts at mediation - by the bishop ofBissau, the foreign minister of Gambia,and the Portuguese and Angolan foreignministers acting together - had so farfailed to bring the belligerents together.The rebels declared themselves ready fortalks, but demanded the withdrawal ofthe Senegalese troops. The president stillinsisted that the rebels would have to laydown their arms without conditions.

The ministers of foreign affairs and de-fence of the member states of the WestAfrican organization for economic coop-eration (ECOWAS) met in Abidjan, thecapital of Cote d'lvoire, on 3-4 July. Theydecided that ECOMOG ('peace-monitor-ing group') - the regional military forceunder Nigerian leadership which hasintervened to stop the civil wars inLiberia and Sierra Leone - would have itsmandate extended to Guinea-Bissau. Theconditions under which this could berealized remained unclear.

The European Union, on 8 June, voicedworries about abuses of human rights inthe Guinea-Bissau war. On 11 June, theCommissioner of the European Union forAfrica, the Caribbean and the Pacific, thePortuguese Joao de Deus Pinheiro, de-

clared that a military coup against ademocratically elected government couldunder no circumstances be accepted.What could be discussed was how suchcrises should be avoided in the future. Nodeclaration or action had, until that date,been forthcoming from the Security Coun-cil of the United Nations.

Catastrophe for the People

In the meantime, about five-sixths ofBissau's 300,000 inhabitants are reportedto have fled into the countryside andthousands have fled into Senegal. Be-tween one and two thousand people,mostly foreigners, have been evacuatedby sea, as well as most of the diplomaticcorps except the Portuguese and Frenchambassadors. A Danish volunteer hasprovisionally been charged with officialresponsibility for Swedish aid activities.Many people have been killed, althoughno certain account of the death toll exists.The city of Bissau has been shelled byartillery. Apparently credible reports tellabout Senegalese troops acting as harshforeign occupants rather than as forces ofthe legal government. The rainy season ison. The food and sanitary situation israpidly getting precarious for tens ofthousands of people in overcrowdedtowns and villages, while internationalaid convoys are stopped by the Senega-lese and Guinean authorities. A tragiccatastrophe is underway for the Guineanpeople and their development efforts.

Complex BackgroundWhat happened? What is happening?The questions are multi-dimensional. It isstill much too early for any certainanswers to be attempted. The outcome isstill open, nor very hopeful for the nearfuture. Some facts are however known,and some provisional judgements may bea bit more well-founded than others.

Brigadier Ansumane Mane is a veteran ofGuinea-Bissau's anti-colonial liberationwar (1963-74) where he served with

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486 Review of African Political Economy

president 'Nino'. He was suspended fromhis post as commander-in-chief of thearmed forces in January 1998. The allegedreason was negligence in regard to con-trolling the illegal sale of Guinean armsto the rebels struggling for the independ-ence of Casamance, the southern-mostprovince of Senegal, across Guinea-Bissau's northern frontier. The Casamancerebellion has gone on with varying inten-sity since the first half of the 1980s. TheSenegalese government has for long beenworried by the easy flow of persons and,as it seems, arms between Guinea-Bissauand Casamance. Furthermore, the major-ity of the people of Casamance, the diolas,are culturally and historically close toimportant groups of people in northernGuinea-Bissau. This is thus a sensitiveissue in the relations between the twocountries. It goes far toward explainingthe heavy military involvement of Sen-egal, with French support, in the currentcrisis.

There are, however, no clear indicationsthat the issue of arms trafficking as suchcan be traced specifically to AnsumaneMane. After his suspension in January, aparliamentary commission with multi-party representation began to investigatethe charges under great secrecy. Theresults of the investigation were to havebeen presented to the parliament and thepublic on Monday, 8 June. But on Fridaythe 5th, only a few days before thescheduled discusssion of the report, anew commander-in-chief, HumbertoGomes, was suddenly designated by thepresident, five months after the suspen-sion of Ansumane Mane. On Sundaymorning the 7th, fighting broke out nearthe domicile of the latter at Santa Luzia.This chain of events has caused manypeople in Bissau to suspect that there ismore to the story than a simple mutiny ofdisgruntled soldiers. Who wanted, at anycost, to stop the public discussion of theparliamentary report? This is the ques-tion raised. As yet, no documented an-swer is available. The absence of anynoticeable support for the legal govern-

ment is an indication of what manyGuinean citizens may think.

International ResponsibilitesThe tragedy, at the moment of writingthis briefing, is that a destructive war isdragging on with international involve-ment. Senegal is tempted by the apparentchance seen to impose its peace, includ-ing an end to the Casamance rebellion. Itis highly unlikely that this could behappening unless actively condoned bythe French government. In so doing,Senegal and, behind the scenes France,offer the Guinea-Bissau government anillusory opportunity to refuse negotia-tions with the rebels rather than meetingthem constructively.

Will there be enough international inter-est in a small West African country andits people to press Senegal and France toforce president 'Nino', in his turn, to thenegotiation table - before things reallyfall apart, with Guinea-Bissau andCasamance bogged down into intermina-ble regionalized conflict? By the time thisreaches ROAPE's readers, parts of theanswer may be available.

Lars Rudebeck, Uppsala, Sweden. ThisBreifing is based on the reports of interna-tional media, most importantly the Lis-bon daily O Público up to 13 July 1998, aswell as on direct reporting to the authorby a few close and knowledgeable ob-servers of the events, coupled with theauthor's previous knowledge of Guinea-Bissau.

Editor's Note: Also by Rudebeck onGuinea-Bissau: 'Kandjadja, Guinea-Bissau1976-1986: Observations on the PoliticalEconomy of an African Village', ROAPE41; 'The Effects of Structural Adjustmentin Kandjadja, Guinea-Bissau', ROAPE 49;'Reading Cabral in 1993', ROAPE 58; 'ToSeek Happiness: Development in a WestAfrican Village in the era of Democratisa-tion', ROAPE 71.

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