Date: 2024-09-20 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021615
GUINEA BISSAU
ATTEMPTED COUP
Guinea-Bissau: Many dead after coup attempt, president says
ATTEMPTED COUP
Guinea-Bissau: Many dead after coup attempt, president says
A soldier patrols the government palace area in Bissau, capital of Guinea-Bissau, on February 1 2022 IMAGE SOURCE,AFP
Original article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60220701
Burgess COMMENTARY
I did several consulting assignments in Guinea Bissau in the 1980s. It is a former Portuguese collony with French its second international language. When I worked in the country it had a communist government and was aligned with the Soviet Union more than with the West. I remember visiting one of the main supermarkets in Bissau and looking at rows and rows of empty shelves. There was absolutely no food available to buy in this food store in the city capital of Bissau. I remember thinking that in most countries in Africa, the most economic activity was at the center of the country around the capital city and less and less the further away one was from the capital city, but in this case with a communist government there was almost no economic activity around the capital city and more and more economic activity the closer one got to the borders of the country away from the capital city. The formal economy was at a standstill, but there was a quite active informal economy where the reach of government was weak.
One of the assignments I worked on was to help fix a problem with the electricity sector ... a government monopoly, and not very big. In fact the only electricity supply in the country came from a diesel powered generating station in Bissau that in the best of times could serve maybe half the city. There were three generators in the power station that came from three different manufacturers in three different countries. They had all come courtesy of foreign aid programs ... each country funding product from its own industrial sector. There was a chronic shortage of spare parts that had to be bought from three different manufacturers none of whom had much interest in 'after sales service' in a remote place where future sales were unlikely.
When the first generator stopped working, this inconvenienced the general public who had electric service ... but not the part of town where important people lived, nor the embassies nor the hospitals. When the second generator failed some of the embassies, important people and critical infrastructure had more service interuptions, and when the third generator failed everything went dark. There were very few private generators and little fuel for any generators there were. At this point everyone in the country, including the President were inconvenienced and everyone went into panic mode. I was recruited through the UN system to help and what I learned was fascinating. For a start, almost all the important people in the country were receiving their electical supply through wires that by-passed the meters used for billing customers. All sorts of other things became clear as the Guinea Bissau electricity crisis unfolded ... with blatant corruption being a big part of the root cause of the catastrophic failure. For me, the disturbing reality was that ALL of the people, companies and countries involved were complicit in systemic corruption with every one of these actors complicit without understanding their own roles.
More on this elsewhere ... TO COME
Peter Burgess
Published February 1, 2022
Soldiers could be seen patrolling the government palace area
A reported coup in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau has left many members of the security forces dead, its president says.
Umaro Cissoko Embaló said the situation was under control, calling it a 'failed attack against democracy'.
Gunfire erupted near a government building on Tuesday in the capital Bissau where the president was reportedly attending a cabinet meeting.
Soldiers are said to have detained the president and his ministers.
Unidentified heavily armed gunmen attacked the government palace while President Embaló was meeting Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam inside, according to reports from the ground.
A security source who did not want to be identified told the BBC that gunmen in civilian clothes had opened fire and a police officer had been killed.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló was elected president in 2019 ... Umaro Sissoco Embaló in Lisbon, Portugal, 8 October 2020 ... IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
West African regional leaders described the incident as a coup attempt and urged troops to return to barracks.
But what happened remains unclear: it is not yet known who the gunman were and the president did not give an exact figure for those killed.
One of the poorest countries in the world, the former Portuguese colony has seen nine coups or attempted coups since 1980.
Struggling with a massive foreign debt and an economy that relies heavily on foreign aid, the country has also become a transit point for Latin American drugs, leading it to be dubbed by some as Africa's first narco-state.
On Tuesday evening Mr Embaló said the 'well prepared and organised' attack could have been 'related to people involved in drug trafficking,' but gave no further details.
While Mr Embaló won the December 2019 presidential election, he faced a last-minute stand-off with parliament before taking office the following February.
'Coups appear to be making a comeback'
By Mayeni Jones, West Africa correspondent
Coups appear to be making a comeback in West and Central Africa. Over the past two years there have been military takeovers in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Guinea, as well as further east in Sudan.
As events in Guinea-Bissau unfolded, the regional political and economic block Ecowas, as well as the United Station, issued condemnations.
But one thing these coups is making clear is that there's very little international bodies can issue in the way of deterrents.
Ecowas has issued sanctions against Mali and Burkina Faso but they haven't stopped the wave of coups in the region. Guinea-Bissau has also been subject to sanctions over the last decade.
In a recent interview, the head of Ecowas' commission said that sanctions on Guinea-Bissau had been effective because they'd helped the country return to peace. That assessment now seems to have been premature.
Soldiers in the region have seized upon popular discontent with corrupt and ineffective governance to justify their actions. In Burkina Faso and Mali, their actions have been welcomed with joy from some parts of the population.
But analysts worry the democratic gains made in the region over the past two years are being undermined, and that what was once known as Africa' Coup Belt could well be earning that name again.