This Wednesday at noon they heard shots in the capital of Guinea Bissau. It was in the center of the city, near the Presidential Palace. Shortly after this event began, a clique of soldiers announced on television that they had overthrown the government.
That the acting president, Sissoco packed up, he was detainedand that a curfew accompanied by classic border closure that follows any illegitimate seizure of power.
Last Sunday there was presidential elections in Guinea Bissau and the climate was nervous; Among the candidates aspiring to defeat Embaló, Fernando Dias, an independent candidate, stood out.
This lawyer by profession, a former minister, was vice president of the Bisauguinean National Assembly until Embaló, after accusing another alleged coup d’état, decided to close the popular chamber (where he had a minority) from December 2023 until today.
After the Electoral Court prohibited the candidate of the main opposition party, the PAIGC, from running, alleging that they submitted their electoral records late, Dias was the chosen candidate to receive support from the PAIGC.
The elections happened. Before the official results were declared, the count prevented a victory for Diaswhich quickly proclaimed it as such on television. It would not be until the following noon that shots were heard and Embaló was arrested.
Domingos Pereira, leader of the PAIGC and who should have stood for election, was also detained during a meeting with other opposition leaders (some of whom were also under arrest) and Dias is hidden to the new authorities.
THE SPANISH has had access to the opposition candidate in these difficult hours for your country. He claims to be fine, safe, although his spirit is a little exhausted by the persecution to which he is subjected.
It is already public knowledge that Packed has been “released” by the coup plotters and who is currently safe in the capital of Senegal.
However, Dias confirms that “Domingos Pereira, Octavio López and other public magistrates and representatives of the National Electoral Commission are still in prison; they have not been released today. The president of the CNE has taken refuge in the United Nations building.”
“There has been no coup d’état”
And it begins to give shape to a rumor that is already resounding loudly in Bissau, although it is said bluntly: “there has been no coup d’état“It’s just that Sissoco saw that he was going to lose power and transferred it to the military.” And what he says, seeing his situation, makes sense. He is the opposition candidate; he is in hiding, Domingos is still in jail… and Sissoco, inexplicably, is in Dakar. Free.
And he goes on to say that “the fact that those most loyal to Embaló occupy high positions at this time. The interim president, the prime minister, the chief of the General Staff. And that is the explanation that Sissoco Embaló was the one who orchestrated this false attempted coup d’état, with the aim of defending his interests and those of his group.”
He is not without reason either. The new interim president, a military man, is General Horta N’ta. Embaló appointed N’ta as chief of the Bisauguinean General Staff in 2023, and just a month ago he named him his private chief of staff (no one really knows what this means).
This weekend, days before the supposed coup and in the middle of the electoral process, The acting president met with his military leadershipincluding N’ta, for some reason that has already been questioned.
What issues would a sitting president bring up with the military leadership on an election weekend? Dias emphasizes: “No names are being given of anyone who is not loyal to Sissoco.”
Once again, he refuses to describe what happened as a coup d’état and points to Embaló: “He has had the phone to talk to all the people since he said he was detained and at this moment he has left Guinea Bissau and is in Dakar, free, as if nothing had happened.” The new prime minister, Ilidio Vieira Té, was Embaló’s finance minister and, to make matters worse, the director of his recent electoral campaign.
It should be known at this point that Guinea Bissau is a country of one and a half million inhabitants nestled on the western African coast and is considered by the majority to be a narcostate. Tons of South American cocaine land on its islands and then continue their route north, towards Spain.
Embalo has been accused repeatedly being part of the drug businessand senior members of the Bisauguinean army have become targets of the US DEA. Such is the case of Antonio Indjai, former chief of the General Staff and collaborator of Embaló, for whom the United States government still offers a reward of five million dollars.
That “group” and those “interests” have nouns and proper names at ground level in Bissau. Everyone knows what’s in order.
To the international community, Dias sends a strong message that sounds like a call for help: “you have to realize that there has not been a real coup d’état“But Sissoco has orchestrated all this with his collaborators.” And he cites among them Tomás Djassi, the new chief of staff, appointed by the coup plotters, but who, curiously, “was Embaló’s bodyguard throughout the electoral campaign.”
He doesn’t doubt it. He repeats it: “There was no coup d’état.” Just a scheme. And perhaps, if everything is as he says and he won the elections, it could be said that there was a coup d’état, although it had to be against Fernando Dias himself.