Guinea-Bissau’s military on Thursday appointed a general to lead the country for one year, a day after seizing power, arresting the president, and halting the release of election results.
Soldiers patrolled the area around the presidential palace in Bissau on Thursday morning, while a few residents walked along the main road leading to the building, where heavy gunfire had erupted the previous day.
The army chief of staff, General Horta N’Tam, took the oath of office during a ceremony at military headquarters, declaring, “I have just been sworn in to lead the High Command,” AFP journalists observed.
Dozens of heavily armed soldiers were deployed at the event as he told a press conference that the actions taken were necessary “to block operations that aimed to threaten our democracy.”
A group of officers had announced on Wednesday that they had seized “total control” of the coup-prone nation, suspending the electoral process as Guinea-Bissau awaited the results of last Sunday’s vote, which President Umaro Sissoco Embaló had been expected to win.
N’Tam, who has served as the army’s chief of staff, is considered to have been close to Embaló in recent years.
He said evidence had been “sufficient to justify the operation,” adding that “necessary measures are urgent and important and require everyone’s participation.”
Sandwiched between Guinea and Senegal, Guinea-Bissau has experienced four coups since independence from Portugal in 1974, along with several attempted coups.
On Wednesday afternoon, General Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, told journalists that the military was assuming control of the country “until further notice” after uncovering a plan involving “drug lords,” which included “the introduction of weapons into the country to alter the constitutional order.”
He said that in addition to halting “the entire electoral process,” military forces had suspended “all media programming” and imposed a mandatory curfew.
All land, air, and sea borders were closed on Wednesday following the coup, but General Lassana Mansali said on Thursday they had been reopened.
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AFP
