Guinea-Bissau: Military steps up security on borders after coup in Guinea

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Guinea-Bissau: Military steps up security on borders after coup in Guinea

11:19 CAT | 06 Sep 2021

Map: CGTN

Guinea-Bissau has stepped up security on its eastern and southern border with Guinea, after special forces in the latter claimed to have captured the president, military sources have told Lusa.

Battalions based at the Gabu (east), Quebo and Buba (south) barracks received orders from the general staff of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces to step up security measures at border posts with Guinea.

Government sources, meanwhile, told Lusa that Bissau “is monitoring developments” in the neighbouring country.

Guinea’s special forces on Sunday claimed to have captured President Alpha Condé and “dissolved” state institutions, in a video sent to the Agence France Presse news agency and also circulating on social media. The Ministry of Defence, however, said that it had put down an attempted coup.

“We have decided, after removing the President, who is currently with us … to dissolve the Constitution in force and dissolve the institutions,” said one of the members of the group involved in the alleged coup who presented himself in uniform and armed said in a statement posted on social media, but not broadcast on national television. “We have also decided to dissolve the government and close the land and air borders.”

The officer speaking was identified as Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, commander of the special forces. In the video, he also announced the closure of Guinea’s land and air borders.

Images of Condé himself were also released, in which he was asked whether he had been mistreated. The president, who in the images is dressed in jeans and a shirt and sitting on a sofa, did not answer.

For its part, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement that “the insurgents sowed fear” in the capital, Conakry, before taking over the presidential palace, but that “the presidential guard, supported by loyalist and republican defence and security forces, contained the threat and repelled the group of attackers.”

On Sunday morning automatic weapons fire was heard in the centre of Conakry and many soldiers could be seen on the streets, several witnesses told AFP.

Guinea, a West African country bordering Guinea-Bissau, is one of the world’s poorest and has been facing a political and economic crisis in recent months, aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Condé’s successful re-election in October last year for a third term as president – deemed unconstitutional by the opposition – has generated months of tension resulting in dozens of deaths. The election was preceded and followed by the arrest of dozens of his opponents.

Several human rights advocates have criticise the increasing authoritarianism observed during the last few years of Condé’s presidency and question the achievements of the beginning of his rule.

Condé, a historic figure in the opposition to previous military governments, who was imprisoned and at one point even sentenced to death, in 2010 became the country’s first democratically elected president.

Source: Lusa