Guinea-Bissau: President refuses to reply to Lula da Silva

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Guinea-Bissau: President refuses to reply to Lula da Silva

10:24 CAT | 01 Sep 2021

File photo: Lusa

The president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, said on Wednesday it was normal that Brazil had sent a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) plane to transport him for a four-day official visit to the country.

Sissoco Embaló said that he does not intend to respond to criticism of his visit made by the former Brazilian President, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.

Concerning the FAB plane – which transported Embalo from Bissau to Brazil and brought him back to Bissau, the Guinean president said that in the past, the Brazilian state did the same thing with the former leader of Guinea-Bissau, Malam Bacai Sanhá, at the time of Lula da Silva’s inauguration.

“I was an adviser to President Malam Bacai Sanhá. I witnessed the inauguration of President Lula. The Brazilian Air Force plane came here to take us to Brazil, and from there, we went to Cuba on the same plane,” Embaló said.

The Guinean leader, who was speaking to reporters at the end of an audience he granted to candidates for the leadership of the Social Renewal Party (PRS), said he did not understand the criticism of the former Brazilian president.

In an interview, Lula da Silva began by wrongly saying that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had sent a FAB plane to pick up the President of Senegal for him to come and visit, since, he noted, “nobody else came to visit Bolsonaro.

When corrected by the journalist, Lula da Silva stressed that he was the President of Guinea-Bissau and then attacked Umaro Sissoco Embaló.

“I’m not going to answer President Lula who must be how old? Poor man. A person who doesn’t know how to distinguish between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, which is a Portuguese-speaking country, I am not going to answer Lula,” the Guinean president said.

Source: Lusa