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Guinea-Bissau standoff ends as soldiers sign deal
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-11 09:12
Soldiers who staged a mutiny last week in Guinea-Bissau agreed on Sunday to
return to their barracks after striking a deal with the government to end a
five-day standoff in the West African country.
Angry soldiers demanding back pay for peacekeeping duty in Liberia seized key
buildings in the capital last Wednesday and killed the head of the former
Portuguese colony's armed forces, General Verissimo Correia Seabra, and another
officer.
The impoverished country has been unstable since a bloody army revolt in 1998
and the government has acknowledged that a major overhaul of the armed forces
was needed to avert further violence.
"The two parties agreed it was not a coup d'etat. We have agreed to the
immediate return of the soldiers to barracks and the respect of the
constitutional order, democratically and legally established," said a statement
signed by Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior and General Batista Tagme Na Waie.
They agreed to restructure the army, ask parliament to consider an amnesty
for soldiers dating back to when the country's first president was ousted in a
1980 coup, and press the United Nations for cash to clear the salary arrears.
"We never wished for the death of our two colleagues. We regret our acts.
Nevertheless, the mutiny served as an example for the future of the army," said
General Na Waie, with tears in his eyes after the signing.
Senior representatives from the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) and Portuguese-speaking nations (CPLP) had jetted to the tiny country
bordering Senegal and Guinea to seek an end to the crisis.
"I am pleased that the parties have signed this agreement but we will have to
wait and see whether there will be a repeat of last week's events," said Nobel
Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, who is foreign minister of former
Portuguese colony East Timor.
"The situation is serious in Guinea-Bissau, not just on an economic and
social level ... the political situation is also very serious," he said before
the deal. "There are lots of political parties but they are not up to improving
stability."
Residents in one of the world's poorest countries, where people scrape by on
$140 each a year from fishing and cashew nut exports, expressed dismay at yet
another military uprising.
More than a hundred women sang peace songs and wept outside the Foreign
Ministry in Bissau city where the talks took place, just across from the first
presidential palace which is still in ruins after the 1998 army revolt.
Hundreds of mourners attended the burial of Seabra and the second army
officer on Sunday where first lady Maria Rosa Robalo appealed for an end to the
violence.
"Let's forget about protocol today. We must love each other. We must stop
killing each other," she said.
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