BISSAU, (Reuters) – Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau attacked the residence of former Prime Minister and presidential election front-runner Carlos Gomes Junior yesterday in what regional ministers condemned as an attempted coup in the small West African state.
Confusion and fear reined in the crumbling riverside capital, Bissau, after automatic weapons fire and several explosions sent residents scurrying for the shelter of their homes.
State television and radio went off the air and armed soldiers were on the streets and controlling major roads in and out of the capital, witnesses and diplomats said.
They said the target of the evening attack by unidentified members of the military was the residence of Gomes Junior, candidate for the ruling PAIGC party, and they added the action appeared aimed at derailing the unfinished election.
Gomes Junior won close to an outright majority in last month’s first round of voting in the poor former Portuguese colony, which has a history of coups and barracks revolts.
A second-round run-off had been set for April 29.
The whereabouts of Gomes Junior, who was known to be unpopular with some members of the military because of his support for downsizing and reforming the bloated army, was not immediately known.
Rumours circulating among some Bissau residents that he had been killed in the attack, which set at least one house on fire, could not be confirmed.
After the gunfire and explosions, armed soldiers stopped journalists from approaching the residence of Gomes Junior, which is almost opposite the Angolan embassy.
Foreign ministers of the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, who were meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to discuss the situation in another regional state, Mali, that suffered a coup last month, condemned the events in Guinea-Bissau.
“As in the case of Mali, ECOWAS formally and rigorously condemns such an attempted coup d’etat. … It’s unacceptable and it’s not accepted by ECOWAS,” Ivorian Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said.
Also in Abidjan, Guinea-Bissau Foreign Minister Mamadu Djalo Pires said soldiers continued to occupy the streets of Bissau. “We’re waiting to hear what they have to say,” he said.
He called for an “energetic reaction” from the international community against what he called “a coup d’etat.”
In Bissau, one political source, who asked not be named, said soldiers had arrested the country’s interim president, Raimundo Pereira, a former parliament speaker who is also a PAIGC member.
