Mutinous soldiers demanding pay for peacekeeping duty abroad killed the commander of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces on Wednesday and seized key buildings in the capital of the former Portuguese colony.
Portuguese foreign ministry spokesman Antonio Carneiro Jacinto said the mutineers had killed Gen. Verissimo Seabra Correia, the man who ousted Kumba Yalla as president of Guinea-Bissau in a coup last year. He gave no further details.
Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior appealed for calm in the West African country, which has a history of instability, and sent a delegation including the United Nations special representative to negotiate with the leaders of the mutiny.
Officials said the unit involved had spent nine months in Liberia and had not been paid for five.
Hundreds of mutineers, who patrolled the streets in trucks with mounted machine guns, blamed army chiefs for pocketing the cash. Gomes denied the charge.
“The people of Guinea-Bissau should know how to favor dialogue and leave aside radicalism which makes no sense,” Gomes told a news conference. “The results of the negotiations will let us know how to find a resolution to this crisis.”
Soldiers with automatic rifles deployed at main junctions and the airport in Bissau city while others rode around in all-terrain vehicles holding rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
The troops later withdrew from outdoor positions but continued to occupy the army headquarters, the Ministry of Defense building and a city-center barracks, officials said.
Talks dragged into the evening with no apparent sign of a breakthrough. Mutiny leaders and politicians went from the navy headquarters to the president’s office to the prime minister’s residence without making any comment to reporters.
Airport, gas stations shut down
Residents near army headquarters said they heard gunfire at 2 a.m. (0200 GMT), about the time the soldiers deployed in the coastal capital. Two people were wounded in the gunbattle, they said.
A Reuters reporter heard what sounded like detonations or gunfire at about 10:30 a.m. in the same area, but people in the city were generally going about their business as usual.
Shops were open but most gasoline stations were closed. The city’s airport was also closed, a political source said.
Gomes said the troops came from a 650-strong battalion that had returned home a few months ago from service in a U.N.-backed West African regional peacekeeping force in Liberia.
Soldiers in Gambia also threatened to protest last month over unpaid wages for Liberia peacekeeping but backed down after army chiefs said they would shoot demonstrators.
Guinea-Bissau, which has a population of about 1.5 million, has a record of political volatility going back to its struggle for independence from Lisbon, achieved in 1974.
An army revolt in 1998 was followed by several uprisings.
In September last year, President Yalla was overthrown by the military in a bloodless coup. Coup leaders chose Henrique Rosa, a businessman, as a caretaker president to serve until a return to democracy could be established.
The people of Guinea-Bissau are among the world’s poorest, scraping by on an average of $140 each a year. They depend largely on fishing and growing cashew nuts.