Making the best of a bad situation in Guinea Bissau?

The assassinations of President João Bernardo Vieira and military chief General Batista Tagmé Na Wai, although regrettable and worthy of reproach, may be the final episode in the ‘battle of the Mandjua’ that has raged since June 1998, (on the eve of the publication of a report by the ‘independent commission’ set up to investigate arms trafficking between the Guinea-Bissau armed forces and the Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MDFC)). Overall this conflict has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of fighters, as well as the murders of Brigadier Ansumana Mané, General Verissimo Correi Seabra and, in January 2007,‘Commodore’ Lamine Sanha, a former navy chief.

Without going into in an exhaustive analysis of the underlying causes of the country’s chronic political instability, it is important to note that the history of Guinea-Bissau has been dominated by a fratricidal war within the ruling classes from diverse ethnic groups. These groups have, since independence in 1974, dominated the armed forces, the ruling party politburo, and the government of the new republic.

The purges of 14 November 1980 and 17 October 1986 were the efforts by one group of elites to impose a new kind of leadership and a modern state, while at the same time attempting to impose the ‘Mandjuadade’ form of equality.[2] It is important to note that the bloody events of 17 March 1993, 7 June 1998, 20 November 2000, 14 September 2003, 6 October 2004, and 4 January 2007 were all precipitated by the inability of the PAIGC (Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) to come to terms with the new democratic dispensation and the subsequent regression to ethnicity-based politics.

The complex nature of relations between the various ethnic groups, political parties and military factions, especially in the wake of the June 1998 war, has made the country ungovernable and attracted intense international attention. Adding to this complexity is the recent establishment of Colombian and Mexican cocaine cartels.

Without a doubt, the death of these two key political leaders is a major blow. However, it offers a unique opportunity to rebuild a modern state from the smouldering and bloody ruins of what has been nothing but a quasi-state, held together by fragile compromises and plagued by ethnic and racial mistrust and hatred, and violence since the overthrow of Luiz Cabral in 1980.

THE RECENT ASSASSINATIONS IN CONTEXT

1) Political and institutional developments and uncertainties[4]

A few weeks ago, on 7 January 2009 a new government under Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior came to power following parliamentary elections won by the PAIGC. It was during this time that an attack was launched on the residence of Nino Vieira (23 November 2008). Suspicion fell heavily on former navy Chief Amerigo Bubo Na Tchutu (whose name has, rightly or wrongly, been regularly associated with cocaine trafficking). He remains holed up in Banjul where he fled after being placed under house arrest following the failed coup d’état of August 2008.

A few days after the 23 November attack on the Vieira’s residence, General Tagmé claimed that a ‘militia’ in the form of the presidential guard had targeted him. This gave him the opportunity to disarm this presidential guard, thankfully without resorting to violence.

Although it holds a majority of 67 out of 100 seat in the National Assembly, the PAIGC seemed to have problems getting its development plans through parliament, until 26 February 2009.

Raimundo Parreira, the constitutional successor to Vieira (sworn in despite the boycotting of the ceremony by PRS officials), was elected by 60 votes to 37 for Helder Proença (a member of the PAIGC Politburo and close ally of the late president and bitter rival of the current prime minister). Parreira had been the defence minister in the Aristides Gomes government, set up shortly after the election of independent candidate Nino Vieira as president in June 2005. This government was subsequently dissolved in March 2007 under the transient National Stability Accord signed by the PAIGC, the PRS (Party for Social Renewal) and the PUSD (United Social Democratic Party).

The new government started off on the right track, in particular with regard to the finance minister’s organisation of the payment of salary arrears. This inspired public confidence, despite the PAIGC's internal squabbles, the extremist stance of the PRS, and a string of other problems, including a general lack of openness, an excessive number of members and the rehabilitation of controversial individuals.

To the keen observer, the past three years have been marked by negative undercurrents within the two major parties, the PAIGC and the PRS. These have frequently taken the form of adversarial positions and institutional sabotage, but also of power disputes between small renegade factions. These disputes led certain militant factions of the PRS to seek legal recourse in May 2007 to set aside the party’s congress resolutions. These were clearly signs that internal democratic processes were under siege.

The challenge of stabilising Guinea-Bissau’s political terrain is evident in the position of the PRS (28 of whose MPs boycotted the presidential inauguration, and whose leader Kumba Yala declared that he deserved leadership as the last democratically elected president), and in the lack of discipline within the PAIGC, where three top members all wanted to lead parliament.

2) Deplorable interpersonal relationships have made the country ‘ungovernable’

The well-known mutual hatred between the late President Viera and the current Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior has played itself out in parliament, with alliances forming between PRS MPs and the PAIGC dissidents, thus complicating governance. Nino Vieira claimed that while he was in exile, his property was appropriated by Gomes Junior.

The differences were so bad that at one point Gomes Junior publicly accused Vieira of having ordered the assassination of Lamine Sanha. This resulted in an arrest warrant for Gomes that forced him to seek refuge at the UN offices in Bissau. It was at this point that the president publicly accused Gomes of ‘financial treachery’.

The differences between the late president and the head of the military seem too complex to understand from the outside. The following facts may however cast some light on the matter. Firstly, General Tagmé was one of the most affected by the purge of 1986 by Nino Vieira following an alleged coup plot by the Balante, Guinea’s largest ethnic group.

Secondly, Nino Vieira returned to power in 2005, thanks in a large part to Tagmé, a former member of the junta that removed him from power in the first place following the war of June 1998. It was Tagmé who, together with Helder Proença, visited him secretly in Conakry where he spent his exile and prepared his return to Bissau. Tagmé also arranged for a safe landing in the Bissau football stadium, where he declared his candidacy for the 2005 election.

During Nino’s tragically-ended tenure, military chief General Tagmé (following the assassination of Verissimo Correia) declared to everyone that there would never be a coup d’état in Guinea under him, while nonetheless continuing to hamstring efforts to reform the security sector and interfering with the functioning of the executive and the judiciary.

Relations between Carlos Gomes Junior and the late Tagmé, which had never been great, worsened significantly when the latter orchestrated the return of Nino. This was in spite of bitter opposition from the former, who was already prime minister of the PAIGC government following parliamentary elections held in 2004 after the military removal of Kumba Yala and the subsequent transition period.

How was it that a military chief could oppose the will and determination of the prime minister despite the weakness of Guinea-Bissau’s institutions? Tagmé was appointed military chief after the assassination of general Verissimo Correia Seabra (an ethnic Pepel and the vanquisher of Kumba Yala, a Balante president), under the transitional government of Enrique Rosa, whose term was extended through to the presidential elections in 2005. Given his weak parliamentary position, Carlos Gomes found himself forced to accept Tagmé’s appointment. Gomes’s party held only 45 seats, while the PRS of Kumba Yala (a Balante, like Tagmé) held 35 seats. In addition, Tagmé’s appointment was endorsed by the chiefs of staff.

3) The intricate and nebulous web of ethnicity politics and the military

Among the political elites of the country, only a small minority would admit that ethnicity underpins interactions between political parties and branches of the military, as well as the openly racist positions held by politicians towards their ‘mixed’ compatriots. The majority of the population firmly believes however that these ethnic and racist positions are the cause of the chronic frailty of the state institutions.

On this note, the following considerations may clarify the difficulties that Guinea-Bissau faces.

After the liberation struggle the same comrades occupied the ruling party central committee, the top military posts and the government. Besides that, the electoral law granted the vote to members of the armed forces. In a context characterised by an ethnic imbalance within the armed forces, especially at the officer level, this law opened the door to an ‘ethnicisation’ of politics and an intertwining of politics and the military.

It thus comes as no surprise that the Balante, who form the bulk of the upper echelons of the military, rallied behind the PRS, a party formed in 1992 and whose leader Kumba Yala in turn built strategic alliances with the military under erstwhile chief Tagmé. The Balante have historically felt marginalised by the Portuguese colonial education system, and were subsequently persecuted under the Nino dictatorship during which their few elites were eliminated (in 1986, following the Paolo Correia ‘plot’).

Although he was removed from power in October 2003, Kumba Yala remained politically formidable, having forged an alliance with elites from the northern Foulah ethnic group (the second largest in the country). He retained 35 seats in the post-transition national assembly (which constituted a majority, even after the exclusion of 21 MPs loyal to Nino), he came third in the first round of the 2005 presidential election (returning from two years of exile in Morocco), and he was decisive in the defeat of Malam Baci Sanha (the PAIGC candidate) by independent candidate Joaõ Bernardo Vieira, whom the PRS had vigorously backed in the second round.

The 1998 war pitted troops loyal to Vieira against a junta composed of Balante, Mandingo and Fulah. This made it imperative for anyone aspiring to leadership to either form an alliance or seek protection from one faction or the other.

Given the traditional nature of Guinea-Bissauan society, any alliance was bound to take on an ethnic character.

Following the end of the June 1998 war, mutual suspicion remained between the loyalists and the members of the junta, despite numerous reconciliation efforts.

Today, certain political stances adopted, the conflictual nature of relations between the country’s major institutions and the inability to engage in any sincere collaboration by elements of the same sector (as in the case of the security cluster, where, for instance the police crack unit viciously cracked down on the judicial unit to avenge one of their own, just last year), is all due to the ethnic, political and military cleavages that exist.

4) The impact of the drug trade on institutional functions

It has become clear that the Colombian and Mexican cartels have set up an operations hub in Guinea-Bissau and are using their connections within the armed forces to benefit from the situation on the ground. Without delving into the drug networks and connections to the political elites, suffice it to say that a number of recent events point to the potential damage these nefarious networks can cause to the political and institutional system of the country.

In June 2008, an aircraft landed at Osvaldo Viera in Bissau, ostensibly to deliver a donation of medicine for the military. The aircraft was impounded and the pilot was arrested. The pilot later ‘escaped’ from his lawyer, who was accompanying him from one office to another. All the while, the chief prosecutor had received an arrest warrant from the pilot’s home country and was awaiting instructions from the head office.

Stories about tonnes of cocaine impounded that then ‘disappeared’ often fill the local press.

Whereas two former Prime Ministers Aristide Gomes and Martinho Ndafa Cabi were always quick to vaunt their achievements in the fight against drug trafficking, curiously President Nino Vieira rarely spoke out on this.

A little more than a week before the tragic events of 20 February and speaking at a passing out parade for graduates of the Portuguese High Institute for Judiciary Police and Criminal Science, Prime Minister Gomes Junior stated that the ‘war against drugs must become a key national objective’ within a very specific context.

In June 2008, there were robust exchanges around this time between the prime minister and the office of the public prosecutor following the former’s recommendation to set up an inter-ministerial commission to re-examine the case of the two planes suspected to have been carrying drugs; the public prosecutor decided to close both cases under the pretext of a lapsed statute of limitations.

5) Challenges to re-establishing the state

There are many reasons to view the two assassinations as an extended final episode of the June 1998 war. One would equally be inclined to surmise that the loyalists emerged victorious, especially if one was fortunate, as I was, to have seen one of the rare photographs depicting the key players in the tragedy that has played out in Guinea-Bissau since 1998.

This particular photograph was shown to me by a young muslim Fulah warrant officer at the Djalicunda Centre in the Oio region, who seemed sympathetic to the junta. On the yellowing photograph she had placed crosses over the images of those who had been killed: a red cross over the face of Ansumana Mané, another over the heart of Verissimo Correia Sabra, and yet another one over the Lamine Sanha’s stomach. I can only imagine that she has since placed two final crosses (over which body part, alas, I cannot guess) on Tagmé and Nino.

Does the assassination of the final two thus mean an end to the war, given that there are no more ‘warlords’? And why shouldn’t the end of the war signal the rebirth of a modern and democratic Guinea-Bissau?

In our view, there are two key characteristics of Guinea-Bissau’s political terrain that make it particular difficult to analyse, let alone amenable to any kind of prediction.

Firstly, it is practically impossible to grasp the precarious interplay between ethnicity, political and military interests from the outside. It is this ambiguity that largely explains the chronic fragility of the state, whereby the different institutions are mismanaged and run by partisan individuals who are appointed based on ethnic and military considerations.

There is also a marked lack of public confidence in the political actors (even among members of the same party, ethnic group, or military faction). This is due to the long history of political treachery and vendettas in the country. This has made it very difficult for any political actor to rally support for the public good.

Civil society is also weak because its leaders are not viewed as being impartial (in an environment characterised by a small and sharply divided population). This, coupled with an unprofessional public service, leaves very little hope for the country’s future.

In spite of all of this, there have been certain positive developments within the political parties, and some senior members of the military have sought to distance themselves from political intrigues. I convened a workshop in August 2008, focusing on improving collaboration within the security cluster. The international community has also shown an eagerness to bolster poverty alleviation and the democratisation process, giving us hope that it will still be possible to save Guinea-Bissau.

In our view, it is possible to transform Guinea-Bissau into a peaceful, prosperous and democratic country, provided that concrete initiatives are implemented in the following ways:

1) Firm commitment and support for the transition leading up to the next presidential election, in terms of consultation, resources and communication
2) Commitment by political parties, the armed forces and civil society to support the current reform process
3) Establishment of an international commission of inquiry whose findings will be made available to the country’s authorities to aid in the process of national reconciliation. Certain political actors are opposed to this, citing issues of national sovereignty.
4) Establishment of a ‘peace building programme’ to begin at the end of the transition period, aimed at reforming the security and justice sectors. It is imperative that the nation’s leaders themselves drive this process.
5) Incorporation of capacity-building, post-conflict transformation and consolidation of democracy within political parties, all as part of the peace building programme. This would go a long way in changing the attitudes and behaviour of the political actors, building a shared vision, and deconstructing the ethnic–political–military complex.
6) Greater openness of the executive to alternative political views, and an accelerated process of administrative decentralisation
7) Bolstering the state with the resources to pay civil service salaries and jump-start the education and health sectors
8) Deep reflection on the process and modalities of national reconciliation, in order to end the political vendetta that has plagued the country since the assassination of Amílcar Cabral in 1973
9) Exploring the possibility of revising the constitution and the electoral laws through a wide consultation with diverse groups.[5] It would be important to consider the establishment of a second house of parliament, or an economic and social council, where traditional leaders would be represented.
10) Solid international support for the war against drug trafficking and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW).

We are under no illusion that these recommendations alone will be enough to save Guinea-Bissau. However, we feel that taking these steps would be far less costly in human and material terms than falling under a UN mandate, which remains an option if violence and political disorder persist and drug traffickers strengthen their hold on the country.

* Waly Ndiaye is director of programmes at the Gorée Institute. Translated from French by Josh Ogada.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES

[1] In an article appearing in Soronda (Special Edition, 7 June), December 2000, entitled ‘The war of the Mandjua: Crisis of governance and the failure of a resolution model’, Fafali Koudawo expalians that the Creole term ‘mandjua’ refers to a traditional age-set system that promotes equality and mutual recognition among members of the same age-set.
[2] ‘Mandjuadade’ is a category of the age-set system
[3] There are several key dates that endure in the country’s memory, each corresponding to a period of upheaval that claimed lives, left widows and orphans, and created tensions between different ethnic groups, military factions. These upheavals divided the leaders and the people, destroying the trust built since the wars of liberation and untouched even by the stunted nation-building project, just as in other parts of Africa.
[4] In this paper, we deliberately choose not to talk about the ‘hunt’ for drug-traffickers taking place in Guinea-Conakry, or the relations between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau.
[5] See the work of Delfim da Silva ‘Guiné-Bissau: Paginas de historia politica, rumos da democracia’, September 2003 par, Firkidja Editora(397p.)