A coup thwarted by the army in Guinea Bissau

The staff of the armies of Guinea-Bissau announced on Thursday that it had identified soldiers who were preparing a coup to overthrow the constitutional order in this small country in West Africa. This will make it sixteen coupes attempt in Guinea-Bissau after her independence.

“We have managed to identify a group of soldiers from the FARP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People) who are mobilizing soldiers by buying their conscience for banknotes in order to subvert the established constitutional order,” declared the general Biagué Na Ntan, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, on the occasion of the celebration ceremony of the 47th anniversary of the creation of the Military Police.

“It was the soldiers who received the money who denounced the perpetrators of these despicable acts,” General Nan Ntan added. The announcement comes on the same day that President Umaru Sissoco Embalo left Bissau for a 48-hour working visit.

Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony that became independent in 1974 after a long war of liberation, led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) founded by Amilcar Cabral, assassinated in 1973.

Since its independence, the country has experienced four putsches, the last of which dates back to 2012. Guinea-Bissau has been the scene of sixteen coup attempts and numerous changes of government.