According to various accounts, gunmen entered the government palace complex – which houses the various ministries on the outskirts of Bissau, the capital, near the airport – in the early afternoon of 1 February. An extraordinary council of ministers was due to be held there in the presence of the President and prime minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam. Some witnesses described the men as military personnel, others as civilians.
Heavily armed men surrounded the compound, although it was not clear whether they were mutineers or forces loyal to the government. What happened next inside the palace remains unclear, as does the identity of the perpetrators of the coup.
These events come less than a week after a ministerial reshuffle took place on 24 January in which Albert Malu, the secretary of state for public order, was dismissed. There are rumors that this caused a split in security forces for two groups: one is loyal to the President and the other one, who felt frustrated with Malu’s dismissal.
He was at the forefront of the conflict between the government and the President over an Airbus A340 that had come from Banjul with presidential approval. The prime minister had initially said that the plane was carrying suspicious cargo and had entered the country illegally, but later retracted his statement.
The incident is a far cry from a series of military takeovers that have roiled some countries in Africa over the past 2 years. The first thing to notice about is the absence of leaders or activists among the coup plotters. Secondly, the mutineers did not seek to seize TV or radio facilities, which does not look like a military takeover. Based upon the game plan, the developments are similar to Haiti’s President assassination in 2021, as there was no visible political motivation to overthrow the country’s leader or those who would benefit from that crime.
If what is said is true, and the attempt to murder President Embaló was driven by his French-friendly foreign policy, then the coups in Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Burkina Faso are linked. If the coup attempt was of anti-French nature, some outside forces seeking to weaken France’s influence in Africa might benefit from it.
In 2019, Russia sent military advisers to Guinea-Bissau to train the country’s army.
Embaló said the attack was linked to decisions he had taken “to fight drug trafficking and corruption” rather than an army plan to seize power. “It wasn’t just a coup. It was an attempt to kill the president, the prime minister and all the cabinet,” he said.
From this perspective, the coup is similar to the attack against Haitian President and his assassination.
Guinea-Bissau suffers from endemic corruption, and is known as a hub for cocaine trafficking between Latin America and Europe.
According to Umaro Sissoco Embaló, he had long believed the country’s ruling party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), is directly involved in drug smuggling. Historically this party received support from the governments of China, Cuba, and Russia.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló has been the head of state, following a presidential election in 2020, whose result is still contested by the PAIGC.
In recent years drug traffickers began to avoid Guinea-Bissau because it is now too expensive for them to bribe officials.
The US and the EU have repeatedly imposed sanctions against some air force and navy commanders who took part in cocaine supply schemes from Latin America to Europe through Guinea-Bissau. But their link to ex-minister Albert Malu requires additional analysis and verification.
The army is less involved in drug trafficking than the air force or the navy. That may explain why the army took the side of the president.
Drug smuggling through West Africa has been consistently linked by enforcement agencies and the media to the Taliban or Al Qaeda, who are alleged to profit from the trade.
If that is the case, the coup attempt might have been initiated by Islamist groups involved in drug trafficking, as they sought to keep costs down to go ahead with bribing corrupt officials in Guinea-Bissau.
