Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony in West Africa. Bordered by Guinea to the southeast and Senegal to the north, its 36,000 square kilometres are home to a population of 2.14 million.
The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence was led by the PAIGC, a Marxist-Leninist party supported by the Soviet Union and founded by Amílcar Cabral. Recognition of independence came in 1974, after a military coup in Lisbon on 25 April of that year. The PAIGC ruled as a single party for years after independence; but in 1989, under the government of President Nino Vieira, it began a movement to democratise the country. There were multi-party elections for the presidency and parliament in 1994: Nino Vieira was re-elected President and the PAIGC won control of parliament.
The appearance of stability was short-lived: in 1998, Brigadier Ansumane Mané, a war veteran like President Vieira, staged a coup d’état that led to a short but bloody civil war. In January 2000, a non-PAIGC president was elected for the first time: Kumba Yalá, a demagogue from the Balanta ethnic group.
Kumba Yalá took over the presidency in 2000. He had been a member of the PAIGC in his youth but was expelled from the party in 1989. His political eccentricities and style (he became known as ‘the man with the red hat’) isolated and marginalised him until a military coup overthrew him in September 2003. The instability continued, aggravated by the growing power of organised crime linked to drug trafficking. These drug cartels did not use Guinea-Bissau as a destination for internal consumption, but rather as a transit corridor between the producers in the Americas and consumers in Europe. According to some sources, 25% of the drugs consumed in Europe passed through Guinea-Bissau.
In 2009, a fresh wave of political violence saw the murder of the chief of staff of the armed forces and the president of the republic, Nino Vieira. After Nino Vieira’s death, Malan Bacai Sanhá took over as interim president. He triumphed in the 2009 elections but died of an illness in Paris in 2012. During his interim presidency, the country was plagued by drug traffickers. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Guinea-Bissau became an ideal transit point for planes or ships coming from Colombia en route to their final destinations in Europe.
Guinea-Bissau’s natural suitability for international transit has to do with several wartime airstrips, a coastline dotted with small coves, and a general lack of serious deterrence. With the complicity of local politicians, military, and police, it is easy to conceal the cargo and send it northwards. In a discreet but spectacular operation in 2013, the DEA captured—and sent to trial in the United States—no less a figure than Bubo Na Tchuto, chief of staff of the Guinea-Bissau navy.
In his successful campaign for the presidency in 2019, Sissoco Embaló had promised to fight trafficking. But judging by reports from the West Africa Observatory for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, there seems to have been no improvement. On the contrary, suspicions swirl around the military and the politicians that he trusts. Moreover, the Sissoco/Nuno Nabian government has persecuted journalists, attacked political opponents, and abused human rights.
It was in the wake of this long instability that many in Guinea-Bissau breathed a sigh of relief when the elections of 6 June 2023 gave a large victory to the coalition of Plataforma Aliança Inclusiva (PAI) and Terra-Ranka, which won an absolute majority, electing 54 of the 102 members of the National Assembly.
The president of the republic, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, was not pleased. Sissoco, as he is known, was a militant in the PAIGC. He left in 2018 to create another party, known as MADEM-G15 (Movement for Democratic Alternation, Group of 15). In February 2020, Sissoco contested the presidential election with PAIGC leader Domingos Simões Pereira. It is worth noting that the PAIGC has long since abandoned Marxism-Leninism: Simões Pereira is a respected Catholic politician with international experience.
The 2020 election was very close, and the result was dubious. Simões Pereira and Sissoco contested the second round, which Sissoco won by a margin of 53% to 47%. Simões Pereira refused to recognise the result and challenged it before the supreme court. But Sissoco skilfully made use of his well-established lobby in Portugal, where he was received in the capital of the former colonial power by the head of state and the prime minister, thereby creating a fait accompli as to his legitimacy. He also had the support of powerful neighbours such as the then-presidents of Nigeria and Senegal.
Sissoco is an outstanding public relations man and a demagogue who doesn’t flinch at distorting the truth. He declares himself the holder of university degrees he was never awarded, such as a degree in political science from Lisbon and a doctorate from Madrid at Complutense. Similarly, his ‘rank’ of general is itself an invention; he was only ever a lieutenant.
After some anticipation about the elections, Sissoco staged a coup d’état in December 2023, dismissing the government and closing parliament. The pretext was an alleged coup attempt, but the reality seems to be that President Sissoco, irritated by a parliamentary majority and a government that was not his own, decided to go ahead with the coup himself. To do that he has the support of the military and of his own Presidential Guard.
The recently published Report on the Human Rights Situation in Guinea-Bissau 2020-2022 is particularly alarming about the role of armed militias, protected by presidential authority, who have assaulted and kidnapped political opponents. The victims are taken to the palace, where they are beaten and interrogated. Although the report avoids directly accusing President Sissoco, the world should shudder at what it implies: that the president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau knowingly provides cover, and perhaps even the direction, for these instances of politically motivated violence.
Regional analysts observe that President Sissoco Embaló is deeply influenced by President Macky Sall from Senegal. On February 5th, Macky Sall, facing the end of his second mandate which was coming up on the 1st of April, took the unilateral and anti-constitutional decision to extend his mandate, postponing the presidential election due on February 25. The experts, knowing the Senegalese mentor’s influence on Sissoco, say that Sissoco anticipated Macky Sall’s move to continue in power. Macky Sall’s decision was not easily accepted: Senegalese opposition came into the streets protesting and Senegal’s Constitutional Court—the top electoral authority in the country—cancelled Macky Sall’s decree postponing the election. The problem is that once leaders on the African Continent break the law, it’s difficult to reverse the movement, as force becomes the rule of the game.
