Help Stabilize Guinea-Bissau After Coup Fails, ECOWAS Deploys Security Forces

President Guinea-Bissau Umaro Sissoco Embalo. (Wikimedia Commons/Palácio do Planalto)

JAKARTA - The West African regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it would deploy troops to Guinea-Bissau to help stabilize the country following a failed coup earlier this week.

The 15-member regional bloc, which made the decision after a summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra on Thursday, did not provide details on the force and when the troops would be deployed.

ECOWAS deployed a similar mission to the country in 2012 to 2020 after the coup, to help prevent the military from interfering in politics and protect political leaders.

The government of Guinea-Bissau said late Wednesday the attackers in Tuesday's failed coup attempt intended to assassinate the president were part of a well-funded and premeditated plot.

It did not say who was believed to be behind Tuesday's attempt, although President Umaro Sissoco Embalo had previously suggested it might be linked to international drug trafficking.

The government said 11 people were killed in the attack, including seven members of the security forces who saved President Embalo and his prime minister from death.

Providing new details on the incident, it said unidentified gunmen wearing civilian clothes stormed the council of ministers meeting on Tuesday, taking participants by surprise.

"The manner in which the aggressor acts clearly reveals that the aim of the armed attack was the assassination of all the authorities present in the chamber of the council of ministers," the statement said, citing Reuters on February 4.

"The strength of the means and ammunition used indicates this attack was planned in such a way, relying on funding from sectors that have the financial capacity to mobilize such amounts of material, logistics and human resources," the statement continued.

One of the attackers, a member of a military police unit and three civilians were killed along with seven security personnel, he said. Authorities are still looking for those behind the plot, he said.

Meanwhile, President Embalo had previously said he did not believe the army was involved in the failed coup attempt.

To note, the attack was the 10th or failed coup in Guinea-Bissau since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, and the latest in a series of similar actions in West Africa in the past 18 months, including two in Mali, one in Guinea. and one in Burkina Faso last week.

The context looks different in Guinea-Bissau, a country of about 2 million people where only one president has completed his term in office.

The region is known as a major transit point for Latin American cocaine to Europe, sharing a common language with Brazil and Portugal, major entry and exit points in global trade networks.