Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bissau (Agenzia Fides) – Baciro Dabou, a candidate running for President in the elections scheduled for June 28 in Guinea Bissau, was killed this morning by a group of soldiers who entered his home. A statement from the Department of Internal Affairs was sent to Agenzia Fides and claims that Baciro Dabou was involved in a coups attempt, involving others as well. “Also among them was Helder Proenca, a strict collaborator of President Joao Bernardo Vieira who was assassinated this past March,” Fides was informed by local sources, who for security reasons wished to remain anonymous.
According to the statement from the Internal Affairs Dept., the coups was organized by a “self-proclaimed High Command of Republican Forces for the Restoration of the Constitutional and Democratic Order.” The plot began in Dakar, Senegal and included the death of the Armed Forces' Chief of Staff, the Naval Captain Jose Zamora Induta, and Prime Minister Carlos Gomez Junior; the resignation of the Head of State ad Interim and the government; the assumption of presidential powers by the President of the High Command of Republican Forces for the Restoration of the Constitutional and Democratic Order; the dissolution of the National Assembly and the Council of the State, replaced by the High Command.
The statement affirms that during the arrest of those involved with the alleged plot, carried out by military police, “several persons were arrested without resistance, but others resisted the police and were mortally wounded in the crossfire.”
International press sources, however, have published the testimony of Baciro Dabou's bodyguards who say that the presidential candidate was shot point blank by the soldiers in his bedroom, after having left the house guards incapacitated without firing a shot.
“The situation in Bissau is tranquil, but now it seems likely that the June 28 elections will be postponed. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 5/6/2009)
