A delegation of the ECOWAS sub regional body met with the new military rulers on Monday.
The new military rulers in Guinea Bissau have agreed to return the country to constitutional rule following talks in the evening of Monday April 16, 2012 with a delegation of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS sub regional body, RFI radio reported.
Led by the ECOWAS Commission Chairman, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, the delegation arrived in Bissau on board a Nigerian Air Force plane and immediately met with West African ambassadors who briefed them on the situation in the country; and later with members of the junta at the Amura Barracks. Speaking to the press at midnight after the talks, Kadré acknowledged that the junta had however not given any details of the transition or how it will be implemented.
It is also understood that the ECOWAS team had demanded the release of officials arrested during the April 12, 2012 coup. They include former Prime Minister, Carlos Gomes Junior, Interim President Raimundo Pereira and the Army Chief Antonio Indjai. Carlos was the front runner in the run off presidential election scheduled for April 29. The two politicians are all members of the PAIGC party.
The delegation is understood to have insisted that the release of the officials was a pre-condition for any return to constitutional rule. On the question of the Angolan military mission in the country, the team promised to replace it with an ECOWAS contingent if the junta returned the country to constitutional rule.
The BBC reported that representatives of all the defeated candidates in the first round of the presidential election have condemned last Thursday’s coup. Soldiers toppled the government over its alleged plans to cut the size of the army. No president has ever completed his tenure since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1974. There have been successive coups, attempted coups and a civil war. The country has been further destabilised by a growing cocaine trade that is fuelled by traffickers from Latin America.
