Guinea-Bissau: President Embalo rules out any risk of coup d'état

The President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, appointed two new officials responsible for his security who took office on Monday without linking this decision to recent coups in Africa, in a country accustomed to coups, said observed an AFP journalist.

These new appointments take place in a context marked by coups in Niger and Gabon , led by presidential security officials.

Generals Tomas Djassi and Horta Inta were respectively named head of presidential security and chief of staff of the President of the Republic on Friday. These two positions, provided for in the official organization chart, had not been filled for several decades.

MM. Djassi and Inta were sworn in on Monday during a ceremony at the presidential palace, in the presence of President Embalo, according to an AFP journalist.

General Djassi was before his appointment at the head of the national guard, an elite unit of the army whose intervention of his men contributed to the failure of the coup d'état aimed at February 2022, according to the authorities , Mr. Embalo, elected in the second round in December 2019.

General Inta was head of the central police station in Bissau, an institution which has often been run by soldiers.

"It's true that coups perpetrated by officers responsible for presidential security have become a fashion. But if Tomas (Djassi) ventures to (lead) such a project, we will fight for a long time," he said . declared the Head of State of Guinea-Bissau, in response to a question from the press.

“To speak seriously, I reassure you that there will be neither February 2 nor February 3. Any suspicious movement will have an adequate response,” he added, in reference to the attempted coup d’état which he says he was a victim on February 1, 2022 and which left 11 dead, according to the government.

Guinea -Bissau suffers from chronic political instability and has been the victim since its independence from Portugal in 1974 of a string of coups or attempted coups, the latest in February 2022.