Guinea-Bissau president beefs up his own security, rules out risk of yet another coup

The appointment by the Guinea-Bissau’s president of two new officials responsible for his security — in a country accustomed to coups — are seen by experts and observers in the context of recent coups in Niger and Gabon and other nations in the Francophone Africa
Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo has appointed Generals Tomas Djassi and Horta Inta respectively as head of presidential security and chief of staff of the President of the Republic, with Embalo alluding to military takeovers elsewhere in Africa. “It’s true that coups d’état carried out by presidential security officers have become fashionable,” the president said on Monday (4 September), while assuring that “any suspicious movement will be met with an appropriate response”. Interestingly, these two positions had not been filled for several decades. Before his appointment, General Djassi had been at the head of the national guard, an elite unit of the army whose intervention contributed to the failure of the coup d’état against Embalo in February 2022. General Inta had been head of the central police station in Bissau, an institution which has often been run by soldiers.
Guinea-Bissau has suffered 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. Embalo, a former army chief, announced back then that he had survived a coup attempt after being under heavy gunfire for five hours, adding that the attackers tried to kill him and his entire cabinet at the government palace. The attackers were linked to drug trafficking in the country, he said, without providing further details. Last month, Embalo warned that Niger’s coup presented an existential threat to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), saying the deposed Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum was that country’s only legitimate leader.