MONDAY 6.30PM:
THE rebels fighting in Guinea-Bissau said on Monday that they would be willing to end the revolt if President Joao Bernardo Vieira resigned. The rebellion broke out last week, triggered by the dismissal, for trafficking guns to Senegalese rebels, of Brigadier Ansuman Mane as defence force chief of staff.
A spokesman for the rebels said on Monday, however, that it was President Vieira who was implicated in the weapons trafficing investigation, but who had covered it up and framed Mane instead. ”There is no coup,” Major Melciades Gomes Fernandes said in an interview shown by RTP-Africa, a television channel of former colonial ruler Portugal. He gave no schedule for negotiations, but said the rebels did not aim to seize power. They wanted only to ”re-establish justice” in the country.
On Monday heavy artillery fire resumed around the northern Bissau suburb of Bra, where rebels hold barracks close to the airport, as well as the airport itself. In an offensive to dislodge the rebels on Sunday, government troops, backed by Senegalese and Guinean soldiers, engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, but found the resistance tougher than expected.
Referring to the Senegalese and Guinean troops, Gomes Fernandes said: ”These foreign soldiers must get out of here. They are the ones who are killing people.” He said that the rebels were heavily armed and prepared to defend themaselves. ”We’ve got ground-to-air missiles, special anti-aircraft cannons, and Stinger missiles ready to shoot down any type of plane that might appear.”
Meanwhile hundreds of refugees have fled to neighbouring countries. Many of the foreign residents have sailed on chartered ships to Dakar in Senegal. Twoo hundred Guinea-Bissau refugees were reported drownd at the weekend when their boat capsized.
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