Soldiers in the tiny west African nation of Sao Tome and Principe seized power yesterday in a pre-dawn coup which appears to be linked to a scramble for oil revenue.
The elected government was overthrown in minutes when troops occupied key installations and arrested senior officials. The sound of gunfire resounded across the city of Sao Tome, but there were no reports of casualties apart from the prime minister, Maria das Neves, who was taken under guard to hospital with heart problems.
Comprised of two islands in the Gulf of Guinea, the former Portugese colony is one of the world’s smallest and poorest countries, with a population of 140 000 relying on fishing, cocoa, bananas and aid.
But Sao Tome is being compared to Kuwait because billions of barrels of oil which are said to lie offshore will soon be tapped, fuelling tension over how to share it.
After seizing the airport and television station, the apparent coup leader, Major Fernando Pereira, declared a state of emergency on national radio and summoned government officials to police headquarters.
The country’s armed forces, numbering just a few hundred men, have complained about pay and conditions but there was no warning of an insurgency. An attempted coup by army officers in 1995 collapsed after the EU and US threatened to cut off aid.
The defence minister, oil minister and parliamentary speaker were also arrested, and around 30 members of the 55-seat national assembly assembled at the police station as the mutineers demanded.
President Fradique de Menezes was in Nigeria and foreign minister Mateus Meira Rita in Portugal when the plotters struck. Rita demanded that power be returned to the government. The African Union condemned the coup and Nigeria warned it would intervene if Nigerians on the island were harmed.
Portugal’s colonisation was punctuated by bloodshed but since independence in 1975 Sao Tome has been peaceful. However, abundant oil has aggravated political turmoil.
Bids for rights to explore the nine offshore blocks were expected to raise more than $100m in October, the first of many waves of money. – Guardian Unlimited Â