Armed and masked men stormed the headquarters of Guinea-Bissau’s former ruling party on Saturday, two party members said, in the West African country recently rocked by a coup attempt .
The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which led the former Portuguese colony’s transition to independence in 1974, still contests the 2019 election of President Umaro Sissoco Embalo.
According to PAIGC member Sabado de Pina, armed and masked men burst into the party’s headquarters in the capital, Bissau, on Saturday and “sowed panic by beating security agents”.
“They then damaged the main door before entering our headquarters where they carried out a systematic search,” she told AFP.
Ms. De Pina suggested that the attackers were members of the security forces.
Fatima Martins, another party member, gave a similar account, calling the intrusion “unacceptable”.
The Ministry of Defense was not immediately available.
This raid comes after the failed February 1 coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau. That day, armed men attacked the Government Palace, where the ministries sit, while President Embalo chaired a council of ministers there.
Mr. Embalo, 49, emerged unscathed after hours of firefights that left 11 dead, according to the government. He presented the February 1 coup as directly linked to drug trafficking in this country often described as a narco-state.
On February 10, the president announced three arrests linked to the coup attempt, including that of a former head of the national navy, Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto.
On Tuesday, ex-prime minister and PAIGC leader Domingos Simoes Pereira was also banned from leaving the country as part of an investigation into an alleged coup attempt in 2021.
Mr Pereira challenged the outcome of the 2019 election against Mr Embalo, who declared himself the winner without waiting for the former prime minister’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
The president also sacked the head of the national navy on Friday, as well as a senior army commander, for reasons that remain unclear.
Guinea-Bissau, a small country of about two million inhabitants, is a subscriber to coups de force. Since its independence from Portugal in 1974, it has experienced a host of coups, military or not, the last of which was successful in 2012.