Thread by @VincentFoucher

Reading the alleged report by Vice-Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Mamadu Turé on the 1 Feb incidents at the Palacio do Governo in #GuineaBissau, available at the website ditadura e consenso (a usually good source for documents).
ditaduraeconsenso.blogspot.com/2022/02/tentat…

This is not an official source, however, so the authenticity of the report is not certain. Nor is it clear that the content of the report is accurate – as I mentioned before, accounts of many key events in Bissau are controversial, sometimes decades after the deed...

A number of opposition politicians and (pro-opposition?) civil society figures have made it very clear that they did not believe the official version of the story, some of them hinting that this was a ploy against the opposition PAIGC, which is to hold its Congress soon.

Also, it’s not clear whether the post includes all the pages of the report or not – perhaps it does, since it includes a first (with mention of the identity of the authoring authority and that of the recipient) and a last page (with signature and stamp). Three pages in all, only?

The report largely squares with the narrative of President Sissoco. It mentions the attackers captured some of the security detail in Palacio, and then shot at the building intensely (including two RPG rockets).

Security personnel identified some of the attackers, all of them members of the security forces. Papis Djeme, Domingos Iogna, Pam Braia, Tchami Yala, Mario Fanda, Matchi and Demna.

Strangely, one member of the Prime Minister’s security detail, Braima Sori Djalo, was among the attackers – he was killed, apparently the only casualty on the side of the attackers.

Three other participants were captured (Antonio Indami, Adão Rodrigues & Ligna Armando Nhaga) and are detained at the HQ of the Armed Forces. Weapons and vehicles were seized.

Judging from the patronyms, the group was an ethnic mix, with a Balanta dominance – not unlike the armed forces. Some of the names will be familiar to those who follow Bissau’s recent history.

Mario Fanda, from the Para-Comando unit, was arrested in 2015 because he took part to the robbery of a Senegalese cocaine trafficker. As for Tcham Iala, he was accused of involvement in a 2008 attack on the house of the then President Nino Vieira.

Along with Papis Djeme, Tcham Iala was a close associate of the then Navy Chief of Staff Bubo na Tchuto and was caught in the DEA sting operation of 2013. All three men served time in the United States.

They hail from that part of the military who have agreed to engage in the complex, messy & unproductive) game of military factionalism (often with extra flavours of party politics, ethnic politicking + cocaine topping) played by many major political & military actors for years.