Briefing from ROAPE Volume 25 Number 77
Guinea-Bissau: Military Fighting Breaks Out

At 5 o'clock, in the early morning of Sunday, 7 June, shooting was heard from the military installations at Santa Luzia in north-eastern Bissau, capital of the West African republic of Guinea-Bissau, governed under multiparty constitutional democracy since elections held in 1994. Fighting spread quickly to the military base at Br´, near the international airport, in the north-western parts of the city. In a radio broadcast the same day, president JoÆo Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira held former commander-in-chief, brigadier Ansumane Mané, responsible for an armed revolt against the legal government.