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Guinea-Bissau Military Leaders Pledge to Respect C
Date: 3/2/2009 8:37:16 AM Sender: Scott Stearns
Guinea-Bissau Military Leaders Pledge to Respect Constitutional Order  
By Scott Stearns
Dakar
02 March 2009

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President of Guinea-Bissau Joao Bernardo Vieira (file photo)

Military leaders in Guinea-Bissau say they will respect constitutional order after mutinous soldiers killed President Joao Bernardo Vieira. The assassination occurred just hours after the country＇s military chief died in a bomb blast.

Soldiers loyal to the slain army chief attacked the presidential palace, killing President Joao Bernardo Vieira as he tried to escape. They blame the president for a Sunday bomb attack that killed the head of the joint chiefs of staff, General Batista Tagme Na Waie.

Soldiers set up checkpoints at strategic locations around the capital. Reports from Bissau say the streets are empty with banks, markets, and shops closed. Private radio stations are back on the air after being closed by the military overnight.

Senior officers are calling for calm, saying the situation is under control and the military is acting as the "stabilizer of public order." In a statement broadcast on national radio, military leaders said they would not tolerate what the called "looters and troublemakers. The statement said: "The army, faithful to its duty, will respect constitutional order and democracy."

Constitutional succession would mean National Assembly Speaker Raimundo Perreira taking power before elections within 60 days.

Prime Minister Carlos Gomis, Jr. met with military chiefs and is expected to make a statement later in the day.

African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping is consulting with regional leaders on how best to address the crisis. An A.U. statement described the killings of President Vieira and General Waie as "cowardly and heinous attacks."

President Vieira was re-elected in 2005 following a civil war that drove him from office after 19 years in power. But he failed to repair relations with the nation＇s military.

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He survived a failed coup attempt in November when soldiers attacking the presidential palace were pushed back by security forces after a three-hour battle. That fighting led the interior ministry to recruit a 400-man militia to protect the president.

But those militiamen were disbanded when the armed forces command linked them to an assassination attempt on General Waie last month.

Now both men are dead, with the president＇s body at Bissau＇s main hospital and the general＇s body at an air base outside the capital, as the country faces another violent change of power - the latest in a series of army mutinies and coups since independence from Portugal in 1974.

Regional diplomats say instability has been made worse by Latin American drug gangs using remote airstrips along Guinea-Bissau＇s coastline to smuggle cocaine to Europe.

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