CARNIVAL, COUPS, AND CORONAVIRUS CHAPTER 2

WHAT, SO WE'RE ON COUP #9 NOW?

17/03/20 - 16/04/20

I have already written two pieces about the elections, and you can steadily see how the theme of hope was replaced by that of fraud and today I write about the coup of March 2020, and that is a story that we have told time and again in this country since it won its independence in 1973. 

Her name is Bijagós I

The Supreme Court and the National Elections Committee had been going back and forth for a while with the challenge to the votes. Let it be clear, the Supreme Court is one of our 3 sovereign entities and the decisions that it makes has to be obeyed and yet we remained at a stand-still. Despite Sissoko’s self-proclaimed victory, there was de facto no president-elect since votes were still contentious. So JOMAV, who would have been ousted upon an actual victory still sat in the palace. And then all of a sudden (though not so sudden really…) there was a vacuum, a short moment where no one presided over the country, and then just as suddenly there was bipolar state with two presidents and two governments. 

Sissoko had been saying for a while that he would be inaugurated by the end of February, and surely enough, JOMAV symbolically stepped down from the presidential seat, and Sissoko was symbolically inaugurated by the vice-president of the National People’s Assembly (ANP) Nuno Nabian. 

His fans flooded Bissau the next morning, wearing their kalás singing their victory and cursing DSP and PAIGC. They had gotten Sissoko “safely” into the palace, as if the threat was to his life and not our already fragile country.

Constitutionally though, there is no such thing as a presidential vacuum. The presidential seat was not Sissoko’s to take up because he was not, and though he and his government have the power, he is still not the president of Guiné-Bissau. Not constitutionally, and therefore, to me, not at all. 

What the constitution does stipulate is that when a president steps down, the president of the ANP, currently Cipriano Cassamá, automatically becomes the commander in chief.  

So, we effectively had two presidents, or rather, one person trying to wrestle power away from the person who had the right to yield it. Unfortunately, he was successful in doing so. Sissoko continued to take himself too seriously despite the “symbolism” of his move. He began signing presidential decrees dismissing the prime minister Aristides Gomes and his government, and appointing Nuno Nabian (you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours!) as the prime minister. His government followed shortly after. 

This new government did not respect the law of parity that I had been so proud that the X Legislature government had achieved. This new government hadn’t named a health minister at the same time as other ministers were inaugurated, even though the coronavirus was reaching pandemic levels, until later. This new government was not qualified to sit where they sat, where they continue to sit as I rewrite and edit this on the 16th April 2020. This new government, coup government, a month into their rule, celebrated the fact they have made it this far illegitimately. This coup government forgets that power is a duty and not a right.

Cipriano Cassamá, the constitutional president lasted all of two days in that position. He was threatened into stepping down, and so he did. 

"Ora ku by tene arma na kabesa, kusa I utru" [1]. 

The military, led by Antonio Injai, who had led the previous coup in 2014 (and who has drug charges in the US btw), showed up at his domicile the same night of his official inauguration and his resignation came in the morning. 

I was meant to be working that weekend – I write this and it feels that none of this could have transpired in such a short amount of time, but it all happened within the span of three or four days – but was instructed to limit my movement as the military would be circulating.  I didn’t go to work during the week either (2nd and 3rd of March) and stayed home with my mother. The thought of leaving her at the house alone made me uncomfortable so I was grateful to be able to stay home with her, powerless as I may be. 

When I finally did go to work on the 4th, an hour into work I was resolved to go back home to her; the military had been repossessing government cars and I felt sick to my stomach at the idea of them invading compound. I called her and she assured me that she was well, and I didn’t need to go home, that no one would show up at the house but even so, I didn’t manage to get much work done that day. return home when she called to tell me she was fine and that I shouldn’t worry. There are things that I am still not at liberty to speak about; on a scale from 1 to 10 freedom of speech is at a 3, but in truth, it’s difficult to shut Guineans up. Especially when they’ve been through it, time and again and I am trying to find the courage to speak of my experience as well. 

Life seemed to go on as usual in the city after all that. I think though that it was a thin veil. I want to believe that everyone felt and is feeling the rage that I continue to feel at the injustice. At the knowledge that Guineans would be let down yet again – and they have been, since I first wrote this. The times of coronavirus have only precipitated the inevitability of the coup government’s failure, but that is a story for another chapter. 

I am furious that we are at a place where my father is advising us to leave Guinea-Bissau and not return for anything more than a holiday. I am furious that my parents’ chance to be home in peace has been squandered by a greed and incompetence and a self-evident drug agenda. 

This is the 9th (or is it even the 10th?) coup d’état that Guinea-Bissau has gone through, with the first one being in 1980 and I am furious that we have deviated so far from Amílcar Cabral’s vision. 

Someone joked that this was my coup baptism because I got to experience this one as a grown person (apparently the coup and war that made up leave did not count). I am angry that we have found coping mechanisms for this because of how common it is. I am furious at how common it is. I am furious that for the first time I understood why people felt shame at being from here. It isn’t really shame in being Guinean, but rather shame in being associated to the powers that be.

Cabral is not dead

I am grateful that I had a work trip scheduled for the 7th of March. I was glad to be out of Bissau and to have different preoccupations for a while. Going to Bafatá allowed my spirit to rest and be invigorated again by the nation's crib. Amílcar  wouldn’t be proud of the place we have come to but it is important to keep hoping that we get to where he would have wanted us to be. 

I am writing this final paragraph from a place of hope so that I can close this chapter looking for the next step. I have to make use of this anger, and there is no better use of it than to help Guiné-Bissau get a little better than how we left it the day before for myself, for the hardworking producers in Bafatá, and across the country, with whom I will always feel immense pride in being associated. 

__________

[1] When you have a gun to your head, your circumstance is changed.