Amsumana Mane is at it again with his now familiar tactic of unleashing
violence the brunt of which is borne by the defenseless civilians of his
adopted country to achieve his own selfish aims. When the dust settled on the
tragic civil war that engulfed Bissau a short while ago, the people chased
their leader and with it the kind of government and future they desired.
During the transition Ansumana and his allies within the armed forces
unsuccessfully tried to pressure the elected President to carve out a
political and administrative  role for them in the government. Their
objective was simply to present the people of Bissau and the world a titular
head of state while Mane and his gang effectively pulled the strings and had
ultimate power to run the country in illicit and undemocratic ways. President
Yalla justifiably balked at any such arrangements and insisted that the army
return to it's constitutionally prescribed role and be subject to civilian
control. This is how stable countries large and small maintain the peace
within their borders and avoid civil strife. Under strong regional and
international pressure Mane and his gang pretended to shelve their designs
but did their best to ensure that the elected President did not assert full
control over the army. The first manifestation of their insorbodination
surfaced when the President shortly after assuming office ordered the head of
the navy fired for releasing a foreign vessel that was under judicial
sanction. In blatant defiance, the officer declared that he couldn't be fired
by the President and was going to wait for Ansumana Mane to return from an
overseas trip! The current  spate of violence is rooted in that same
festering problem of rogues entrenched in the armed forces and intent on
having their way. Ansumana who atleast in theory holds no formal position in
the armed forces of guinea Bissau all of a sudden restarts an open rebellion
by declaring the Presidents moves to appoint officers in the army to be null
and void. Why you ask? Well Ansumana said flatly that the President does not
have the experience to determine the leadership of an army in a country whose
citizens have elected him. Preposterous as it is, that is the reasoning of a
man who will destroy an entire country if that is what it would take to
perpetuate him. He has since declared himself army chief-of-staff and
promptly arrested the senior officers allied to the government. As of this
writing wire services are reporting that intermittent battles have ensued and
the forces loyal to the government seemed to have control of most of the
country and Ansumana and his gang have retreated to an airbase outside of the
city of Bissau . It is not immediately clear if Mane and his gang have the
strength of numbers and materiel to dig in for a protracted fight. Already
the United nations and ecowas have gone on record blaming Amsumana for the
crisis and have said they would hold him responsible for any eventuality. As
things stand now, there are two possible outcomes as far as I can see.
International and regional envoys would trek in to Bissau in an attempt to
avert further violence and all the human suffering associated with civil
strife especially if the divided army results in a defacto balance in power.
In this scenario, they would attempt to work out a truce of some sort and
look for a compromise formular  that would attempt to paper over the deep
divisions in the armed forces. While this may avoid a further loss of life,
it would almost certainly show the seeds of further instability because
attempting to patch a highly fractured army with diametrically opposing
agendas is like trying to put humpty dumpty together after the great fall. It
cannot be done. A legitimate standing army in  a democracy has to have a
unified command structure and be subject to the authority of the civilian
leadership. What you would have with an arranged deal with Ansumana Mane
would be two opposing armed militias looking for opportunities to vanquish
the other. This would be an unsustainable albatross hanging on the neck of
the people and nation of Guinea Bissau.
   Alternatively, the government of President Yalla may yet prevail and
defeat Ansumana and his gang which might bode well for the government and
people in the long run. To be sure such a strategy is fraught with dangers in
that if Ansumana knows that he is loosing a conventional battle with
government troops, he may retreat into the bush and resort  to guerilla
warfare essentially making the situation unwinable and protracted. He would
have plenty of support from his erstwhile allies embroiled in the Cassamance
conflict on the southern border together with criminal syndicates marauding
the borders in that area. That in turn might trigger a regional
conflagration. So either way you look at the conclusion is grim. Ansumana
Mane is a dangerous man who poses a significant threat to the people of
Guinea Bissau for as long as he lives. He does not  have a national
constituency to make him the undisputed choice of the people of Guinea
Bissau. On the other hand he has sufficient sway within the armed forces to
make him a lethal figure in that long suffering nation's overall efforts
towards democratization and emerging out of civil strife.He is the ultimate
embodiment  of all that is wrong with Africa and the African.He is selfish,
brutal and has no regard for the effects of his ways on the vast majority of
the people who have neither  the means nor the ability to stop him and his
evil machinations. Somehow it has be him or no one else in Guinea Bissau. My
heart aches for my brethren there. We in Gambia are also contending with a
milder version of Ansumana. The only difference is we would succeed in
defeating our tyrant perhaps with less prospects for bloodshed.
Karamba

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