Date:       Tue, 30 May 2000 

From:       ebou colly <[log in to unmask]>    
Subject:   THE BISSAU CONFLICT
    
 
THE BISSAU CONFLICT 

The notion that the Guinea-Bissau Army defeated the Senegalese Army during 
the Bissau crisis last year is the most incorrect statement anybody could say 
about that regrettable event. It is only those wishful thinkers in blind support 
of the Junta in Bissau who were foolishly going around peddling that 
impossible story. But for those of us who were part of the crisis from start to finish 
and had a live experience of what happened there knew better. We first 
received the information at Yundum Airport that President Vierra and his former 
chief of staff General Ansumana Manneh had clashed militarily in their capital 
Bissau until the president’s protocol officer Mr. Ugine Spain and some senior 
officers were killed. Yaya was that morning flying to Mauritania for a one-day 
working visit. So he had little time to say much about the hot information. 
However, just before taking his flight, he made few remarks that showed us where 
he stood in the crisis. He clearly expressed how disgusted he had recently been 
with President Vierra for allowing Senegal to “lure” him into changing their 
currency to the CFA. Yaya had believed that President Vierra in agreeing to 
that monetary deal had sold the sovereignty of Bissau to Senegal. Whether he 
was right or not, Yaya had thought that Bissau as a result of the currency 
change was going to be dependent on Senegalese financial institutions such as their 
banks for any money to flow into the former Portuguese colony. So he was 
hoping that General Manneh would in that conflict easily overthrow Nino from 
office and revert all that policy of cooperation between Senegal and Bissau for a 
more anti-Senegalese stance. He flew away that morning with unhidden joy in his 
face, expecting to be informed sooner rather than later that Vierra had lost. 


Anyhow, what he did not understand at the time was that President Vierra had 
successfully consulted both Senegal and Guinea Conakry to lend him military 
support to overcome the General’s forces. By 11.00 a.m. that morning we also 
received a distress call from President Vierra at the GNA headquarters, Marina 
Parade Banjul. (That street’s name has since been changed and is now called 
Momarr Ghadaffi Avenue, effected by Yaya alone). In that telephone call however, 
President Vierra speaking from his office in Bissau first explained how he had 
tried Yaya before calling us but was informed that the President had traveled. 
He then told us that he needed urgent military assistance in Bissau to deal 
with a “small gang of mutinous soldiers under the command of Manneh”. That was 
exactly the way he put it, the very way I suppose he also presented the 
problem to the Senegalese and Guineans. Yes he was detailed enough to inform us 
that he had spoken to both Presidents Abdou Joof and Alansana Conteh and that 
they had assured him their full support and would respond immediately. We told 
President Vierra that we could not take such decision of sending him any 
military assistance in the absence of Yaya. He accepted our excuse with the hope that 
he would soon reach Yaya somewhere for his approval to commit the Gambian 
troops in Bissau. He did not seem to know much about who Yaya was. Within the 
hour after President Vierra’s call, General Momodou Secka the chief of staff of 
the Senegalese Armed forces also called on the same number asking for whether 
we could all coordinate our forces into deploying to Bissau to help the pres
ident. Gen. Secka disclosed that he had contacted his counterpart in Guinea 
Conakry for a similar coordinated intervention and that the Guinean chief of staff 
had already started writing his operation orders on that premise. But again, 
we told General Secka that without Yaya who was in Mauritania, we could not 
make any decision on the issue. Anyway, the way Gen. Secka sounded that morning, 
he sincerely thought that they had a simple mission in hand to deal with which 
they could easily finish and leave Bissau at record time. That was the reason 
why I think the Senegalese hastily assembled one infantry battalion plus, 
mainly composed of their newly trained recruits with no battle experience and had 
them sent to Bissau. There were very good officers and NCO’s among the 
combatants including a fine captain, called Capt. Jasseh who out of pride fought his 
way into Bra Barracks and was killed. Bra Barracks was the Junta’s most 
heavily defended base. It was there; they had their toughest operation commanders 
such as Emilio Costa and Verrisimo. 

When the Senegalese moved into Bissau they certainly realized but a little 
bit too late, that President Vierra misinformed them about the strength of the 
force behind Gen. Manneh. Instead of “a few mutinous soldiers behind the General
”, it was over 90% of the Guinea-Bissau Armed forces with almost all the 
Cassamance rebels based in the country. After several failed attempts by the 
Senegalese to overrun the Junta’s key positions, they changed their tactics from 
the offensive to the defensive. That was all the hoopla about the Senegalese 
Army being defeated by the Bissau troops. After that tactical withdrawal by the 
Senegalese, the battle changed from direct contact to indirect firing and 
shelling. The Senegalese depended mainly on 122mm and 81mm mortars, while the 
Bissau troops used the BM21 rocket- launchers. The Senegalese barely maintained 
their positions against the barrage of the firepower behind this formidable 
arsenal, the BM21. But they successfully defended the city from being taken over by 
the Junta forces until the peacekeepers arrived, a precondition they stated 
for their withdrawal out of the country. 

There is no doubt that Yaya started brokering for the peace, but for reasons 
completely different from what most people had believed. Yaya was seriously 
outraged when he learnt that the Senegalese and the Guineans had intervened on 
the side of President Vierra. He knew that if the fighting was not stopped 
until it escalated to an all out war, Senegal together with Guinea Conakry would 
have totally wiped out the military capability of Bissau from the sub-region, 
permanently ending the Cassamance rebellion as well. So he took the same 
aircraft and flew around back to Mauritania first, then to Senegal and finally to 
Guinea Conakry. On a frank note, Dr. Sidat Jobe who was very sincere about the 
peace initiative virtually came up with all the questions and answers The 
Gambia government had to offer in the search for peace. Of course, President Vierra 
and Manneh met in Banjul under the chairmanship of Yaya when the conflict 
seemed to have been at a stalemate; nevertheless, the actual merit for bringing 
the Junta and the Vierra government to accept a shared interim government was 
made possible by three people. In their genuine and honest efforts, these men 
were Dr. Sidat Jobe, Mr. Kofigo the foreign minister of Togo and General 
Hassani, the Togolese Defense minister. These two Togolese ministers were absolutely 
pivotal in the final solution. 

However let me shift to the GNA part in the crisis. It was the GNA’s 
peacekeeping role that took us to the ground when the situation was still fragile. 
While the French were working on sponsoring a peacekeeping force in which The 
Gambia was urged to participate as the only Anglo-phone contingent among the lot, 
Senegal on the whole was upgrading its battle fire power in Bissau with the 
modern 155mm American-made artillery. By the way, the other contingents were 
from Togo, the leading force (because Iadema was the ECOWAS chairman), Niger and 
Gabon. Anyhow, on the 3rd of February 1999, the day we were to deploy to 
Bissau, the Senegalese went into an offensive against the Junta, which caused the 
Gambian force to abort its participation until there was peace again. The 
effect of that assault was too devastating to the Junta. The new weapons were so 
destructive that the Junta fighters thought the firing had originated from the 
French battleship that brought the peacekeepers minus the Gambians from their 
assembly point in Dakar. The Portuguese, their former colonial masters, who 
were sympathetic to the Junta came close to being convinced that the French were 
actually firing the heavy guns. Mr. Fadul the Priminister of the interim 
government, chosen from the Junta’s side, had his house reduced to rubbles by a 
direct hit from a 155mm shell. His guards and those at the building at the time 
were all killed. The airport, that was considered too far for any Senegalese 
missile to reach was hit with deadly accuracy leaving the points of impact with 
frightening craters. The Gambian contingent the last to arrive in Bissau, 
left the Gambia on the 9th and arrived on a French landing craft in the war torn 
city on the 11th of February. 

The final decision from Yaya for the GNA to go to Bissau happened on the 6th 
of February at the Yundum Airport again. It was the day the former Nigerian 
head of state General Abubacarr came to the Gambia on a day’s visit. Just after 
his aircraft started to taxi its way for the Nigerian leader to fly back home, 
the crazy NIA brought the most ridiculous news to Yaya about the situation in 
Bissau. They said that their intelligence just informed them that the Junta 
forces had taken over the city of Bissau and that the Senegalese soldiers were 
running, taking off and throwing away their uniforms in order to blend with 
the population unnoticed. The naïve ignorant Yaya believed in every word of the 
impossible story making him so happy that he, at that moment, ordered that the 
GNA should be prepared to go to Bissau now. At that spot, the French Charge d’
 Affairs in the Gambia, Mr. Allain Tapartua, responsible for the movement of 
the troops was contacted on a cellular phone and informed that the Gambia was 
finally going. How the NIA came up with that lie still amazed me. For such 
thing to happen in Bissau without the BBC mentioning it was practically 
impossible. Yet at that time, there was a Swedish female correspondent in Bissau City 
who had been updating the whole world through the BBC on the day to day 
developments of the conflict. 

Upon our arrival in Bissau, the overall operation commander Colonel Berena of 
Togo welcomed us. The situation was so uncertain that the colonel told us 
that if we were not able to pull out something within the next 48 hours he was 
afraid the fighting factions might again resume their battle for the city. 
However with out white flags raised high on top of our vehicles, we moved from one 
line of defense to another until both sides agreed to meet and talk for peace. 
To our amazement, the Senegalese force commander colonel Konny who was termed 
too intransigent and very difficult to deal with accepted us in his office 
and served us coffee. Coffee served in that battleground was a very humane 
gesture from a hard liner like Colonel Konny. We assured him that we were there for 
peace and nothing more, and he knew that we were very genuine indeed. By the 
end of that week, the Junta had given up their stiff demand that the 
Senegalese forces must withdraw from the country before the interim government was 
sworn in office. The Senegalese had made it clear to them and the peacekeepers 
that they would not leave Bissau until after the deployment of the peacekeepers 
and the swearing in of the interim government. And it happened in the exact way 
they prescribed it, although with the knowledge that President Nino Vierra 
also misinformed them about everything in the conflict. A defeated force could 
have adopted such a hard position in the face of its conquerors. The Senegalese 
army cannot suffer a defeat in the hands of the Bissau armed forces, 
especially when there was Guinea Conakry fighting side by side with them. It was only 
a very tiny fraction of their force sent to Bissau during that event. The 
Senegalese Armed forces in totality could swallow that of Bissau’s in any theater 
of war. That false story was purely garbage orchestrated mainly from Yaya and 
his rebel comrades in Cassamance. And by the way, did anyone try to reason out 
why the Yaya government deported Senegalese from the North on the accusation 
that they made remarks in support of the children’s demonstration, but few 
days later rebels from Cassamance identified as Senegalese were captured with 
Gambian ID cards? Hmmm! 

Ebou Colly 

    

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~