Bissau Premier Asks For Funds To Ease Crisis

Gomes Junior said the army had given its commitment to obey the civilian authorities

Guinea-Bissau's prime minister appealed on Wednesday for more foreign aid to help the West African country through a crisis after its president and army chief were killed in separate attacks this week.

The twin killings of the two figures whose rivalry has dominated years of instability prompted concern about further unrest or a military coup, which was allayed when the civilian speaker of parliament was sworn in as interim leader on Tuesday.

"Guinea-Bissau needs financial aid to overcome the crisis it is going through," Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior said after meeting Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the head of the commission of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Diplomats from African and fellow Portuguese-speaking countries like Angola and Cape Verde rushed to the capital Bissau on Tuesday to ease concerns the army may seize power in the confusion after President Joao Bernardo Vieira was killed.

Vieira was shot dead in his own home early on Monday hours after his longstanding rival, armed forces chief General Batista Tagme Na Wai, was killed in an explosion at the military headquarters.

Vieira's wife took refuge in the Angolan embassy in Bissau, and supporters fears further reprisal attacks against Vieira's associates, particularly by members of Na Wai's Balante ethnic group which dominates the armed forces.

Gomes Junior said the army had given its commitment to obey the civilian authorities.

"Democracy can not go hand in hand with persecution and violence. We are in a law-abiding state," he said.

The delegation from Portuguese-speaking countries, who have been meeting various senior Guinea-Bissau officials since Tuesday, said their countries stood ready to help establish peace and democracy but that Bissau itself needed to pursue reforms.

The delegation said in a statement that a meeting of Portuguese-speaking countries agreed last November that support for Bissau would depend on effective measures against drug trafficking, reform of Guinea-Bissau's relatively large and officer-heavy armed forces and the availability of foreign aid.

Like other West African countries, impoverished Guinea-Bissau has been targeted by Latin American drug smuggling gangs who regard its virtually unpoliced coastline and corruptible officials as an easy route to traffic Colombian cocaine into Africa and on to lucrative markets in Europe.

U.N. narcotics experts say the drug trade has exacerbated insecurity and corruption in a country already racked by years of coups and civil conflict, and threatens to turn West Africa into a "Coke Coast".