“I agree with the President’s decision to reject continuing with the mission to Bissau,” reads a document sent to Lusa, signed by Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, dated today. The CPLP’s good offices mission to Guinea-Bissau was scheduled to arrive in the country on 18 February and was due to remain in Bissau until the 21st of the same month.
The Timorese prime minister said on Wednesday that the November coup in Guinea-Bissau shows the country is a failed state and stressed the need to help build democracy and human rights.
“We went to help set up the entire system, namely the CNE [National Election Commission] (….) , to hold the first democratic elections in Guinea-Bissau. But after this, to now return with a military coup or coup d’état, we are no longer talking about a fragile state, we are talking about a failed state,” Xanana Gusmão pointed out.
Following the 2012 coup d’état, East Timor provided support to Guinea-Bissau for several years in organising elections. The Guinean transitional government also repudiated Xanana Gusmão’s statements on Wednesday. In a statement, the Guinean Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered that “the statements reveal a lack of dignity and political and moral stance” on the part of Gusmão “to assess the institutional reality” of the country.
“Xanana Gusmão, like José Ramos-Horta [Timorese President], has a history of public controversies that undermine the authority with which they speak about the governance of other states,” the note emphasises.
In December, East Timor assumed the presidency of the CPLP, which was withdrawn from Guinea-Bissau after the coup d’état in the African country on 26 November, which deposed the then President, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and interrupted the electoral process, preventing the release of the results of the general elections on 23 November.
The CPLP mission, comprising a total of 15 people, included details from Angola, Sao Tome and Príncipe, and East Timor, and was to be led by Timorese Defence Minister Donaciano Rosário Gomes.
