On
Guinea Bissau,
Bamba Offers
to Travel to
Lisbon, Mali
in the
Wings
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Partial
exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS, July
26, updated
-- As if
Guinea Bissau
didn't have
enough
problems,
now the
dispute
between ECOWAS
and the
Lusophone
grouping CPLP
about
how to
approach the
country has
grown more
stark.
Carlos
Gomes Jr. and
Raimundo
Pereira were
ousted in the
coup. Now the
CPLP
won't
recognize the
post-coup
government
without them,
while ECOWAS
will.
Inner
City Press
asked ECOWAS'
speaker,
Ivorian
Ambassador
Bamba, about
the
disagreement.
"You have to
be realistic,"
he told Inner
City Press
exclusively,
"you must have
interlocutors."
Given
what happened
in Cote
d'Ivoire last
year, Inner
City Press
asked
Bamba is such
"being
realistic"
wouldn't have
meant not
using the UN
and French
Force Licorne
for Alassane
Ouattara but
rather leaving
Laurent Gbagbo
in power,
since unlike
the Guinea
Bissau coup
leaders he at
least received
nearly 50% of
the vote.
Bamba
pointed out
that he ended
his address
inside the
Council
chamber with
an offer to go
negotiated
with CPLP in
Lisbon. This
was not in his
prepared text
- "I added
it," Bamba
told Inner
City Press.
Initially,
only
questionable
UN envoy
Joseph
Mutaboba, who
allowed an
alleged
drug kingpin
to set up shop
in the UN
compound in
Bissau,
Brazil's
Permanent
Representative
Viotti for the
Peacebuilding
configuration,
Mozambique for
CPLP and Bamba
were to speak.
But
at the end of
the open
session,
Portuguese
Permanent
Representative
Cabral asked
for the floor,
to dispute
Bamba's
implication
that
Gomes' party
is in the
government and
that things
are safe or
better
in Bissau.
After
Cabral's
intervention,
a non-Western
Security
Council member
came out and
told Inner
City Press,
"who is
Portugal to be
nosing around
in Guinea
Bissau, the
colonist
coming back as
a friend? I
might want to
reform the
Vatican, but
does that mean
I have a right
to? This is
the biggest
hoax, post
1945, the
colonists
become the
friend."
In
the background
is ECOWAS'
proposal about
Mali, and how
to deal with
the coup
leaders there.
With former
colonial power
France taking
over the
Council
presidency in
August, can we
expect a
Licorne-like
force?
On
Guinea-Bissau,
at least two
delegations
told Inner
City Press
it's time for
the African
Union to step
in with some
leadership.
Update:
and when
consultations
ended, SRSG
Mutaboba
escaped
through the
Chamber and GA
lobby, no
stakeout.
Usually
talkative
Nestor Osorio,
July's Council
president,
declined a
stakeout,
saying a
statement is
being
negotiated
between
Portugal and
Togo, that is,
CPLP and
ECOWAS.
Waiting for
the African
Union? Watch
this site.
, 
