President of Guinea-Bissau increases protection after coup attempts

After alluding to coup d’etats in other parts of Africa, President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea-Bissau appointed two new officials to protect his security yesterday, and they started work today.

Shortly after government security officials staged coups in Niger and Gabon, the government appointed new security officials, as reported by AFP.

On Friday, General Horta Inta was named the president’s chief of staff and General Tomas Djassi was named the head of presidential security.

There has been a vacancy for both of these positions in the government bureaucracy for decades.

The ceremony for Djassi and Inta’s swearing in took place at the presidential palace yesterday.

There have been four military coups in Guinea-Bissau since the country gained independence in 1974, the most recent occurring in 2012.

In February of 2022, there was an attempt to depose Embalo.

The president admitted to reporters yesterday that “coups d’état carried out by presidential security officers have become fashionable,” and he promised that “any suspicious movement will be met with an appropriate response.”

Djassi previously led the national guard, an elite military unit whose intervention prevented a coup in 2022, before he was appointed to his current position.

Inta oversaw the Bissau police headquarters.

Last month, Embalo said that the deposed Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum was the only legitimate leader of that country, and that the coup in Niger posed an existential threat to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).