Cabinet held in 'difficult conditions'
2003-07-17 12:54
Sao Tome - Government ministers from Sao Tome and Principe who were detained by soldiers when they launched a pre-dawn coup Wednesday are being held in difficult conditions, members of their families said on Thursday.
The entire 14-member Sao Tome cabinet - with the exception of Foreign Minister Mateus Meira Rita, who is on a visit to Portugal - was arrested and detained by the coup-makers when they launched their putsch in the early hours of Wednesday.
Prime Minister Maria das Neves was subsequently hospitalised, after suffering a mild heart attack following a shoot-out at her home when the putschists came to arrest her.
On Thursday, relatives of the ministers still in detention said male and female cabinet members had all been made to sleep in one room Wednesday night.
Some were finding the conditions of detention increasingly difficult, notably Education and Culture Minister Fernanda Pontifece Bonfim, who was reportedly taken ill Thursday morning.
The putsch was launched by hundreds of soldiers loyal to Major Fernando Pereira, reportedly with the support of a small opposition party.
The coup-makers had taken advantage of President Fradique de Menezes's absence on a trip abroad to launch their coup.
De Menezes had left Sao Tome on Tuesday for a conference in the Nigerian capital Abuja of African and African American leaders and business people.
The putschists seized key facilities and detained the cabinet before announcing on state radio and television that they had set up a military junta to run the country.
The coup-makers announced the dissolution of all state bodies and set up a "junta of national salvation", whose members told diplomats their putsch was motivated by rampant corruption in the country of 140 000 people.
Coup leader Pereira called a meeting with foreign diplomats Wednesday and assured them that the detained ministers were being well treated and would be allowed to return to their homes shortly, once tensions have eased.
A diplomat said after the meeting: "They said that a new political class must emerge because, with the current one, the country is going down the tubes. The word 'corruption' was constantly on their lips."