Sao Tome president back home
2003-07-24 09:59
Sao Tome - The deposed president of Sao Tome and Principe, Fradrique de Menezes, returned home on Wednesday under a deal to end a seven-day-old military takeover that allows him to return to office and grants amnesty to the coup leaders.
Hours later, the parliament unanimously approved the amnesty for those responsible for the July 16 bloodless coup in the tiny west African nation.
De Menezes flew in from the Gabonese capital, Libreville, earlier on Wednesday, accompanied by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, after an agreement was reached to restore constitutional order to the potentially oil-rich, but impoverished, islands.
On his arrival, de Menezes signed a formal agreement with Fernando Pereira, the leader of last week's coup, and Congolese foreign minister Rodolphe Adada, acting on behalf of the array of foreign leaders and officials who helped to broker the settlement, at United Nations offices in Sao Tome.
Besides an amnesty and de Menezes's return as president, the deal provides for the creation of a new government of national unity.
Law on oil resources
It also pledges "the scrupulous respect of the principle of separation of powers", a "national forum to listen to political parties and civil society" and "the transparent management of public resources and the respect of financial rules".
The oil industry is to be placed under the authority of the national assembly, which is to pass a law on oil resources.
Pereira recently described his ousting of the government as "an SOS to the international community" about rampant corruption and gruelling living conditions" on the tiny islands, home to 140 000 people.
Sao Tome and Principé is one of the poorest nations in Africa, but has offshore oilfields representing considerable potential oil wealth.
Many inhabitants voiced hopes the coup would result in an improvement in living standards on the islands, where the average income stands at about $280 (about R2 100) a year.
Wednesday's breakthrough agreement follows three days of talks brokered by a 30-strong mediation team from several Portuguese-speaking and African countries - Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Congo, Gabon, Mozambique, Nigeria and Portugal - as well as the United States.
SA joined mediators
The deal was struck late on Tuesday in Libreville in talks between De Menezes, Adada and Gabonese foreign minister Jean Ping.
De Menezes had travelled to the Gabonese capital from Nigeria, where he was on an official visit when the coup took place on July 16.
South African mediators joined the talks on Tuesday, reportedly at the insistence of 16 of the coup plotters, former members of South Africa's apartheid-era armed forces who complain they have been ostracised ever since their return to their native Sao Tome.
The so-called mercenaries once belonged to the feared South African 32 battalion, nicknamed the "Buffalo Battalion", which fought against Angola's leftwing MPLA government during the country's civil war, before being disbanded in 1993.
Made up of recruits from Angola and other Portugese-speaking African states, the unit was also used for "counter-insurgency" operations against anti-apartheid groups within South Africa.
Wednesday's deal calls for, among other things, "a solution to the problems of the former Buffalo Battalion" and "measures allowing their reinsertion into national life".
- AFX