'Don't use guns to end rows'

2004-01-16 14:05

Bissau - Guinea-Bissau will launch an awareness campaign next week to alert people to the dangers of small arms, of which an estimated 25 000 are in circulation in the impoverished west African country, police said on Friday.

Last year was "characterised by a very high crime rate in the capital, Bissau, where 1 128 crimes were recorded," said police chief Alexandre Forbs.

"Most of the crimes reported to the police were committed using handguns and resulted from simple arguments," an official at the Criminal Investigation Bureau (BIC) which is attached to the interior ministry said.

The government, civic groups and political parties will be involved in the awareness campaign, which will get under way on January 20, the 21st anniversary of the assassination of one of the architects of the former Portuguese colony's independence, Amilcar Cabral.

"Some 25 000 firearms are illegally circulating in the country," according to a report by the national committee against small arms proliferation.

Many light weapons were taken from depots and distributed to militia fighters during the civil conflict that broke out in 1998, when former army chief-of-staff Ansumane Mane launched an 11-month mutiny which ended in the ouster of then president Joao Bernardo Vieira.

"Those weapons were never recovered and returned to their secure places, and that represents a permanent danger for the country's internal stability," the report said.

Guinea-Bissau, wedged between Senegal and Guinea on the Atlantic coast, is one of the poorest countries in the world, deriving much of its export revenue from cashew nuts.

The government of Guinea-Bissau was virtually bankrupt before a bloodless coup on September 14 which overthrew controversial president Kumba Yala.

Two weeks later the military junta which carried out the putsch, which was widely supported by Guinea-Bissau's 1.5 million people, appointed an interim president, prime minister, government and parliament.

- AFP