AU: Troops for Sao Tome?

2003-07-17 19:52

Coimbra, Portugal - Military intervention may be considered to restore the democratically elected government in Sao Tome and Principe, a spokesperson for the head of the African Union, Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, said on Thursday.

"It is likely that a proposal for military intervention will arise in Abuja," the spokesperson Antonio Montonse, told the Portuguese news agency Lusa while stressing that a negotiated settlement to the crisis in the former Portuguese colony would be preferred.

Sao Tome's deposed president Fradique de Menezes was in Abuja when the coup was launched on Wednesday, and was expected to meet with Chissano - the new head of the 53-member African Union - in the Nigerian capital on Thursday, having already met with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Here in Coimbra, a hilly university town in central Portugal, eight foreign ministers of Portuguese-speaking countries were discussing the crisis, which surged to the top of the agenda at the annual ministerial meeting of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Nations (CPLP).

The CPLP ministers "vehemently" condemned the putsch and said they were prepared to help mediate in the crisis in the tiny west African archipelago.

Mediation

East Timor's foreign minister, Nobel peace prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta, in particular offered his mediation.

Sao Tome's foreign minister, Mateus Meira Rita, was already in Portugal for the meeting at the time of the coup.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz said Lisbon was working "quietly" in a quest for dialogue "and building bridges" between the military junta and the deposed government through the Portuguese and US ambassadors in Sao Tome.

The CPLP, which has been deeply divided in the past on issues involving its members such as the Angolan civil war, joined in an international chorus of protest against the coup.

Analysts said the crisis was an opportunity for the seven-year-old CPLP, whose member states have a total population of some 220 million, to find a greater role on the world stage.

In 1995 mediators from CPLP member state Angola persuaded army officers who ousted the then Sao Tome government to return to their barracks a week later.

The CPLP comprises Portugal and its former colonies Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe.

- AFX