President of dope transit point killed

NY Times:

Army troops shot dead João Bernardo Vieira, the president of neighboring Guinea-Bissau, early on Monday following a bomb attack that killed the army chief of staff, according to diplomats in the region.

News reports said army troops blamed the president for the death of the army chief, General Batista Tagme Na Wai, who died in an explosion on Sunday night. Diplomats, who spoke in return for anonymity under customary rules, said the president was killed at around 5 a.m. in an attack outside his house and the country’s borders had been closed. “Nobody knows who is in charge,” one diplomat said. “Nobody knows what the army will do.”

The army command denied that a coup was underway, saying an “isolated group” of soldiers killed the president. In a statement broadcast on state radio, the military pledged to respect the “constitutional order” providing for the head of parliament to succeed the president until elections within three months.

Guinea-Bissau is a former Portuguese colony in west Africa known as a transit point for South American cocaine shipments bound for Europe. It is one of three countries bearing similar names, all of which have been wracked by instability in recent months.

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The dope would be flown from Venezuela to Guinea-Bissau before being taken to Europe sometimes through Spain and Portugal. It was a major transit point and some shipments and at least one aircraft have been seized.

At this point it is hard to say whether this was just a personal fight between the army chief and the president or was a fight over the dope money.

CNN has more on the killing of the president. The facts they report suggest a planned coup to me. Whether the plotters are tied to the dope smuggling is unknown at this point.