Sao Tome and Principe’s main opposition party, the largest opposition party, the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe / Social Democratic Party (MLSTP/PSD) has called for an immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of four people during last Friday’s coup attempt, which could point to summary executions by security forces.
«The events of the morning of November 25 are condemned and the MLSTP highlights the torture and shooting of national citizens in the premises of the Army barracks,» it has made known in a statement picked up by the media ‘Téla Nón’.
Throughout yesterday, the information was extremely contradictory. While during his address to the nation, the Prime Minister, Patrice Trovoada, reported the arrest of six people, later ‘Téla Nón’ published that four of them had died, among whom is Arlécio Costa, former officer of a South African mercenary battalion known as ‘The Buffaloes’.
Costa and three others of the men who assaulted the Army headquarters were transferred to the morgue of the Ayres de Menezes Central Hospital, according to the above mentioned media, which also published photographs of the dead, not verified by the authorities.
«We vehemently condemn the barbaric way in which citizens were violently tortured and executed in the headquarters facilities, in flagrant violation of the most elementary human rights, as illustrated by the violent images that have been circulating in social networks,» the party’s political commission has made known.
The party «deplores» the «compromising silence» of the president, Carlos Vila Nova, «as supreme commander of the armed forces and maximum defender of the Constitution of the Republic».
Finally, the MLSTP/PSD argues that the events of September 25 must be impartially investigated «by the competent national institutions accompanied by independent international experts, under the close observation of the international community,» the Social-Democratic political commission stresses.
The party led by Jorge Bom Jesus has also announced that it has proposed to the National Assembly the scheduling of an urgent debate with the Government to discuss the events of November 25.
