The Portuguese Ministry of Justice has sent to Sao Tome and Principe, at the request of the local authorities, a team of investigators made up of police experts to find out what happened last Friday, when a group of armed men broke into an army barracks in Sao Tome, the capital of this African archipelago, a former Portuguese colony, located in the Gulf of Guinea.
The team, also made up of doctors from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, set out for the islands last Sunday, a few days after the São Tomé authorities denounced the attempted assault, in which four people were killed, among them Arlécio Costa, a former army officer and now in charge of ‘Los Búfalos’, originally a South African battalion of mercenaries.
In addition to the Portuguese authorities, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the United Nations have shown their willingness to support these investigations.
This Tuesday, Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada has highlighted the rapid intervention of the authorities to stop the alleged military coup, stressing that «nothing justifies» trying to subvert the constitutional order through violence and that he has asked his cabinet for a «serious» investigation of what happened.
«Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies any attempt to subvert the constitutional order through violence (…) and the aggression against the republican troops (…) whose sole purpose is to defend the national sovereignty and the integrity of the territory», has put in value Trovoada during the debate of the Government program that has taken place in the National Assembly.
For their part, organizations of the civil society of Saint-Thomas called on their international partners to carry out an independent investigation to clarify what happened, since it was received with «surprise» that «a group of four individuals» broke into the barracks with coup intentions.
At the same time, they have pointed out the need for an investigation due to suspicions of attacks and human rights violations, since «some of those allegedly involved» ended up «dying» when «they were in the custody of the Armed Forces».
In the early morning of the 24th a group of four armed persons broke into the army headquarters in Sao Tome and Principe, although the alleged coup attempt was suppressed a few hours later. Four people were killed and at least twelve soldiers were arrested on suspicion of being linked to the events.
In addition to them, the former president of the National Assembly Delfim Neves and Arlécio Costa -convicted already in 2009 for similar acts- whose death was reported by the newspaper ‘Téla Nón’, which published photographs of the deceased, were arrested at their respective homes.
In spite of the images of Costa and three other three of the four dead assailants, handcuffed and with clear symptoms of having been beaten, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Brigadier Olinto Paquete, affirmed that the first died after throwing himself out of the car in which he was being transported and the others during the Army operation to free a soldier they were holding.
The government led by Trovoada took office last November 14 after the legislative elections of September 25, in which his party Independent Democratic Action won 30 of the 55 seats in the Assembly, which until then was presided over by Delfim Neves, one of the detainees, whose party was part of the coalition that previously governed.
