Coup denied as Guinea-Bissau president assassinated

Guinea-Bissau's army denied staging a coup Monday after soldiers assassinated veteran President Joao Bernardo Vieira in apparent reprisal for a bomb blast which killed the head of the military.

The army pledged to respect "constitutional order" and called on the population to stay calm in the wake of the killings, which were roundly condemned by the international community.

Soldiers gunned Vieira down as he fled his home in the early hours of Monday following turmoil in which the army chief was killed in a bomb explosion hours before, military officials said.

The West African nation's army blamed Vieira, 69, for the death of its leader, General Tagme Na Waie, in the bomb attack on Sunday, a military spokesman, naval Commander Zamora Induta, told AFP.

Vieira's supporters and the army fought in the capital, Bissau, on Sunday and rocket explosions and automatic weapons fire could still be heard in the capital in the early hours of Monday before the firing subsided.

"We do not accept that people are interpreting this as a coup d'etat," Induta told journalists after senior army, air force and naval officers met for talks with Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior.

He said the army had given the prime minister guarantees that it would remain faithful to democratic principles.

Guinea-Bissau has a history of coups but under the constitution the interim leadership passes to National Assembly speaker, Raimundo Perreira, who must organise a presidential poll within 60 days.

The army said earlier the situation in the country was "under control" but warned that it would not tolerate "looters and troublemakers"

Meanwhile, the cabinet announced seven days of national mourning for both leaders and directed the public prosecutor's office to launch an inquiry into the deaths.

Vieira, one of the leaders of Guinea-Bissau's fight against Portuguese rule, led the impoverished country from 1980 to 1999 and then became president again in 2005 until his death.

While the country has become a notorious transit point for the cocaine trade between South America and Europe, relations between Vieira and the army have been deteriorating for months.

The killings came after weeks of mounting rivalry between the president and the military leadership.

Shortly after parliamentary elections in November, won by Vieira's party, an attack by soldiers on the office of the president -- possibly a mutiny or a coup bid -- left two people dead.

In January, the chief of staff ordered the disarming of militia in the presidential guard after claiming soldiers had tried to kill him. Tagme said members of the presidential guard had opened fire on his car in an assassination bid.

The military spokesman said the killing of the president presented an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

"The country will start up now. This man had blocked any momentum in this small country," Induta said.

Guinea-Bissau has suffered repeated political unrest and coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974.

The African Union's top executive, Jean Ping, denounced Viera's assassination as a "criminal act" and said his killing had "come at a time when efforts were under way to bolster peace following the November election".

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also condemned Vieira's killing, as did former colonial power Portugal, which called an emergency meeting of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).

Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Socrates offered his nation's help to the political and military authorities "to keep constitutional order."

The Economic Community of West African States -- whose leader Mohamed Ibn Chambas described the killings as "the assassination of democracy" -- will hold an emergency meeting in Bissau on Tuesday, officials said.

Guinea-Bissau, sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea, is one of the poorest countries in Africa, with a population of around 1.7 million.

The country has become a key transit point for South American cocaine en route to Europe.

A recent report by the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said some soldiers had become involved in drugs smuggling and were opposed "to a reform that could force them into retirement and cut them off from lucrative drugs trafficking income".