João Bernardo Vieira
João Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was a Bissau-Guinean politician and military officer who served as President of Guinea-Bissau from 1980 to 1999, except for a three-day period in May 1984, and from 2005 until his assassination in 2009.
After seizing power from President Luís Cabral in a military coup in 1980, Vieira ruled as part of the Military Council of the Revolution until 1984, when civilian rule was returned. Opposition parties were allowed in 1991, and Vieira won a multiparty presidential election in 1994. He was ousted at the end of the 1998-1999 civil war and went into exile. He made a political comeback in 2005, winning that year's presidential election.
Vieira was shot dead by soldiers on 2 March 2009, apparently in retaliation for a bomb blast at army headquarters that killed Guinea-Bissau's military chief General Batista Tagme Na Waie hours before. The military officially denied these allegations after unidentified Army officials claimed responsibility of Vieira for Na-Waie's death.
Vieira described himself as "God's gift" to Guinea-Bissau during his tenure in office.
Early life
Vieira was born in Bissau, then a city of Portuguese Guinea. Originally trained as an electrician, he joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde of Amílcar Cabral in 1960 and soon became a key player in the territory's guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule.Vieira was a member of the Papel ethnic group, which comprises approximately 5% of Guinea-Bissau's population. By contrast, most of Guinea-Bissau's army officers, with whom Vieira had a tense relationship throughout his career, are members of the Balanta ethnicity, which dominates the country.
Career
Early career
As the war in Portuguese Guinea intensified, Vieira demonstrated a great deal of skill as a military leader and rapidly rose through its ranks. Vieira was known to his comrades as "Nino" and this remained his nom de guerre for the duration of the struggle. He was the cousin of slain military leader Osvaldo Vieira.Following regional council elections held in late 1972 in areas under PAIGC control, which led to the formation of a constituent assembly, Vieira was appointed president of the National People's Assembly. The guerrilla war began to turn against the Portuguese as expenditure, damages and loss of human lives remained a burden for Portugal. Following the coup d'état in Portugal in 1974, the new Portuguese revolutionary government which overthrew Lisbon's Estado Novo regime began to negotiate with the PAIGC. As his brother Amílcar had been assassinated in 1973, Luís Cabral became the first president of independent Guinea-Bissau after independence was granted on 10 September 1974.
On 28 September 1978, Vieira was appointed as Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau.
Rise to the Presidency
By 1980, economic conditions had deteriorated significantly, which led to general dissatisfaction with the government. On 14 November 1980, Vieira toppled the government of Luís Cabral in a bloodless military coup, which initial reports credited to racial strife between the black population of Guinea-Bissau and the mulatto population of the related Republic of Cape Verde, embodied in the Cabo-Verdian origin of President Cabral. In the wake of the coup, the bordering Republic of Guinea quickly recognised the new government and sought to end a border dispute over an oil-rich region, while the PAIGC in Cape Verde split away and forming a separate party PAICV.The constitution was suspended and a nine-member military Junta, the Council of the Revolution, chaired by Vieira, was set up with 7 of the 9 members being black FARP officers. This made Vieira increasingly reliant on the army, doing everything in his power to appease them. However, with only so many ministerial posts to give out, large portions of the army became disgruntled that their careers weren't progressing. In 1982 Paulo Correia attempted to stage a coup seeking better conditions for his ethnic group, the Balanta.
In 1983 Guinea-Bissau was rocked by a food shortage, leading to some junior officers within FARP to threaten a coup when Vieira cut the army's rice ration. Vieira arrested the lead plotter Joao de Silva, set up roadblocks throughout Bissau, and invited a Soviet warship to take a prolonged stay in the capital in case it was needed to repel a coup. However, he also granted FARP concessions such as new uniforms, and first take on rice oil and butter over the civilian population. After this coup Vieira changed the constitution in 1984, replacing the Council of the Revolution with the Council of National Security diluting civilian power as much as possible and centralizing the President's role in government. In March 1984 Vieira authorized single party elections, but shortly after engaged in a power struggle with his prime minister; Victor Saúde Maria. Vieira would allege that Maria was plotting yet another coup attempt which forced Maria to flee the country before he was arrested under treason charges.
In June 1986, at least 28 Balanta politicians and generals were executed for the failed coup d'état against Vieira including his Vice-President Paulo Correia and Attorney General Viriato Pa. However, in February 1993, Vieira's regime ended Capital punishment in the country.
Guinea-Bissau, like the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, moved toward multiparty democracy and a market economy in the early 1990s. Through pressure from groups like the Democratic Front led by Aristide Menezes, the ban on political parties was lifted in 1991 and elections were held in 1994. In the first round of the presidential election, held on 3 July 1994, Vieira received 46.20% of the vote against seven other candidates. He finished first, but failed to win the required majority, which led to a second round of voting on 7 August. He received 52.02% of the vote against 47.98% for Kumba Yalá, a former philosophy lecturer and candidate of the Social Renewal Party. International election observers considered both rounds generally free and fair. Vieira was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of Guinea-Bissau on 29 September 1994.
Civil war
Vieira was re-elected for another four-year term as President of PAIGC in mid-May 1998 at a party congress, with 438 votes in favor, eight opposed, and four abstaining.Vieira dismissed military chief of staff Ansumane Mané on 6 June 1998, accusing him of smuggling arms to Casamance separatist rebels in Senegal. Mané and his supporters in the military promptly rebelled, and the country descended into a civil war between forces loyal to Vieira and rebels loyal to Mané. According to Birgit Embaló, soldiers in Guinea Bissau were upset at their pay, leading the military to self-finance itself through smuggling. Mané was widely supported by soldiers and war veterans, as well as by some of civil society and members of the political opposition to Vieira's government.
A peace agreement was signed in November 1998, and a transitional government was formed in preparation for new elections in 1999. On 27 November 1998, the National People's Assembly passed a motion demanding Vieira's resignation, with 69 deputies supporting the motion and none opposing it.
A renewed outbreak of fighting occurred in Bissau on 6 May 1999, and Vieira's forces surrendered on 7 May. He sought refuge in the Portuguese embassy and went into exile in Portugal in June. On 12 May, former prime minister Manuel Saturnino da Costa was named acting President of PAIGC, replacing Vieira. Vieira was expelled from PAIGC at a party congress in September 1999 for "treasonable offences, support and incitement to warfare, and practices incompatible with the statutes of the party".
Return
After President Kumba Yalá was overthrown in September 2003 military coup, Vieira returned to Bissau from Portugal on 7 April 2005. Arriving in the city's main football stadium by helicopter, he was met by over 5,000 cheering supporters. Although Vieira's supporters had collected 30,000 signatures for a petition urging him to run for president, he did not immediately confirm his intention to do so, saying that he was returning "to re-establish civic rights and to register to vote in the coming elections" and that he wanted to contribute to peace and stability. He also said that he had forgiven his enemies and that he hoped others would forgive him for any harm he had caused. On 16 April, it was announced that he intended to stand as a candidate in the June 2005 presidential election. Although many considered Vieira to be ineligible because he had been living in exile and because of legal charges against him pertaining to the 1985 killings of suspected coup plotters, he was cleared to stand in the election by the Supreme Court in May 2005, along with Yalá. The Court unanimously ruled in favor of his candidacy on the grounds that he had already ended his exile by returning in April and that no court records of the murder charges could be found. His old party, the PAIGC, backed former interim president Malam Bacai Sanhá as its candidate.According to official results, Vieira placed second in the 19 June election with 28.87% of the vote, behind Malam Bacai Sanhá, and thus participated in the second round run-off. He officially defeated Sanhá in the run-off on 24 July with 52.45% of the vote and was sworn in as president on 1 October.
According to The Economist he probably invited Colombian drug traffickers to finance these elections.
On 28 October 2005, Vieira announced the dissolution of the government headed by his rival Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, citing the need to maintain stability; on 2 November he appointed his political ally Aristides Gomes to the position.
In March 2007, PAIGC formed a three-party alliance with the Party for Social Renewal and the United Social Democratic Party, and the three parties sought to form a new government. This led to a successful no-confidence vote against Aristides Gomes and his resignation late in the month; on 9 April, the choice of the three parties for the position of prime minister, Martinho Ndafa Kabi, was appointed as prime minister by Vieira. In Kabi's three-party government, Interior Minister Baciro Dabo was considered to be the only close ally of Vieira who was included. Later, after PAIGC withdrew from the three-party alliance to protest Kabi's actions, Vieira dissolved the National People's Assembly and appointed Carlos Correia to replace Kabi as prime minister on 5 August 2008.
On 6 August 2008, navy chief Bubo Na Tchuto was behind a failed coup attempt against Vieira.