Guinea-Bissau, 1985 — palace coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 7 November 1985, corresponding to the Paulo Correia coup plot against President Joao Bernardo Nino Vieira of Guinea-Bissau. Correia, a senior guerrilla commander of the independence war who had been installed as Vieira's Vice-President after the 1980 coup, emerged as Vieira's chief rival and a champion of his Balanta ethnic group, having already been linked to earlier plots. In November 1985 Correia and his fellow military men planned to overthrow the regime and install Correia as President and the Balanta lawyer Viriato Pa as Vice-President, in the context of protests against a proposed IMF stabilization program.
Correia and about a dozen Balanta were arrested before the coup could be implemented and were tried for treason in July 1986. Six, including Correia and Pa, were officially sentenced to death and executed on 21 July 1986, while dozens of ethnically Balanta officers also faced firing squads, with total arrests put near 50 by the US State Department. Some analysts, including a Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre report, concluded there was likely no genuine plot and that it was a cover for Vieira to purge his Balanta opposition.
The 7 November 1985 coding sits at this planned November 1985 plot.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
40411071985
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Vieira crushed the plot and executed Correia; he ruled until ousted in 1999.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
The Guardian
Montreal Gazette
Times of India
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →