Guinea-Bissau, 2010 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

The dataset records an event coded as an attempted military coupi in Guinea-Bissau on 1 April 2010, a mutiny by soldiers that briefly threw the government into crisis and underscored the military's dominance over the country's fragile civilian institutions. The action arose from tensions within the armed forces following the turmoil of 2009, when President Joao Bernardo Vieira had been assassinated and a new president, Malam Bacai Sanha, elected. On 1 April 2010, mutinous soldiers led by or associated with the deputy army chief of staff briefly detained the prime minister, Carlos Gomes Junior, and the army chief of staff, Zamora Induta, in a show of force that the government and international observers characterized as an attempted coup or a serious challenge to civilian authority.

Crowds reportedly rallied in support of the mutineers' figurehead, the drug linked general Antonio Indjai, who emerged strengthened from the affair. The elected government survived in form, but the episode confirmed that real power lay with the military. Guinea-Bissau's instability persisted, and in April 2012 the army mounted a full coup, seizing power between rounds of a presidential election.