Almost one month after Guinea-Bissau's military junta seized power in a coup, the UN security council was due to meet with the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) on Monday in a further attempt to resolve the country's political crisis.
Many Bissau-Guineans are pinning their hopes on the talks, after ongoing discussions between regional West African bloc ECOWAS and the junta stalled.
ECOWAS met with the coup leaders, including armed forces chief Antonio Indjai, in Gambia and in Senegal last week. The grouping backed European Union sanctions on the coup leaders and said it would mandate a regional peacekeeping force, but stopped short of confirming a timeline for troop deployment.
According to members of the UN's security sector reform program in Guinea-Bissau, targeted sanctions on coup leaders are unlikely to force the junta into submission.
Although European bank accounts of six junta leaders have been frozen, and a travel ban imposed, members of the security sector reform program say the coup leaders have access to large amounts of cash sourced through drug trafficking.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said that Guinea-Bissau is a key stop on the cocaine trafficking route between South America and Europe. Members of the junta are implicated in the trade, the UNODC has said.
Some Bissau-Guineans are hopeful that a peacekeeping force could resolve the political stasis.
“A military force would be a way of stabilising the country,” said Moises Correia, a university student in Bissau. “I think it would help reassure people that we are not being forgotten about,” he said.
But others are fearful.
Guinea-Bissau's civil war, which took hold in 1998 and displaced about 350 000 people, escalated after regional troops from Senegal and Guinea were seen to be taking the side of soldiers loyal to the government. – Sapa-dpa