The president of the dissolved parliament of Guinea-Bissau, Domingos Simões Pereira, who returned after seven months abroad, lamented the lack of security in the country that affects all citizens.
The president of the dissolved parliament of Guinea-Bissau, Domingos Simões Pereira, who returned to the country today after seven months abroad, lamented the lack of security in the country which, he said, affects all citizens.
Coming from Dakar (Senegal), after several months in Portugal, from where he said he had travelled to other parts of the world to report on the situation in Guinea-Bissau, Simões Pereira said that all Guinean citizens “fear for their safety”. “I arrived and I was convinced that everything was normal. Suddenly, I realised that people have blocked access to the airport. There are journalists who have been attacked, there are journalists who have been deprived of the materials they use for their work,” observed Simões Pereira.
The politician was referring to the Lusa image reporter, who was ordered by members of the Rapid Intervention Police to delete the images he had taken of the caravan that accompanied Simões Pereira on the trip from the airport to his residence in the centre of Bissau. The Portuguese professional recounts that an agent punched him in the back. Others tried to get him to report to the police and take him to the police station, which ultimately did not happen.
“When freedom is insecure, it is an indication that those who have power, those who nominally claim to have it, are afraid,” said Domingos Simões Pereira, in an interview at his home in the Luanda neighborhood of Bissau.
The leader of the Inclusive Alliance Platform (PAI – Terra Ranka) coalition, winner of the 2023 legislative elections, who was in government and led Parliament, dissolved last December by the Guinean president, said that the time has come because the forces are rising up to cheer to calm the atmosphere in the country. Simões Pereira said that he will not be able to fight this fight alone, but that he is in a dynamic that “must call on everyone, civil society, political parties” to do so.
Asked about the seizure by the Judicial Police of a plane loaded with more than 2.6 tons of cocaine at the Bissau airport on the 7th, Pereira said that Guineans must stand up to clarify “who is a drug trafficker” in the country.
The politician, who is also president of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which leads the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, said it was difficult to “invent adjectives” in the case related to the plane that the PJ said came from Venezuela. “When in broad daylight there is a plane that lands at our airport and in which this quantity of drugs is seized (…), it is a non-state,” said Domingos Simões Pereira, recalling that he drew the attention of Guineans to the possibility of the country becoming “a non-state.”
Domingos Simões Pereira stressed that the crew was “so comfortable” that they did not even hide the drugs they were carrying on the plane. “Probably the crew, the people who were on the plane, were convinced that they were going to a place they usually went to,” said the politician, who asked for clarification, instead of blaming the owner of the seized drugs.
Domingos Simões Pereira said that it is necessary to clarify the situation, so that it is known who is a drug trafficker and who is not.
Source: Observadora
