Veríssimo Correia Seabra

Veríssimo Correia Seabra (born February 16, 1947 in Bissau ; † October 6, 2004 ibid) was temporarily head of state of Guinea-Bissau in 2003 .

Early years

Seabra came from Bissau, the capital of what was then the Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea. At the age of 16, he joined the PAIGC independence movement in 1963 . In 1966 he went to Bulgaria to study electrical engineering and in 1971 to the Soviet Union , where he received military training. After his return he was responsible for the artillery in the guerrilla war against the Portuguese on the border to the southern neighbor Guinea-Conakry , where the PAIGC had its most important bases. After the country became independent as Guinea-Bissau after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Seabra received officer training in Portugal in 1976 .

soldier

In the following years he played an important role in the PAIGC, which was now a unity party . In 1980 he took part in the coup against President Luís de Almeida Cabral . He rose in the military hierarchy and was deputy commander of the Guinea-Bissau contingent at the UN mission in Angola from 1991 to 1992 . In 1994 he became the chief of operations of the high command.

In 1998 he supported Ansumané Mané in his attempt to overthrow President João Bernardo Vieira , which was also successful in May 1999 after a civil war that was costly. Seabra became Chief of Staff of the Army and remained loyal to the new President Kumba Ialá when Mané attempted another coup in November 2000 and was killed.

head of state

After Ialá proved to be unsuccessful and unsuccessful as president and his soldiers waited in vain for pay, Seabra overthrew the president on September 14, 2003. The coup was welcomed at home, but largely condemned abroad. As chairman of a committee for the establishment of a constitutional and democratic order, he handed over the office of head of state on September 28, 2003 to Henrique Pereira Rosa as head of a transitional government. Free parliamentary elections were held on March 28, 2004.

Seabra was captured and murdered on October 6, 2004 for outstanding payment from mutinous soldiers.

Web links

• Short biography at IRIN NEWS , September 17, 2003 (English)
• AFP on the death of Veríssimo Correia Seabra, October 7, 2004 (French)
• Radio France International on the same topic, October 7, 2004 (French)