Restore constitutional rule to Guinea Bissau - JAK

Accra, Sept.15, GNA - ECOWAS Chairman President John Agyekum Kufuor on Monday called for the immediate restoration of constitutional order in Guinea Bissau where the military toppled President Kumaba Yala's government in a coup d'etat early Sunday.

A statement issued to the Ghana News Agency from the ECOWAS Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria, said President Kufuor was immediately despatching a fact-finding mission of Foreign Ministers of the region and the Executive Secretariat to Guinea-Bissau to investigate Sunday's upturns.

The soldiers, led by the Chief of Staff, General Verissimo Correia Seabre, announced the coup, dismissing the government and setting up a transitional government to include "all national political orientations".

All government ministers have been ordered to report to public buildings in the capital of the former Portuguese colony. In its statement, the ECOWAS Secretariat called on parties involved in that country's political conflict to resolve their differences through dialogue and peaceful means and refrain from any action that would jeopardise public order and security in that country. ECOWAS also demanded that appropriate measures be taken to secure lives and property.

The statement reiterated "ECOWAS' commitment to the democratic process; respect for human rights; rule of law and good governance in its Member States.

It also reiterated ECOWAS' commitment to its various Protocols on democratic governance and the 1999 Algiers Declaration of the African Union, which stipulates that no recognition would be accorded to a government, which comes into power by overthrowing a democratically elected government or through unconstitutional means.

Last November, President Yala dissolved the government, promising new elections but that had been postponed four times since. On Saturday, the body in charge of elections in that country said the President would have to cancel them again.