Amid the shelling and the frantic efforts of over 200,000 displaced Guineans to find food and shelter, President João Bernardo ‘Nino’ Vieira’s mandate expires this month. But for many people - and for most opposition parties - his political legitimacy has long since expired. Brigadier Ansumane Mane, who launched the rebellion against Vieira on 7 June (AC Vol 39 No 13), commands the loyalty of the majority of the army (and of opposition leaders, most of whom are in hiding or trying to flee abroad). Mane’s cause has become a nationalist crusade against the President, who relies on a rump of the former government army and on over 2,000 Senegalese soldiers to put down the rebellion.
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