Nearly one month after Guinea-Bissau's military seized power in a coup, solutions to the country's political instability remain elusive. Since Monday's United Nations Security Council meeting in Big apple, attended by the ousted ruling party's foreign minister and the Guinea-Bissau U.N. special envoy, Bissau-Guineans had been debating the right way to resolve the crisis, and a few are calling to bring coup leaders to justice.
But the country's whitewashed Ministry of Justice inside the capital, Bissau, has stood empty since military figures seized power in a mid-April coup.
Now the country's justice system, limited even before the coup, has stopped operating completely. The minister of justice has fled, staff have gone home and legal cases were put on hold.
As the international community discusses Guinea-Bissau's future and the potential of a world peacekeeping force within the country, many Bissau-Guineans believe that an inadequate justice system is likely one of the reasons behind the most recent coup.
Sanctions, Circumvented
The European Union has imposed sanctions on six military figures, including Antonio Indjai, head of the militia, but Bissau-Guineans say coup leaders are corrupt and operate outside of the country's skeletal justice system.
Despite the industrial sanctions, they believe coup leaders will continue to access funds through drug trafficking.
The Usa has previously accused some senior military figures of involvement in cocaine trafficking, which the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says is a big source of instability in Guinea-Bissau.
Maimouna Bacar Sande, a 3rd year law student, says Guinea-Bissau's top military and political figures are rarely held liable for their actions.
Guinea-Bissau's crisis runs deep, says Sande, explaining that one approach to destabilization for the rustic which has suffered several coups because the end of the civil war, will be to reinforce its justice system.
The political situation, she says, is sort of a bad weed growing in a gorgeous country that should be pulled out by the foundation.
Inoperative courts and prisons
Brother Michael Daniels, an American Catholic priest at Bissau's main cathedral, agrees. As well as his work for the church, he leads an initiative for peace, justice and human rights.
He says there's no justice for military and political players implicated in international drug trafficking or human-rights abuses, and that justice ministers currently aren't capable of manage even routine duties.
"The state institutions aren't working and the Ministry of Justice closed down," says Brother Daniels, explaining that military leaders considered releasing prisoners from the country's two main jails just because they didn't have enough food for the inmates, a lot of whom are incarcerated for theft and other small crimes.
"i'm going buy [the food] myself," he says. "I watch for a girl to complete cooking it and go bring it to 30, 40 prisoners."
Outside the Ministry of Justice, law student Justino Nhaga sits on a wall waiting to satisfy a pal.
"The country's ongoing political crisis will only be solved when a competent justice system is established and the coup leaders are held accountable," says Nhaga.
Although heads of state representing the commercial Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will continue talks on Guinea-Bissau in coming days on the U.N. Security Council, Nhaga says the placement might be solved by Bissau-Guineans, not by the international community.
Likening international intervention to a donated jacket with a purpose to improve the location for just a little while, underneath the garment, he says, political problems will persist.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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