Troops deploy to protect border

Guinea-Bissau has deployed an unspecified number of troops along its northern border with Senegal’s Casamance area where rival factions have been fighting each other for control of the pro-independence movement, the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported on Thursday. Fighting between wings of Senegal’s Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC) has led to an undisclosed number of casualties and to the suspension, on Wednesday, of the group’s planned strategy meeting on future peace negotiations with the Senegalese government. News reports have suggested that a faction of the MFDC led by the Reverend Diamacoune Senghor favours talks while the military element of the movement, led by Salif Sadjo, prefers a military option in the bid for independence. Guinea-Bissau Defence Minister Fernando Correia Landim said his country’s troop deployment was a pre-emptive measure so that MFDC fighters would not try to use Guinea-Bissau as a rear base to attack Senegal. The government in Bissau, he added, was ready to contribute to the peace negotiations between the Senegalese government and the MFDC.