Ceasefire agreement signed

Guinea Bissau’s beleaguered President Joao Bernardo Vieira and a mutinous military junta trying to overthrow him, led by General Ansumane Mane, signed a ceasefire today on the fourth day of intensive fighting in the capital, Bissau, news reports said. The truce was brokered by Togo’s foreign and defence ministers, Joseph Koffigoh and Assani Tidjani, who arrived in the battered capital just after midday. They were sent by Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema in his capacity as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of which Guinea Bissau is a member. The agreement followed heavy artillery and mortar fire duels in the city earlier today as the anti-government military junta launched a renewed and determined drive to crush loyalist and allied foreign forces still holding a part of the city. A Roman Catholic missionary in the city, Father Mario Faccioli, told RDP Antena 1 radio of Libson the city was “like hell” during the fighting. “The shells and grenades are exploding everywhere.” He said there were “many dead and many wounded”.