The President of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoko Embalo, is expected to visit Lisbon this Monday, during which meetings are planned with the head of state and the Prime Minister of Portugal.
Sissoko Embalo told Lusa on the 10th that his state visit to Lisbon, the official program of which begins on Tuesday, “is a good sign” since it “in fact demonstrates the rapprochement between Portugal and Guinea-Bissau.”
“Since I have been president, our relations with Portugal have never deteriorated,” he said at the time on the sidelines of a meeting with military leaders at the presidential palace in Bissau.
Sissoko Embalo recalled that next month, the President and Prime Minister of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and António Costa, respectively, will arrive in the capital of Guinea-Bissau as guests for the official celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Guinea-Bissau. Bissau’s independence is scheduled for November 16.
On Sunday, the Firkidja di Púbis movement, which brings together Guinean activists, students and workers in Portugal, in a letter addressed to the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Prime Minister of Portugal, expressed its “deep indignation at the support that the Portuguese state has given to Humaro Sissoko Embalo.” .
The authors stated that “workers, students and the Guinean people are attentive and reject” the “complicity” of the President of the Republic and Prime Minister of Portugal “with the leader of an absolutist and anti-democratic political project in the implementation of his populist program.” , which he calls “aggressive diplomacy” aimed solely at distracting Guineans and Guinea-Bissau’s international partners “from their attempts to render the structure of stable and democratic governance unviable.”