The Chief of Staff of the Senegalese army, General Cheick Wade, paid a visit to Guinea-Bissau on Friday August 19, a first since the deployment of the forces of his country within the framework of the Mission of support for the stabilization of Guinea-Bissau (MASG). This visit is also part of the strengthening of military cooperation between Dakar and Bissau.
With our correspondent in Bissau, Allen Yero Embalo
This 24-hour visit enabled the head of the Senegalese army, General Cheikh Wade, to meet with the command of the Senegalese forces deployed in Guinea-Bissau since last June as part of the support mission for the stabilization of Guinea-Bissau (MASG).
Mixed patrols
In the bilateral domain, several agreements currently govern military cooperation, namely the exchange of information in particular, mixed patrols along the common border and the training of senior Bissau-Guinean officers in Senegal. However, Guinea-Bissau’s chief of staff, General Biagué Na Ntan, wants these ties to be strengthened.
Guinea-Bissau and Senegal share 338 kilometers of common border, along which a rebellion has been raging for forty years. This issue has not been publicly raised. However, according to some observers, it remains at the heart of the meeting between the two delegations.
Collection of weapons
As part of the agreements signed on August 4 between a faction of Casamance separatists and the Senegalese government, Guinea-Bissau was charged, as guarantor, with supervising the quartering and collection of rebel weapons, from next October.
Read also: Senegal: the army in operation on the “southern front” on the Bissau-Guinean border