BISSAU (AFP) - Heavily-armed Guinea Bissau troops took to the streets of the capital of the former Portuguese colony, killing two officers, in a protest to demand payment for their tours of duty as UN peacekeepers.
Armed forces chief of staff General Verissimo Correia, leader of a coup in September of last year to oust president Kumba Yala, and another unnamed officer were killed in the early morning melee, Portuguese foreign ministry spokesman Antonio Jacinto told AFP.
Heavily-armed soldiers took over key buildings before dawn and fired off rounds in the direction of the military headquarters in the coastal state on west Africa's Atlantic coast, which has a long history of instability.
A diplomat told AFP from the coastal capital Bissau that the protesters were mostly young recruits, among the 650 troops who were sent in to Liberia in August of last year as rebels closed in on the capital Monrovia.
By midday the soldiers had mostly dispersed, the diplomat told AFP, adding that the streets in front of the residence of interim President Henrique Rosa, the prime minister's office and the Foreign Affairs Ministry were empty.
Talks began Wednesday afternoon between the government, the United Nations and the leader of the renegade troops to broker a deal to pay the soldiers, Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior said on Portugal Radio's Africa service, monitored from Lisbon.
They continued into the evening with little progress, as the renegade soldiers returned to their barracks.
The prime minister said the morning unrest was likely spurred on by opposition politicians.
"The politicians who are behind these incidents don't know how to lose on democratic ground," said Gomes. "This government was legitimately elected."
Gomes heads the government that was elected in March, just six months after Yala's ouster from the presidency of the country wedged between Senegal and Guinea on Africa's Atlantic coast.
A presidential ballot is scheduled for next year.
UNMIL, the UN mission in Liberia, had released funds to Guinea-Bissau's central bank in August to pay the peacekeepers but the money has not yet been disbursed, the diplomat said.
UNMIL spokesman Patrick Coker told AFP that it was up to individual governments to pay their soldiers, not the UN.
"The troop-contributing countries pay the peacekeepers at a rate agreed nationally that reflects the economic situation in the country," Coker said.
"The UN does not have direct influence on what is paid, how it's paid or when it's paid."
The Guinea-Bissau soldiers are not alone in protesting their government's withholding of peacekeeping wages. A Gambian peacekeeping battalion threatened to rally in September to demand their back pay for their year-long assignment in Liberia but backed down when loyalist troops warned they would respond with guns blazing.
UN sources have put the amount peacekeepers are paid between 300 and 1,300 US dollars per month.
Most of Guinea-Bissau's roughly 1.5 million residents live on less than one dollar a day. The country is heavily dependent on foreign aid, and its main foreign exchange earner is cashew nuts.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Monteiro expressed concern that Wednesday's unrest would only make it more difficult for Guinea-Bissau to maintain its foreign aid package. The United States lifted sanctions in August, paving the way for a resumption in assistance, but no agreement has yet been reached.
"Every time there are problems, there is a retreat in aid from the European Union and the United Nations," he told a parliamentary committee on foreign relations.