20100401
ALALAM

Guinea-Bissau soldiers have arrested the army chief and the prime minister, at one point threatening to kill him, in an apparent coup bid in the west African country.

There were varying accounts Thursday of whether Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior had been released or whether he remained under house arrest.

But the newly designated army chief, Antonio Indjai, having earlier threatened to kill Gomes, later sought to play down the events, saying the military still answered to the political authorities.

A military source said Gomes had been arrested at his office early Thursday, taken to the former army headquarters and then brought back to his office before being escorted to his home.

"We don't know what to do with him," he said, adding: "There was also a reaction from some loyalist officers."

Soldiers were visible around army barracks while hundreds of people gathered outside the government headquarters chanted: "Free Cadogo, we have had enough violence."

The chief of defense staff General Jose Zamora Induta and 40 officers had also been arrested, said the military source.

"We led them under escort to the air base near the airport," the source added.

Indjai, previously the deputy army chief of staff, had been named to "manage the situation" in the tiny West African country, according to a military source.

National radio broadcasts were interrupted by military music, but hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the prime minister's residence to protest his arrest.

Indjai had threatened to kill Gomes, whose popular nickname is 'Cadogo,' if his supporters continued to press for his release.

"We ask you to stop anything that attracts a crowd in the streets," the general said at a press conference.

"If you do not do this, we will have to kill Cadogo," he added.

By late Thursday, the demonstrators had dispersed.

But in a statement later broadcast on the radio, Indjai said the military would submit to the political authorities.

President Malam Bacai Sanha acknowledged that deposed army chief Induta was being detained, in a statement to Portuguese radio.

Sanha said in a statement broadcast on Portugal's Antena 1: "There was a confusion between soldiers that reached the government, but the situation is calm."

Gomes was at home and the deposed army chief Induta was at an airbase close to Bissau, where he was detained.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a peaceful resolution, while a statement issued by his special representative for the country spoke of the prime minister's "detention and subsequent release."

The former Portuguese colony has seen repeated coups since independence in 1974.

A new crisis erupted in March 2009 when president Joao Bernardo Vieira was murdered by troops, apparently in revenge for the killing hours earlier of the armed forces chief.