The withdrawal of the roughly 270-strong force could ease tensions after Bissau soldiers seized power in April and accused Angola of having had a secret pact with the ousted government to destroy its military.
“It will be between June 2 and June 10,” the official said. “There is a ship on the way and there will also be four planes arriving from Luanda to help with the withdrawal,” he said, asking not to be named.
West African regional bloc ECOWAS had said the Angolan force was meant to leave on May 30, and a Guinea-Bissau military source said on Wednesday the Angolans had delayed their departure “indefinitely”.
“This is simply not true,” the Angolan source said.
The Angolan mission has been in Guinea-Bissau – staying in a hotel in the capital – since early 2011 when it was invited by the former government to help reform the military after a string of coups since independence from Portugal in 1974.
Guinea-Bissau is a hub for narcotics trafficking between South America and Europe, and the United States has named two of its top military officials ‘drugs kingpins’.
Angola announced it would withdraw its force days before the April 12 coup that derailed an election process and forced the poll’s front-runner, former Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, and some of his allies to flee the country.
The junta said Gomes Junior, a supporter of efforts to reform the military and combat cartels using the tiny country as a cocaine transhipment point, had a deal with Luanda to “annihilate Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces”.
Gomes Junior was briefly detained in the coup and went into exile in Portugal after his release. He has said he wishes to return to Guinea-Bissau to rule.
Some of his allies: former army chief of staff Jose Zamora Induta, former interior minister Fernando Gomes, and former election commission chief Desejado Lima Dacosta, fled to Gambia where they have been arrested.
ECOWAS mediated a deal with Guinea-Bissau’s Military Command that paved the way for a civilian transitional government to take back power in mid-May.
Under the deal, the regional bloc has also deployed a 600-strong force to Bissau, made up mainly of Nigerians, charged with overseeing a transition to new elections within 12 months, and eventually with taking over the security sector reform role played by the Angolan troops.
The CPLP grouping of Portuguese-speaking countries and the United Nations have expressed frustration over the ECOWAS deal, saying it does not adhere to a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for military coups.
Western diplomatic sources said the ECOWAS deal had rewarded the coup leaders with the removal of would-be president Gomes Junior and may reflect a rivalry between Angola and Nigeria for influence in the tiny country, which has rich bauxite deposits and possible oil offshore.
In Brussels, the European Union strengthened sanctions against the junta, adding 15 individuals to a list of six banned from entering EU territory and subject to a freeze of their assets within the bloc.
“The EU has imposed sanctions on the members of the military junta as they threaten security and stability in Guinea-Bissau,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. “We continue to demand that constitutional order be immediately restored.”
EU development aid to Guinea-Bissau has been suspended since the military mutiny, but humanitarian aid and direct support to the population have not been affected.
ECOWAS and the United Nations, which have also imposed sanctions on the junta leaders, said armed forces chief Antonio Indjai was behind the putsch. The junta denied this, saying Indjai had been deposed in the coup.