{"id":31564,"date":"2026-04-11T17:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T15:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31564"},"modified":"2026-04-11T17:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T15:06:57","slug":"guinea-bissau-civil-society-groups-criticise-belgium-meeting","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/guinea-bissau-civil-society-groups-criticise-belgium-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Guinea-Bissau civil society groups criticise Belgium meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent meeting held in Belgium&#8217;s Brussels between European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Umaro Sissoco Embal\u00f3 has drawn sharp criticism from civil society organisations in Guinea-Bissau.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In a joint statement, groups including the Espa\u00e7o de Concerta\u00e7\u00e3o das Organiza\u00e7\u00f5es da Sociedade Civil, the Frente Popular and Firkidja di Pubis warned that the meeting could be seen as a form of \u201cpolitical legitimisation\u201d of leadership they associate with human rights concerns and a deepening democratic crisis.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Weighing in on the developments, legal expert and political analyst Fransual Dias says the backlash reflects broader unease within the country.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis kind of engagement raises serious questions about the message being sent to the people of Guinea-Bissau,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is a growing perception that international partners may be overlooking internal governance concerns, and that risks weakening public trust in both domestic institutions and external actors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dias adds that while diplomatic engagement is important, it must be balanced with accountability and respect for democratic principles.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27760,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-31564","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"A recent meeting held in Belgium's Brussels between European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Umaro Sissoco Embal\u00f3 has drawn sharp criticism","published_date":"2026-04-11 17:00:15","news_description":"A recent meeting held in Belgium's Brussels between European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa, former Senegalese President Macky Sall and Umaro Sissoco Embal\u00f3 has drawn sharp criticism","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31565,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31564\/revisions\/31565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}