Junta wants ECOMOG to help organise elections

Military Junta spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Zamora Induta said on Tuesday that the West African Peace Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, will help Guinea Bissau's government prepare general and presidential elections scheduled for 28 November, AFP reported. Neither ECOMOG nor ECOWAS, the regional economic body that deployed the force, could be reached on Tuesday for a comment on Induta's statement. Induta was speaking in Lisbon, where he and other Junta members had talks with Portuguese government officials. ECOMOG has 600 men in Guinea Bissau, where it was deployed to oversee a November 1998 peace accord between the now ousted administration of Joao Bernardo Vieira and the Military Junta. Shortly after the Junta seized power on 7 May, critics questioned the need for the ECOMOG force, comprising troops from Benin, The Gambia, Togo and Niger. In this regard, Benin said it would withdraw its men as soon as possible as they were no longer needed.