UN
Before 15th century
Much of what is now Guinea-Bissau becomes the Kingdom of Gabu within the Empire of Mali
1446-47
Arrival of the Portuguese. The territory later becomes a colony that is administered as part of Cape Verde Islands.
1879
The territory obtains an autonomous colonial administration. Colonization of the country is slow and violent, only becoming effective from the 1920s.
1951
Guinea-Bissau is declared a Portuguese overseas province.
1956
Amílcar Cabral and other Guinean and Cape Verdean patriots create the Partido Africano para Independência de Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC – African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), with Cabral as its first secretary-general.
1959
A protest by dock workers at the Pindjiguiti docks to press demands for better salaries results in a massacre. More than 50 people are killed and hundreds wounded. The PAIGC changes its strategy, switching to mass mobilization in the countryside for an armed struggle now seen as inevitable.
1963
The PAIGC begins an armed struggle for national liberation.
1973
January: Amilcar Cabral is assassinated (20/1/73);
September: The PAIGC proclaims the independence of Guinea-Bissau (24/9/73) with Luis Cabral as its first president.
1974
September: Portugal recognizes the independence of Guinea-Bissau (10/9/74).
1980
Cabral is toppled in a coup d'état, led by then Principal Commissioner (Prime Minister) João Bernardo Vieira. Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde become separate countries.
1994
João Bernardo Vieira and the PAIGC win the country’s first multiparty legislative and presidential elections.
1997
Guinea-Bissau joins the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), adopting the CFA franc as its currency.
1998-1999
An eleven-month civil war between the Government and a Military Junta results in considerable human and material losses. President Vieira resigns and goes into exile. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Malam Bacai Sanha, becomes as interim president.
2000
January: Koumba Iala is elected president. His Social Renewal Party (PRS) wins the parliamentary elections with a relative majority, followed by the Resistance of Guinea-Bissau (RGB) party with the PAIGC in third place. Caetano Intchama (PRS) becomes prime minister at the head of a PRS/RGB coalition government.
November: General Ansumane Mane, chief of the Military Junta is killed in dubious circumstances. Reports later surface that he was executed by elements of the Military Junta. Some time before, he had publicly demoted senior military officials promoted by President Koumba Iala, including the chief of staff and deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, and placed them under house arrest.
2001
January: The RGB withdraws from the coalition government.
March: Prime Minister Intchama is dismissed. He is replaced by Faustino Imbali
December: Prime Minister Imbali is relieved of his post and succeeded by Alamara Intchia Nhasse. Nhasse remains in office until November 2002.
May: The IMF and World Bank suspend assistance to Guinea-Bissau after development funds disappear without justification.
2002
November: President Iala dissolves Parliament, holds parliamentary elections and creates a Government of Presidential Initiative with Mario Pires as Prime Minister.
2003
September: President Iala is overthrown in a military coup (14/9/2003).
The military and political parties sign a Transitional Charter, creating a transitional prime minister, president and council. Henrique Perreira Rosa becomes Transitional President and Artur Sanha Transitional Prime Minister.
2004
March: PAIGC wins legislative polls. Carlos Gomes Junior becomes Prime Minister.
October: General Verissimo Correia Seabra, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, is killed following a mutiny by members of the military. General Tagme Na Wae replaces him.
2005
April: Ex-President Vieira returns after six (6) years in exile.
May: Ex-President Koumba Iala occupies the Office of President, arguing that his mandate had not been completed.
July: Presidential elections are held. João Bernardo Vieira, running as an independent, wins the polls, beating PAIGC candidate Malam Bacai Sanha.
October: President Vieira dismisses the PAIGC government of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior and appoints Aristides Gomes to head a new government supported by a Forum comprising factions of various parties that supported Vieira at the polls.
2006
October: Guinea-Bissau appeals for international help to combat growing use of its coast and islands for trafficking people to Europe.
2007
January: former Navy Chief of Staff Mamadu Lamine Sanha is assassinated. This leads to fighting between protesters and security forces in which one person dies.
March-April: Prime Minister Aristides Gomes resigns after a vote of no confidence in parliament. The PAIGC signs a National Pact with other political parties. Martinho N’Dafa Cabi becomes Prime Minister.
December: Parliament approves a bill granting amnesty for all offences against the State committed between 1980 and 2004.
2008
July: The PRS leaves the National Pact, which sparks a new political crisis.
August: President Vieira dissolves Parliament and appoints Carlos Correia as Prime Minister to head a caretaker government until elections in November. Military Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral Bubo Na Tchuto, accused of involvement in an alleged coup plot, is placed under house arrest, but escapes to The Gambia.
November: The PAIGC wins legislative elections with an absolute majority. Carlos Gomes Junior is appointed Prime Minister. The President's house is attacked, but he escapes.
2009
March: General Tagme Na Wae, Chief of General Staff, is killed in a bomb attack in the headquarters of the Military High Command (1/3/09). One day later (2/3/09),
President Vieira is assassinated. Raimundo Pereira, Speaker of the National Assembly is sworn in as interim president.
June: Two PAIGC parliamentarians, Helder Proenca, and Former Defence Minister and presidential candidate Baciro Dabo, are assassinated.
July: Malam Bacai Sanha wins presidential polls, beating Koumba Iala.
December: Rear Admiral Bubo Na Tchuto returns from The Gambia and takes refuge in UN premises.
2010
April: members of the military led by General Antonio Injai stage a mutiny, detaining Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior [released shortly after] and Chief of General Staff, Vice Admiral Zamora Induta. Both are stripped of their functions.
June: Gen. Injai is appointed Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces.
August: The European Union (EU) announces the suspension of the work of a mission that was supporting Defense and Security Sector Reform.
October: The USA expresses reservations at the appointment of José Americo Bubo Na Tchuto as Chief of Staff of the Navy, considering him to be involved in drug trafficking.
December: General Zamora Induta, is released, then placed under house arrest.
The IMF states that Guinea-Bissau qualifies for HIPC status, paving the way for a large part of its debt to be forgiven.
2011
February: The EU suspends its aid to Guinea-Bissau.
March: An Angolan technical mission, MISSANG, is deployed in the country to support Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces under a bilateral agreement.
July: The opposition sends an open letter to the Prosecutor General demanding justice for the 2009 killings. Opposition groups, known as the “democratic opposition”, stage marches to demand the removal of Prime Minister Gomes.
August: Lawyers for the families of Helder Proenca and Baciro Dabo lodge a criminal complaint against Prime Minister Gomes.
October: The U.S. Treasury Department classifies Bubo Na Tchuto as a drug dealer.
December: Prime Minister Gomes and General Injai denounce an attempted coup (26/12). Some senior military officials, including Bubo Na Tchuto, are arrested.
2012
January: President Sanha dies in France, where he was undergoing medical treatment. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Raimundo Pereira, is sworn in as interim president.
March: First round of the presidential elections
April: The Government is overthrown in a military coup d'etat on the 12th of April. The military detain Acting President Pereira and Prime Minister Gomes. ECOWAS intervenes, and negotiates a transition period of one year. Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, acting Speaker of the National Assembly, becomes transitional president. Rui Duarte Barros, a former UMOEA Commissioner, is appointed Prime Minister. The UN Security Council imposes a travel ban on five senior military officials who led the coup.
July: The Security Council condemns the continuing interference of the military in politics and expresses concern about reports of an increase in drug trafficking since the April coup and demands a return to constitutional order.
October: The military and civilian authorities announce that a heavily armed group led by a Captain Pansau Intchama attacked the barracks of an elite military unit in Bissau (21/10), causing seven deaths, including six among the attackers.
The authorities report N’Tchama‘s capture on Bolama Island (27/10). Some 20 people are detained in connection with the incident in subsequent weeks.
November: The National Assembly begins its first ordinary session since the coup (15/11).
2013
April: Rear Adm. Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto and four other Guinea-Bissau nationals were apprehended by US authorities aboard a yacht in international waters in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. The US Treasury Department designated Na Tchuto as a drug kingpin in 2010 for his alleged role in the cocaine trade in Guinea-Bissau.
Guinea-Bissau sentenced army captain Pansau Ntchama to five years in prison after being found guilty of treason and using illegal weapons while leading a failed coup the year before.
August: Guinea-Bissau made its first extradition of a suspected drug trafficker, part of an effort to shake off its international reputation as a 'narco-state'. The country handed over Telmo Perez Fernandes (48) to Spanish authorities. The Spanish citizen was arrested on June 5 at the request of the Spanish police.
December: Guinea-Bissau's Interior Minister Antonio Suka Ntchama steps down amid an investigation into how 74 Syrians boarded a flight to Portugal with fake passports.
2014
April: Former President Kumba Yala (61) dies. He had ruled from 2000 to 2003. Guinea-Bissau holds presidential and parliamentary elections
May: Presidential runoff between Jose Mario Vaz (PAIGC candidate) and Nuno Gomes Nabiam. José Mário Vaz wins the election.
September: President Jose Mario Vaz sacks the armed forces chief, Antonio Indjai.
2015
March: International donors pledge more than $1.1bn to help Guinea-Bissau's economy revive after years of instability.
August: On 12 August, President Jose Mario Vaz dismisses Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, alleging the existence of unsurmountable differences between the two which would have led to a “crisis”, making the normal functioning of State institutions impossible. On the 20th August the President appoints Baciro Dja as Prime-Minister without the approval of PAIGC.
September: Supreme Court of Justice rules the decree appointing Baciro Djá as PM (Decree 6/2015) unconstitutional. The PR dismisses Baciro Djá from his functions as PM (Decree 9/2015). On 17 september, following the proposal of PAIGC, the president appoints Carlos Correia as Prime-Minister.
October: Presidential Decree (12/2015) appoints the members of the Government reserving the functions of internal Administration and Natural Resources to the PM (ad interim)
November: The AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) met in Addis Ababa to discuss the situation in Guinea-Bissau. The PR dismissed the Prosecutor General, Hermenegildo Pereira, and the President of the Court of Auditors (Tribunal de Contas), Vasco Manuel Evangelista Biague. Opening of the new cycle of the National Assembly (2015-2016)
December: The newly appointed Prosecutor General ordered the National Radio to suspend a weekly debate programme on political and social issues (Cartas na Mesa), citing the need to protect “public order, peace, stability and institutional security”. The ANP debated the Programme of the Government, which was submitted for consideration on 11 December.
During the vote on the Government program, 45 out of 101 MPs present voted in favor Programme while 56, including members of the PRS and 15 PAIGC members, abstained. At the end of the session, the Speaker of Parliament announced that since the Government failed to secure the required 51 votes, the Programme would be re-submitted to parliamentarians within 15 days. He also announced that the session of the ANP would resume on 5 January.
A group of PAIGC militants supporting the faction of former Prime Minister Baciro Dja held a press conference, giving 24 hours to Domingos Simões Pereira to resign from his position as President of the party accusing him of nepotism and corruption.
2016
January: PAIGC expels 14 dissidents, after expelling Baciro Djá in November 2015, for allegedly violating the party’s discipline. PAIGC and PRS agree that the new parliamentary debate on the government programme will take place on 18 january.
Just before, on the 15 January, the ANP Permanent Commission -comprised of nine PAIGC members (including two of the 15 dissidents who were absent) and six PRS members who did not attend the meeting, withdrew the parliamentary mandate of the 15 PAIGC dissidents based on Art 13.1c of the ANP Regulation and Art 8.1.a) of the MP Statutes.
The ANP session to discuss the Government Programme was suspended by the Speaker, due to disorder in the room. In the absence of the PAIGC parliamentary bench, the PRS and the 15 dissidents constituted a new ANP Bureau chaired by Albert Nambeia (PRS President) and rejected the Government Programme followed by a motion of censure against the Correia’s Government.
Following a ruling by the Bissau regional court sating that the 15 dissidents should abide by the decision of the ANP which expelled the, the parliamentary session resumed on the 28 January with the approval of the Government Programme by a majority (59 votes out of 102), without the presence of the oposition (PRS)
February: The PR conveyed a meeting with PAIGC, the 15 expelled MPs, the PRS, the ANP and civil society (represented by the Guinea-Bissau Human Rights League) for negotiations in order to find a solution to the crisis. The UN, the AU, ECOWAS, the CPLP and the EU were invited to attend. PAIGC rejects president’s proposal which included a national unity government.
The Regional Court of Bissau ordered the suspension of the decision by the ANP Permanent Commission to withdraw the parliamentary mandate of the 15 PAIGC dissidents.
March: UN Security-Council, AU and CPLP send missions to Guinea-Bissau . In spite of mediation attempts the crisis continues.
April: The Supreme court rules unconstitutional the ANP permanent committee decision to expel the 15. President calls a parliamentary session, where he will address the nation followed by a debate. ANP schedules the session for the 19 April.