Guinea-Bissau’s top army brass met to discuss the government’s wish to ask a foreign mission to intervene to stabilise the country marked by chronic military and political instability.

Officials announced on Monday that the government had agreed to ask a stabilisation mission to deploy in the small and poor west African country.

The chiefs of staff told AFP the military’s decision would be “submitted to the civil authorities” but did not say when.

Soares Sambu, spokesman for the National Defence Council, told AFP that the foreign mission “will be a stabilisation mission and not a force in the proper sense of the term”.

The mission will include members from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) and the African Union, he said.

Its “role will be very precise, particularly to help

Guinea-Bissau to regain its stability,” Sambu added, noting that formalities still had to be completed before the team could start its work.

The mission would also be involved in fighting drugs trafficking, another source said. Its size and other details have not yet been established.

The European Union said meanwhile Monday it was ending a military reform mission to Guinea-Bissau in protest at the appointment of the general behind an April mutiny as the new army chief.

“Political instability and the lack of respect for the rule of law in the country make it impossible for the EU to deploy a follow-up mission, as originally foreseen, without compromising its own principles,” it added.

The National Defence Council is a consultative panel on questions of defence and security that is attached to the cabinet of President Malam Bacai Sanha.

“The president is in the process of seeking a consensus,” Sambi declared.

He said that Sanha had addressed senior officers to tell them, “What the people need are schools, access to health care and not upheavals. You have the duty of guaranteeing peace and not being trouble-makers.”

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony which won independence in 1974, has been dogged by cycles of political and military violence, in which the army has played an important part.

Sanha was elected in July 2009 after his predecessor, Joao Bernardo Vieira, was assassinated by soldiers in April 2009.

On April 1, 2010, a general, Antonio Indjai, overthrew the head of the army, Jose Zamora Induta, and captured the prime minister, who was released after death threats.