"Sao Tome is a microstate with limited capacity to absorb a big influx of cash," said Stephen Harrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "It's also in a neighborhood with two very muscular players, Angola and Nigeria, opening the door for runaway competition for its resources."
Fradique Bandeira de Menezes, the president of Sao Tome, was in the Nigerian capital of Abuja when Pereira led the apparently bloodless putsch on Wednesday. The president accused mutinous troops of being influenced by "the smell of oil." He has remained in Nigeria since then.
James Burkhard, an Africa analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said investors were expecting the coup to collapse in the face of international pressure much in the way a similar power grab in 1995 dissipated after Angola stepped in to mediate between parties.
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