Coup follows Guinea leader's death

23/12/2008| IslamWeb

Guinea's army has staged a coup after the death of Lansana Conte, the president for 24 years.

 

A statement read out on state radio on Tuesday, just hours after Conte's death was announced, said that the government had been dissolved and the constitution suspended.

 

But Tidiane Souare, the Guinean prime minister, said the government had not been dissolved.

 

An Associated Press reporter in Conakry, the capital, said he had seen dozens of armed soldiers heading towards the presidential compound shortly after army officers were said to have summoned ministers and other senior government officials to a military base.

 

'Constitution suspended'

 

"The institutions of the republic have shown themselves to be incapable of resolving the crises which have been confronting the country," Captain Moussa Dadis Camara said in an address on Radio Conakry.

 

"As of today, the constitution is suspended as well as political and union activity."

 

Camara said that civilian and military representatives would make up a "consultative council" in place of the deposed government and state institutions.

 

Aboubacar Sompare, the national assembly president, later said to France 24, a French television station, that the move was an attempted coup by a group within the military.

 

Witnesses in Conakry told Al Jazeera that a young captain from the presidential guard announced on state radio that "people should stay at home and that the military will take control of the political and economic situation in the country".

 

Police and army personnel were said to be seen everywhere.

 

A senior official at the African Union said that they were "preoccupied and keenly monitoring" the situation.

 

Long illness

 

Conte, 74, was said to have died late on Monday at age 74 in Conakry after a long illness.

 

He was one of Africa's longest serving leaders.

 

After the country gained independence from French rule in 1958, Conte climbed through the army's ranks to deputy head, before being chosen to lead a military recovery committee that overthrew the government, promising civilian rule and democracy.

 

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Richard Cornwell, the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, said: "We've been expecting for some years that Lansana Conte's health would eventually give in ... and there had been no preparation for any sort of succession.

"This was to be anticipated. It was a last resort, but really it was an only resort.

 

"What we were really worried about, more than even a coup was the fact that the army might split and this would result in civil war.

 

"And of course with Guinea, being where it is ... with Sierra Leone and Liberia as its near neighbors, this would be very dangerous in that region."

 

Cornwell said he thought the population would be willing to see what came of the new ruling faction, whose members and stance were still unknown.

 

"But obviously [the group] are also aware that the African Union is not likely to recognize the sort of government that emerges from a coup, hence the incorporation of civilian politicians."

 

Before the coup, Souare, the prime minister, had called for "calm and restraint" and for the army to help keep the peace.

 

Reclusive autocrat

 

The supreme court was asked to find a replacement to Conte, who was a reclusive diabetic and chain smoker, and 40 days of national morning were declared.

 

The former colonial soldier led the world's number one bauxite exporter with strong-arm tactics since taking power in a coup in 1984, after Ahmed Sekou Toure, the West African country's first president, died in a US hospital.

 

He had won three sets of elections in the country post-1993. However, the polls were mostly boycotted by opposition groups who said that they were undemocratic.

 

Conte had failing health since the 2002, occasionally slipping into a coma, generating rumours of his death.

 

This led to campaigning on a reduced scale in presidential elections in 2003, but he nevertheless won with over 95 per cent of the vote.

 

Opposition parties increasingly called for Conte - who was frequently abroad in Morocco, Switzerland and Cuba for medical treatment later on during his presidency - to step down, raising fears of political instability should he die while in power.

 

Demonstrations against Conte's rule in 2007 and last month were suppressed in deadly fashion, with 186 and 4 people being killed respectively.

 

However, he was defiant concerning his position towards the end of his reign.

 

"I am the boss, others are my subordinates," he said in 2007.

 

"There is no question of transition," he said, after being questioned about who might take over from him.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Map of Guinea

 

Al-Jazeera