| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Subsaharan |
| Guinea's coup leader woos foreign critics |
| 2008-12-28 |
| Guinea's new military junta, buoyed by the backing of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, was to launch a charm offensive on Saturday to win international recognition after leading a bloodless coup. The move comes a day after the West African nation laid to rest longtime dictator Lansana Conte, who died on Monday aged 74 after 24 years at the helm. The junta, in a statement read on national radio, said it would first hold an "informational meeting" at 1000 GMT with "representatives of civil society, political parties, religious faiths and unions". A second meeting would take place at noon for representatives of the United Nations, European Union and African Union, the Group of Eight leading industrialised countries and the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc. The meetings will be held at the Alfa Yaya Diallo military camp near the airport in Conakry, the seaside capital. The African Union Saturday however said it would continue to oppose the coup. "We see that the constitutional order has not been respected ... and the transition period fixed by the constitution is two months and not two years," said the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra told AFP. The putschists, who earned wide global condemnation, on Friday received an unequivocal thumbs up from Senegal's leader Wade, an 82-year-old regional heavyweight. "I think that this group of soldiers deserves to be backed," Wade told reporters at Senegal's embassy in Paris, shortly after talking by telephone to Moussa Dadis Camara, putsch leader and self-declared president of Guinea. Wade said he had been asked by Camara -- who addressed him as 'father' -- to serve as his spokesman to the rest of the world, and described the army captain as an honest young man who had taken power to fill a dangerous vacuum. "This is the first time that the military has said, 'We'll organise elections and return to our barracks'," Wade said. "I call on all countries, the European Union, and in particular France, not to throw the first stone, but to take this group at their word." France had earlier insisted Guinea hold free and transparent elections within six months. "If you want elections where the people can express themselves clearly, you're going to need to draw up a voter register. That takes time. It wouldn't be technically possible to hold elections within two months," Wade said. Wade said he thought it would take at least eight months to hold a poll. Asked whether Camara would himself be candidate for president, Wade said, "That's not his strategy. He's a pure young man who wants to do what's right and has no political ambition. He seems completely honest to me." Camara on Thursday won the allegiance of Conte's prime minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare, who addressed him as 'Mr President' and told the coup leader that he and his ministers were ready to serve the junta. Camara, who has already appointed a military-dominated governing council in place of the civilian government, assured Souare of his safety and told him that military rule was only temporary but underlined that elections will be held only in December 2010. Conte, a chain-smoking career soldier who came to power in a coup after the death of Guinea's founding president Ahmed Sekou Toure was buried on Friday. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Try comping their meal for a good review. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-12-28 12:22 |