Guinea/France

Junta accuses France of aiding assassination plot

Article published on the 2009-12-09 Latest update 2009-12-09 12:58 TU

A billboard in Conakry featuring Guinea's military junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara
(Credit: Reuters)

Guinea's military rulers have accused France of being involved in the assassination attempt on Guinea's military leader Moussa Dadis Camara. The French Foreign Ministry denies the charge. Dadis Camara is in hospital in Morocco after being shot by his bodyguard on 3 December.

An inquiry ordered by the military government has found elements which point the finger at Paris, Communications Minister and spokesperson Idriss Cherif told RFI.

The inquiry is not yet over, he added.

But France "energetically denied" the charge that Foreign Minister Berjard Kouchner tried to instigate a coup and called for elections to be held as a priority for the country.

"The President is speaking," Cherif said Tuesday. "He can sit up [...] he was walking in the hospital," 

He added that Camara will soon announce that he will return to Guinea  to take up his responsibilities as the head of state.

But the atmosphere could change quickly, according to Tara O'Connor, the head of Africa Risk Consulting in London.

The situation could move "to extreme at very short notice, just because of the nature of the recent incredible division in the army," she told RFI.

"One of our sources on the ground has said they are actually waiting for the military to implode. That is immensely possible," she said.

"The fact that Dadis Camara has been shot, his supporters from his Forestier ethnic group may take issues into their own hands, so it is a very tense time at the moment," she added.

But Cherif denies that there are cliques in the military.

"There are no divisions in our army," he told RFI. "We are very united around [interim leader] General Konaty and the President of the republic."

Meanwhile, Guinea's military rulers have decided to suspend talks in Burkina Faso until Camara returns to work.

"For the moment our participation in the negotiations is not given up but suspended until the return of the President," Colonel Moussa Keita, the current Minister for Democracy and Development, told state television late Tuesday.