Junta VP returns to Guinea after leader is airlifted to Morocco for emergency treatment

Junta VP returns to Guinea after leader airlifted

CONAKRY, Guinea — The No. 2 of Guinea’s military junta returned to the country overnight, helping fill a dangerous power vacuum after the president was shot by his top aide and evacuated for emergency treatment, a government spokesman said Saturday.

Gen. Sekouba Konate, one of the vice presidents of Guinea’s junta and its minister of defense, had been away in Lebanon and had rushed back after Capt. Moussa “Dadis” Camara was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt by his aide-de-camp. Camara was airlifted to a military hospital in Morocco early Friday where he is receiving treatment.

“Sekouba Konate returned at around midnight. It’s he that is going to coordinate the actions (of the junta),” said Minister of Communications Idrissa Cherif.

A nationwide manhunt continued, he said, for the former head of the presidential guard and one of the president’s most trusted aides Lt. Abubakar “Toumba” Diakite who opened fire on the country’s leader following an altercation on Thursday.

Cherif also confirmed that two people were killed in the confrontation, including Camara’s driver and his bodyguard. “The bodyguard’s head was crushed. They attacked him with machetes. His eyes were poked out,” Cherif said.

Camara was doing fine, Cherif said. But Blaise Compaore, the president of neighboring Burkina Faso, told state TV late Friday that the Guinean leaders condition was “difficult but not desperate.”

Camara’s departure has left a dangerous void in the country of 10 million where the military has become deeply fractured. It is the first time that the 45-year-old leader has left Guinea since seizing control in a coup last December.

The void was exacerbated by Konate’s absence. Konate has become one of Camara’s closest associates and the two were almost always seen together. He is a commanding presence inside the army and is said to have several hundred men that are faithful to him.

Konate’s return makes it more likely that the clan allied with Camara will be able to hang on to power.

Cherif said that “several” of Toumba’s men had been captured trying to flee across the border into neighboring countries. It is unclear how many men Toumba still has at his side.

Toumba was the head of the presidential guard and is accused of having led the Sept. 28 massacre at a pro-democracy rally. At least 157 civilians were killed and dozens of women were also gang raped by soldiers on the stadium grass during the massacre, according to human rights groups.

Human rights groups believe that Camara — who was not at the stadium — most likely gave the order to have the protesters killed, but it was Toumba that was widely seen carrying it out.

The massacre led the European Union and the African Union to impose sanctions on Guinea, including a travel ban on top members of the junta. A U.N. commission traveled to Conakry to begin interviewing dozens of witnesses to the massacre in an effort to assign blame.

Although it is unclear what caused the confrontation between Camara and the head of his presidential guard on Thursday, officials close to the two men said that the presence of the U.N. investigators who arrived last week had ratcheted up tension between them.

Camara came to power in a coup last December just hours after the death of Lansana Conte, another military officer who had ruled for nearly a quarter century. He promised to hold elections within one year in which he would not run, but then reversed course saying he would be a candidate. This move prompted the massive protest inside the capital’s national stadium in September.

The 50,000-seat stadium was filled to capacity, said witnesses, when the red beret-wearing presidential guard sealed off the exits, firing horizontally into the crowd, as people fell like cards.

Women were dragged to the stadium grass and red berets stood with outstretched arms, as soldiers took turns raping them. Many were sexually assaulted with bayonets, pieces of wood, knives and rifle barrels, according to numerous witnesses. Others were kidnapped and driven to villas where they were drugged and gang raped over several days, while men in military uniform videotaped them, three women who survived told The Associated Press.

While Guinea has seen several repressive regimes since winning independence from France in 1958, citizens say the brutality they witnessed inside the stadium surpassed anything they have ever experienced. After the massacre, the calls for Camara to step down became deafening.

(This version CORRECTS date of independence from 1960 to 1958.)