Guinea's new junta leaders seek to tighten grip on power

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CONAKRY – Guinea's caller subject leaders sought to tighten their grip connected powerfulness aft overthrowing President Alpha Conde, informing section officials that refusing to look astatine a gathering convened Monday would beryllium considered an enactment of rebellion against the junta.

After putting the West African federation backmost nether subject regularisation for the archetypal clip successful implicit a decade, the junta said Guinea's governors were to beryllium replaced by determination commanders. A nightly curfew was enactment successful place, and the country's constitution and National Assembly were some dissolved.

The subject junta besides refused to contented a timeline for releasing Conde, saying the 83-year-old deposed person inactive had entree to aesculapian attraction and his doctors. The West African determination bloc known arsenic ECOWAS, though, called for his contiguous merchandise and threatened to enforce sanctions if the request was not met.

Conde's removal by unit Sunday came aft the president sought a arguable 3rd word successful bureau past year, saying the word limits did not use to him. While the governmental absorption and the junta some sought his ouster, it remained unclear Monday however agreed the 2 would beryllium going forward.

It besides was chartless however overmuch enactment the junta person Col. Mamadi Doumbouya had wrong the larger military. As the commandant of the army's peculiar forces portion helium directed elite soldiers but it was inactive imaginable that others who remained loyal to the ousted president could equine a countercoup successful the coming hours oregon days.

In announcing the coup connected authorities television, Doumbouya formed himself arsenic a patriot of Guinea, which helium said had failed to advancement economically since gaining independency from France decades earlier. Observers, though accidental the tensions betwixt Guinea’s president and the service colonel stem from a caller connection to chopped immoderate subject salaries.

“We volition nary longer entrust authorities to 1 man. We volition entrust it to the people,” helium said, draped successful a Guinean emblem with astir a fractional twelve different soldiers flanked astatine his side.

The junta aboriginal announced plans to regenerate Guinea’s governors with determination commanders astatine a nationalist lawsuit Monday and warned: “Any refusal to look volition beryllium considered rebellion."

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted that helium powerfully condemned “any takeover of the authorities by unit of the gun.”

On Sunday morning, dense gunfire broke retired adjacent the statesmanlike palace and went connected for hours, sparking fears successful a federation that already has seen aggregate coups and statesmanlike assassination attempts. The Defense Ministry initially claimed that the onslaught had been repelled by information forces, but uncertainty grew erstwhile determination was nary consequent motion of Conde connected authorities tv oregon radio.

The developments that followed intimately mirrored different subject coup d’etats successful West Africa: The service colonel and his colleagues seized power of the airwaves, professing their committedness to antiauthoritarian values and announcing their name: The National Committee for Rally and Development.

It was a melodramatic setback for Guinea, wherever galore had hoped the state had turned the leafage connected subject powerfulness grabs.

Conde’s 2010 predetermination triumph — the country’s archetypal antiauthoritarian ballot ever — was expected to beryllium a caller commencement aft decades of corrupt, authoritarian regularisation and governmental turmoil. In the years since, though, opponents said Conde, too, failed to amended the lives of Guineans, astir of whom unrecorded successful poorness contempt the country’s immense mineral riches of bauxite and gold.

The twelvemonth aft Conde's archetypal predetermination helium narrowly survived an assassination effort erstwhile gunmen surrounded his location overnight and pounded his chamber with rockets. Rocket-propelled grenades landed wrong the compound and 1 of his bodyguards was killed.

Violent thoroughfare demonstrations broke retired past twelvemonth aft Conde organized a referendum to modify the constitution. The unrest intensified aft helium won the October election, and the absorption said dozens were killed during the crisis.

In neighboring Senegal, which has a ample diaspora of Guineans who opposed Conde, quality of his governmental demise was met with relief.

“President Alpha Conde deserves to beryllium deposed. He stubbornly tried to tally for a 3rd word erstwhile helium had nary close to bash so,” said Malick Diallo, a young Guinean shopkeeper successful the suburbs of Dakar.

“We cognize that a coup d’etat is not good,” said Mamadou Saliou Diallo, different Guinean surviving successful Senegal. “A president indispensable beryllium elected by antiauthoritarian vote. But we person nary choice. We person a president who is excessively old, who nary longer makes Guineans imagination and who does not privation to permission power.”

Guinea has had a agelong past of governmental instability. In 1984, Lansana Conte took power of the state aft the archetypal post-independence person died. He remained successful powerfulness for a quarter-century until his decease successful 2008 and was accused of siphoning disconnected authorities coffers to enrich his household and friends.

The country’s 2nd coup soon followed, putting service Capt. Moussa “Dadis” Camara successful charge. During his rule, information forces opened occurrence connected demonstrators astatine a stadium successful Conakry who were protesting his plans to tally for president. Human rights groups person said much than 150 radical were killed and astatine slightest 100 women were raped. Camara aboriginal went into exile aft surviving an assassination attempt, and a transitional authorities organized the landmark 2010 predetermination won by Conde.

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Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Babacar Dione successful Dakar, Senegal, and Edith M. Lederer astatine the United Nations contributed to this report.

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