Monday, March 2, 2009 
Junior officer tries to kill Guinea's navy chief of staff


CONAKRY – A junior naval officer tried to kill Guinea’s navy chief, the country’s military rulers said yesterday, in a further sign of instability since a December coup.
The non-commissioned officer, who military sources said was disgruntled because he did not get a promotion after the coup, fired gunshots inside the navy headquarters last week, hitting windows and vehicles, officers said.

“Non-Commissioned Officer Makan Oulare is discharged from the Guinean armed forces for an attempt on the life of the navy chief of staff,” Moussa Dadis Camara, the captain who seized power in December when veteran ruler Lansana Conte died, said in a decree read out on state television yesterday.

Images were broadcast of bullet holes in windows and vehicles at the navy headquarters, and it was reported that the Gendarmerie paramilitary police force was searching for Oulare, who fled on a motorbike after the attack last Wednesday.

The shooting highlights tensions in the armed forces of the west African country, which is impoverished despite having a third of the world’s reserves of the aluminium ore, bauxite.

Several members of the National Council for Democracy and Development junta which Camara assembled after seizing power have since been promoted to higher ranks.

That has caused dissatisfaction among some members of the armed forces who did not receive promotions, military officers who did not wish to be identified said.

Several members of the junta were arrested in late January and accused of plotting to destabilise the new administration. The new finance minister, a captain in the armed forces, was suspended a few days later.

The late Conte’s son Ousmane and a brother-in-law have been rounded up in a wave of arrests in the past 10 days for alleged drug offences, raising fears among human rights campaigners that criminal investigations could be used to settle political scores.

Ousmane Conte, lying on a bed appearing ill and attached to a drip after what officers said was an all-night interrogation, admitted in a televised confession last week to being part of a drug-smuggling network. Conte is an officer in the army. – (Reuters)

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