Leaders discuss Guinea transition

African diplomats descended on Burkina Faso to ensure a deal is sealed calling for Guinea’s injured leader to step down and for his country to hold democratic elections within six months.

Arriving in Ouagadougou, Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf hailed the accord and said that she felt compelled to travel there because instability in Guinea could threaten the entire region.

She joined a delegation from Ecowas, a regional bloc representing 15 West African nations, whose leaders also rushed to Ouagadougou following the signing of the landmark accord there.

The agreement calls for Guinean leader Captain Moussa “Dadis” Camara who suffered a bullet wound during an assassination attempt, to go into voluntary exile and to allow his deputy to organise elections in order to hand over power to civilians.

“I have to be concerned because Guinea is our neighbour,” Ms Sirleaf said at the airport. “If any problem happens in Guinea, it would affect Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone ... We want to see peace in our sub-region.”

Guinea shares a border with six other countries and is one of the only nations in the region that has not experienced civil war. Many worried that if Capt Camara was allowed to return it could spark a war that would engulf the region.

Capt Camara is blamed for creating ethnic divisions in Guinea by favouring people belonging to his ethnic group, the ’forestier’ which represent less than 1% of the population.

In September, the coup leader’s presidential guard opened fire and killed at least 156 people at a peaceful rally calling for an end to military rule.

Survivors said that the soldiers, who spoke forestier dialects, were actively targeting civilians that appeared to be Peul, the nation’s largest ethnicity who are recognisable because of their lighter skin.

The Peul ethnic group spans much of West Africa and has sizeable populations in most of the countries bordering Guinea – including Liberia – raising the spectre of a spillover effect if they are violently targeted.

The breakthrough deal calling for Capt Camara to go into exile comes six weeks after the 46-year-old was shot by his aide-de-camp.

He was rushed to Morocco for emergency surgery and then, unexpectedly, was flown to Ouagadougou after he reportedly became belligerent toward his Moroccan hosts, demanding to be returned to Guinea.

His number two General Sekouba Konate flew to Ouagadougou as the future of Guinea hung in the balance.

Gen Konate came to power at the same time as Capt Camara in a December 23, 2008 military coup, but unlike Capt Camara he wanted to see a quick transition to democracy following the model of neighbouring countries like Mali – which became a democracy following a coup by an army officer who then organised multiparty elections.