Word: camara
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
During his 11 months in power, Guinean strongman Moussa Dadis Camara, an army captain turned head of state, has been famous for his rants on television. Locals call it the Dadis show, and Camara uses his screen time to personally expose corruption and ties between the former regime and the transatlantic cocaine trade...
...Camara was shot in the head twice by soldiers loyal to one of his lieutenants. Recuperating in a hospital in Morocco, Camara is unlikely to return to run the country anytime soon. Though his departure won't be mourned, it is probable that worse lies ahead for Guinea, a country of 10 million plagued by extreme poverty, corruption and dire governance. (See pictures of Guinea-Bissau: world's first narco-state...
...Camara hardly inspired much hope. In a documentary on news network France24, the 35-year-old soldier was keen to show off his bedside literature: a copy of the self-help book The Power of Positive Thinking. The hallway of his barracks is hung with a clumsy oil painting of him riding a horse, eyes fixed on the horizon like some latter-day Napoléon. Many in Guinea maintain that Camara lost control over the army within months of seizing power in a Christmas coup after the death of President Lansana Conte. He himself admitted as much after...
...then came his own shooting. It appears to have been triggered by a botched attempt to arrest one of his closest collaborators in the junta, Lieutenant Aboubacar Diakite, alias Toumba, chief of the presidential guard. Toumba and Camara are part of an alliance of commanders that includes Captain Jean Claude Pivi, a former martial-arts champion who did not get along with Toumba...
...junta holds together at all, it will be thanks to its No. 2, General Sekouba Konate. The days after Camara was shot, Pivi's troops launched an assault on Toumba. Various reports of pillaging and violence by opposing factions emerged, but the chaos could have been worse. Konate was quick to outlaw Toumba, who is now in hiding, and scores of his supporters have been arrested...