Word: juntas
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...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...
...alliance is one of convenience more than one of ideology. In the main military camp in Conakry, where the junta holes up, each leader has his own barracks and his own loyal troops manning machine guns at the entrance. When I visited the camp in November, the atmosphere was tense and chaotic. Obvious signs of substance abuse - most likely cocaine - showed in the eyes of many soldiers. Men in uniform staggered around shouting and wildly waving their machine guns, and brawls appeared to be routine. (Read "In Guinea, Hopelessness After the Massacre...
...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...
...late September, the Guinean military junta murdered 150 demonstrators and raped scores of women who peacefully sought civilian rule. Two weeks later, a secretive Chinese conglomerate with several ties to state-owned enterprises and governmental agencies struck a $7 billion deal for oil and mineral rights with the Guinean dictatorship, even as the United States and European Union slapped it with sanctions...
...opposition is doubtful of the regime's intentions. Oury Bah, head of the opposition party Union of Democratic Forces (UFDG), says the junta is in dire need of cash to pay its supporters. "They need money to stay in power," he says. "They're ready to sign anything." For its part, the opposition is refusing to take part in talks with the junta aimed at creating a national unity government, saying that doing so would only legitimize Camara's rule. As Bah says: "There's no reason to be optimistic...