AFP. Washington — Jan. 15, 2010
The United States is hoping Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore will persuade the leader of a military coup in Guinea against returning home, a senior State Department official told AFP.
Moussa Dadis Camara left Guinea after an aide tried to assassinate him on December 3, forcing him to travel first to Morocco for medical treatment and then on to Burkina Faso to convalesce.
William Fitzgerald, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told AFP that Camara's continued absence could provide an opening for interim leader General Sekouba Konate.
“We would hope that Blaise Compaore holds on to Dadis, allows him to convalesce there, because I don't think he's fully recovered, and Konate be given the opportunity to return and continue transition with civilians,” he said.
Fitzgerald's comments came as Konate met with Camara in Ouagadougou for talks on whether the junta leader should remain abroad or return home.
Guinea has been mired in a political crisis sparked by a military coup on December 23, 2008 and worsened by a massacre that killed more than 150 people, according to UN figures, on September 28, 2009.
A recent UN report on the massacre in Guinea's capital Conakry named Camara as a suspect and accused the army of “crimes against humanity.”
“It's very important for the United States that he (Camara) remains out of Guinea while this very fragile transition is going on,” Fitzgerald said.
He warned that Camara “has basically a private army,” and said the United States fears the spread of violence throughout the region, including in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire.
“We spent ten or fifteen years seeing barbaric acts, tremendous bloodshed there. We can't return there,” he said.
“If someone like Dadis comes and runs a state like Guinea, a rogue state, I think it's only a matter of time before it reinfects the region.”
Fitzgerald said Compaore is “very well aware that it would be very dangerous, were Dadis to return to Guinea.”
But he said the Burkinabe leader “also fears the idea that Dadis would not return, and how the ethnic group the Forestiers would react to that.”
The US diplomat said he hoped Compaore would realize his stake in keeping the region stable.
He added that reports of junta members demanding Camara's return were “nothing new.”
“They're afraid that if Dadis does not return, they may be brought to answer for the crimes that were committed on September 28,” he said.
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