Guinean leader rejects French intervention call

CONAKRY, Guinea — Guinea’s leader on Monday dismissed the French foreign minister’s call for international intervention in the West African country after soldiers there opened fire on demonstrators last week, killing at least 57.

Capt. Moussa “Dadis” Camara, who seized power in a coup nine months ago, called French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner’s comments an “affront to the dignity” of African people in an interview with France24 radio and television.

Camara was responding to an interview Sunday in which Kouchner told French media that international intervention was needed in the former French colony and that France could no longer work with Camara.

Meanwhile, Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore arrived in Conakry on Monday to try and mediate after last week’s violence.

ECOWAS, a regional bloc of African states, appointed Compaore as a mediator in the crisis on Friday. The former army captain, who rose to power in Burkina Faso in a 1987 coup, has previously helped mediate in Ivory Coast and Togo.

“I am here to try and mediate between the military government and the political parties in a bid to bring down tension,” Compaore told reporters at Conakry airport.

Presidential guard troops fired on 50,000 people at Guinea’s main soccer stadium last Monday, shattering hopes that the West African country was shedding the yoke of dictatorship.

A Guinean human rights group says 157 people were killed and more than 1,200 wounded last Monday when soldiers opened fire at the national soccer stadium. The government put the death toll at 57.

Some of those at the rally, upset that Camara might run for president in January 2010 elections, had chanted: “We want true democracy.”

Camara, a previously unknown army captain in his 40s, was welcomed when he seized power just hours after the death of longtime dictator Lansana Conte.

Camara initially said he would not run in elections scheduled for January, but recently indicated that he may have changed his mind. After the deadly protest, he banned all gatherings and demonstrations.

“It seems now that we can’t work with Mr. Camara and that there must be international intervention,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told RTL radio, Le Figaro newspaper and LCI television in a joint interview that aired Sunday.

Kouchner also said he believes the chances of warfare are “tremendous” among different political groups in Guinea.

Guinea became the first of France’s African colonies to become independent in 1958, after nearly seven decades of French rule.

Since winning independence, Guinea has been pillaged by its ruling elite. Its 10 million people are among the world’s poorest, even though its soil has diamonds, gold, iron and half the world’s reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.

Associated Press Writer Deborah Seward in Paris contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS to comments made Monday.)