GUINEA

Military strongman Captain Moussa Dadis Camara - GETTY IMAGES

Problems of Guinea Conakry continue to multiply in the face of a wishy-washy posturing by the international community.

Strong on rhetoric but weak on strategy; that's how the international community's posturing on crisis in Guinea Conakry looks as the leverage necessary to effect quick and fundamental change in the country seems lost. Junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara had promised to step down before elections scheduled for 2010, but had changed his mind saying he would stand for president. And last September, troops opened fire on crowds protesting against his candidacy, killing at least 157.

In response the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sub-regional bloc, which had earlier suspended Guinea, imposed an arms embargo on the country. The 15-member group called on its chairman, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, to take "all necessary measures" to obtain the support of the African Union, European Union and United Nations to enforce the embargo.

The African Union indeed asked the junta to step down and former colonial power France even announced a weapons ban on Guinea's military. The International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into the rally deaths, while the European Union (EU) called for Captain Camara to be tried for crimes against humanity. As for the US, it imposed sanctions against Camara and 41 members of his junta.

But as logical as the international condemnation of the Guinean situation is, he hasty move to commence investigation for crimes against humanity, which means a possible indictment of Camara, however, complicates efforts at finding solutions to the current political crisis, and risks putting Guinea on track for many more years of military dictatorship.

The massacre in Guinea no doubt warrants judicial action, but the international priority should have been luring Camara out of power and reconstituting the democratic process in Guinea, as they did so well in the case of Charles Taylor and Liberia. But whether it was due to French interest in prosecuting their former recalcitrant child or the recklessness of international thinking, the consequences of their haphazard solutions will be far-reaching for Guineans. One thing is for sure, Camara is not going to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb because of international sanctions.

Apparently drawing from the experiences of Liberia's former president Charles Taylor and Sudan's incumbent President Omar al-Bashir, Camara knows that the only way to possibly escape the arms of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is to remain in power, especially when such power is sustained by sheer military force.

The Guinean dictator also exhibits an uncanny ability to exploit divisions within the international community to his advantage, using his country's natural resources, as he, in the wake of the condemnations and sanctions announced a $7 billion mining deal with a Chinese company.

It is a poignant reminder to the international community that it may be tactlessness inviting a handshake with a fist. This is even more so given the fact that it is not long ago that the brutal civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Guinea's immediate neighbours in the Mano River axis of west Africa ended. And, also given Guinea's own history.

Since independence from France in 1958, Guineans suffered years of repression, first under President Ahmed Sekou Toure and then under Conte, who came to power in a 1984 military coup. Therefore, even if confronted with sanctions and sent into isolation by neighbours and western powers, Guinea's erratic junta leader Camara is unlikely give up control of the world's top bauxite exporter without a fight.

A virtually unknown army captain when he seized power in December 2008, Moussa Dadis Camara, however, captured the imagination of a country desperately seeking change after the death of long-time leader Lansana Conte. His popularity grew as he promised genuine democracy in the country, including a safe transition period and then presidential elections in which he would not stand. He galvanised support from politicians, civil society groups and voters.

Yet Camara's position has really never been as strong as assumed, particularly with the Guinean economy hit hard by a global slowdown that has sent its exports crashing and the divisions in his unruly army which means he could be the target of a counter-coup at any moment.

Although both ECOWAS and the African Union initially suspended Guinea, they have been generally supportive of his leadership and efforts to bring democracy.

The first few months of Camara's leadership saw him boosting his popularity through a very public crackdown on the Guinean drug-trafficking industry. Members of a trafficking ring were arrested and then quizzed on live television by Camara himself.

Guinean junta's second in command Sekouba Konate - AP

Among those who admitted to drugs trafficking was the former president's son, Ousmane Conte.

Camara's outlandish approach seemed a breath of fresh air after years of failed political promises. He even made troops from the elite presidential guard beg on their knees for forgiveness on national TV for roughing up a general in July.

But his increasingly erratic leadership style and behaviour have come in for criticism. On several occasions, he ordered politicians, civil society leaders and members of the public to shut up or even leave meetings, and he was reported to have humiliated several foreign ambassadors.

Born in 1964 in the village of Koure in the far south-east of Guinea, a forest area near the border with Liberia and Ivory Coast, Camara moved to the capital, Conakry, without his family in order to further his studies, and claims to have sold kola nuts in the streets to make ends meet.

He studied law and economics at the Gamal Abdel Nasser University of Conakry before joining the military in 1990. His military career was unremarkable, and included serving as United Nations peacekeeper in Sierra Leone in 2001-2002. He never rose beyond the rank of captain, a position he attained following a mutiny he helped organise in February 2007.

He was also a leading player in a mutiny in May 2008, when rioting soldiers forced the government to pay overdue wages.

Captain Camara was head of the Guinean army's fuel supplies unit, a position he used to gain a reputation for generosity among fellow military men. Yet he was little known outside military circles before December 2008, when six hours after Conte's death, he appeared on state television, announcing a military coup d'état. Days later, he declared himself president.

His popularity is declining, as he appears to be reneging on his promises of a transition to democracy and has shown signs of wanting to hold onto power. He recently indicated he might stand for president in the 2010 polls.

Captain Camara is known to be very close to the Conte family, and has several times spoken publicly of Conte's contribution to the country.

Despite the public dressing down of the former leader's son, no drug charges have been brought against him, thus hinting that the television interrogations and Camara's promises of wanting democracy for Guinea have been just a charade.

Ironically, Guinea had started out in 1958 as the toast of emergent third world countries itching to throw off the yoke of colonialism. In 1958, the country charted a separate course from other French West African colonies when the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) and Ahmed Sekou Toure led it to break with French President Charles de Gaulle's neo-colonialist scheme to keep all the former colonies within the political and economic framework of imperialist domination.

But despite the tremendous potential for economic development, Guinea has remained an underdeveloped country: virtually alone among countries in west Africa that sought an independent course, and isolated from other countries in the region that followed a pro-western course of development.

Worse still, the weakness of the political parties, parliaments and the media, opened the political space for the military, with the current disastrous consequences. More worrying is the fact that the border area with Liberia, which suffered a spill-over from the Liberian civil war in 2001, is now the site of increasing ethnic tension.

As it is, there is great self-interest among neighbours to prevent Guinea from blowing up. Not the least because what happens in Guinea affects Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone and Liberia, three neighbours whose fragile recovery from their own civil wars in the last decade could be jeopardised by a new conflict across their borders.

And, this only affirms Guinea Conakry as a temporarily subdued inferno just waiting for the next tiny drop of fuel!