Guinea aide admits shooting junta leader Camara

A renegade soldier hunted by Guinea's authorities for trying to kill junta leader Capt Moussa Dadis Camara has admitted that he shot his boss.
Lt Toumba Diakite told French RFI radio that the army tried to blame him for a massacre of protesters in September.
He said he shot Capt Camara in the neck to avoid being arrested and because he felt "betrayed".
Capt Camara was flown to Morocco for treatment after the shooting on 3 December and has not been seen since.
Junta officials have given mixed messages about the seriousness of his condition - with some suggesting he could return to the country within weeks and others saying it could be a much longer period of time.
First interview
Lt Diakite, on the run since the shooting, said he had shot Capt Camara twice in the neck after being threatened with arrest.

"I categorically state that a bullet, around one or two bullets, hit the right-hand side of the back of his neck," he said in the Radio France Internationale interview - his first since the shooting.
"I shot him because at some point there was utter betrayal towards me, a complete betrayal of democracy, he tried to lay all responsibility for the events of 28 September on me."
The interview with Lt Diakite was recorded three days ago, and it was unclear whether he was still in Guinea or had fled the country.
Previous reports said he was on the run inside Guinea.
The military drew international criticism by opening fire on crowds in a Conakry sports stadium on 28 September - with rights groups claiming more than 150 people were killed.
The BBC's Mark Doyle, who recently visited Guinea, says Lt Diakite is known to have been commanding some of the troops who opened fire at the stadium.
Our correspondent says there were also other military units present, commanded by other officers.
'Massacre order'
Activists have blamed both Capt Camara and Lt Diakite for the massacre.
Capt Camara previously tried to distance himself from the incident by saying he was not in full control of the officers at the rally.
But in his interview, Lt Diakite blamed the whole incident on Capt Camara and said he "knew the reality on the ground very well".
"He also brought in 250 new recruits from the training school for the navy who were ordered to dress in civilian clothes and armed with knives and carried out large massacres," he said.
The military took over in Guinea after the death of long-time leader Lansana Conte last December, but their rule has been characterised by instability and violent crackdowns on dissent.
Since the shooting, soldiers have rounded dozens of people it suspects of being linked to Lt Diakite.

ICC continues to push for transfer of Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague

By Gema
KINSHASA, Dec.14 (Xinhua) -- During his six-day visit since Thursday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Justice Sang-Hyun Song, reiterated the demand that the DRC government transfer Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague.
He revealed the concern of this institution on Thursday during a parliamentary conference on justice and peace in the Great Lakes region and Central African region which was being held in the Congolese capital.
The ICC president pointed out the importance of international justice system in the DRC, especially the cases concerning the heads of rebel movements who are also the troublemakers. He indicated that the question of justice and peace cannot be left to one individual alone and that the victims of very serious crimes are the ordinary people.
"It's a must that the perpetrators are held accountable for their actions," he said.
Justice Song, however, welcomed the changes witnessed in recent years.
"I am speaking of the contribution of the ICC to bringing justice to this country and in the two neighboring countries, meaning Uganda and the Central African Republic," he noted.
He said he was convinced that sooner or later, justice, whether delivered by the ICC or the national courts, will be able to bring peace back to the region.
During his stay, the president of the highest international court will meet with the DRC officials, members of the civil society and the communities affected by conflicts in the eastern Ituri district.
His mission involves a working meeting with the Congolese minister of foreign affairs, the head of UN in the DRC (MONUC), and the members of the diplomatic bodies.
After Kinshasa, Song will visit Bunia in Ituri where he will meet with the leaders of local authorities, the magistrates of local courts, members of local human rights organizations, the journalists, as well as the victims of the criminal activities which are currently being investigated by the ICC.
OVERVIEW OF BOSCO NTAGANDA.
Ntaganda is being sought by the ICC which suspects him of having proceeded to enroll children as young as 15 years old in the ranks of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) of Thomas Lubanga, who is facing justice at the ICC.
After the arrest and transfer of Lubanga to the ICC, Ntaganda rejoined the Congolese National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda, where he became the chief of staff.
In January, he rejoined the Kinshasa government and was integrated in the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) with the rank of general, angering the leaders of ICC who are still seeking his transfer.
The demand by the ICC president came after that of the special counsellor to the ICC prosecutor, Beatrice Lefrapere, who made the same request on July 5.
"It's high time the DRC government arrested Ntaganda and delivered him to the ICC," she indicated at that time.
But the Congolese minister for Communication and Media who is also the government spokesman, Lambert Mende, declared that everything will be done according to the schedule already given to the ICC.
Last month, Mende clearly stated that the DRC government "will conform to the requirements of the Rome Statute for which the DRC is a signatory. But for the moment, security of the eastern parts of the country is the priority." The same stand was voiced by in February by Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Kabila, speaking on the issue of Ntaganda, said the choice is very clear: peace and security of North Kivu province comes before anything else.
Ntaganda's shift to FARDC dealt a heavy blow to Nkunda's CNDP, which was advancing in late 2008 and early 2009 to the gate of Goma, the provincial capital in North Kivu, posing a real threat not only to the DRC government, but the entire Great Lakes region, where the 1998-2003 Congo war sucked in several neighboring countries.
The CNDP was routed in a join military operation between the DRC and Rwanda, which arrested Nkunda after he fled across the border. The DRC has since defused the major flare in the troubled east although insurgents are still active in small groups.

Can Guinea avoid a violent power struggle?

While Guinea’s military ruler Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara recovers from an assassination attempt, other junta leaders rejected a regional proposal Monday to deploy troops to prevent violence.

Dakar, Senegal
Days after an assassination attempt by his own aide, Guinea’s military ruler Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara is reportedly making a recovery in a Moroccan hospital from a gunshot wound to the head.
Whether his small West African country can make a speedy recovery from the diplomatic isolation and from the uncertainty of an erratic and often brutal year of military rule is a question that remains to be answered.
The assassination attempt comes at a time of diplomatic pressure on Guinea’s military to step aside and hold national elections, as promised, and also as United Nations investigators have just finished a probe into a military massacre of some 157 opposition supporters attending a political rally in the capital, Conakry, on Sept. 28. (How did Guinea erupt into violence? Read more here.)
Capt. Camara has denied directing the massacre, saying that it was instigated by “uncontrollable elements” in the military. But human rights advocates say that Camara’s one-year rule has coincided with a rapid decline in political rights, and an increase in detention, torture, and murder of opposition activists. Now concerns of a violent power struggle are growing after Guinea's military leadership rejected a proposal Monday from a regional group to bring in foreign troops to prevent further violence, saying it would consider such a move an act of war.
“The Guinean military has a history of factionalism, and the potential for infighting could bring a bloody fight for control,” Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Dakar. Human Rights Watch will issue a report on Guinea this Thursday.
The good news, she says, is that the current head of the military in Camara’s absence – General Sekouba Konate – has made a strong appeal for the military to remain unified and disciplined until the leadership crisis is sorted out, and he has also indicated that the military must prepare for a transfer of power to a civilian government.
“This is a country that sat by and watched two of its neighbors, Liberia and Sierra Leone, disintegrate in civil wars, and Sierra Leonean refugee amputees walking the streets in Guinea,” says Ms. Dufka. “Guineans get how devastating war is, and I don’t think they want to go that way, even the military.”
Transition to civilian rule?
Guinea has been in political turmoil since last Christmas, when Captain Camara came to power in a largely bloodless coup, following the death of longtime Guinean President Lansana Conte, himself a general who took power following the death of a president. The global economic crisis hammered Guinea, which is the world’s largest supplier of aluminium ore, but has done little to diversify its economy.
Strikes by trade unions and student groups have challenged Camara to abide by his promise to step down and hold elections, but with Camara making a slow recovery – he is reportedly able to feed himself and to talk – his subordinates seem ready to discuss holding national elections in January.

Influx of refugees from Rwanda raises doubts in DR Congo

KINSHASA, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- The arrival of about 12,000 families in the last few months in the territory of Masis and Rutshuru, in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has aroused doubts about their origin and raised fear of infiltration of foreigners.
The authorities indicated that they may pose as Congolese refugees from Rwanda.
The coordinator of the national commission for refugees in North Kivu (CNR), Laingulia Njewa, told local radio this week that these people came in illegally through the border from Kibumba to around 20 km north of Goma along Ritshuru road.
Accompanied by their families and animals, they settled in a Congolese village and 80 percent of them said they came from refugee camps in Byumba and Kibuye in Rwanda, he pointed out.
Njewa asked the local population to be calm, pledging the government was thinking about the issue in order to identify these suspicious refugees, whose real figure had not yet been established.
The UNHCR also has doubt whether or not these people are Congolese refugees.
"We honestly do not know the history of these people. In any case, the majority did not have with them documents to prove that they were refugees and the authorities must now start the identification process to establish the origin of these people," Francesca Fontanini, administrator in charge of external relations of the UNHCR in the DRC said on Wednesday in Kinshasa after a mission in North Kivu.
"We compared the lists that the authorities gave us with our Rwandan UNHCR office, but they do not correspond with the names of the people who were in the Rwandan refugee camps. Therefore these people are not in our data base," Fontanini added.
"According to the UNHCR figures, today we still have 52,000 Congolese refugees living in Rwanda," she said.
During a press conference held on Thursday in Kinshasa, the Congolese minister for communication and media, Lambert Mende Omalanga, talked of some refugees coming from Rwanda through illegal routes, declaring that "the government was well aware of movements of people from Rwanda to the DRC."
"The DRC and Rwanda are having contacts over this issue and they are both monitoring the situation," he told reporters.
"What has happened was done in a more or less anarchical manner. But if they are Congolese, they have a right to stay in their country. If they are Congolese, we shall know them after verification. If they are foreigners, they will be repatriated to their country of origin," the Congolese government spokesman said.
Mende, who did not disclose the figure of illegal refugees, said it was difficult to establish the definite number of Congolese refugees in Rwanda by using only the UNHCR figures because the UNHCR only counts people who are living in camps.
"We know that there are refugees who are living with families. It's the work of the Congolese interior minister with his Rwandan counterpart and the UNHCR, which will begin this week. They will give us a report and in all honesty, we shall make this information public," he explained.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a national member of parliament from North Kivu expressed fear that the arrival of the refugees in the Congolese territories of Masisi and Rutshuru could become a new cause of tensions between Rwanda and the DRC.
"A number of these refugees are simply Rwandese nationals who will cause a lot of trouble when they will be told to go back to their country," he said.
He blamed the situation on the Rwandese government, indicating every time the DRC attempts to find peace, Kigali "provokes a situation that can lead to destabilization because it is aided by foreign powers."
The issue has led to a "sine die" of a meeting planned for Nov.23 between the UNHCR, Rwanda and the DRC on the repatriation of Congolese refugees.
The postponement of the tripartite meeting was confirmed on Wednesday by Fontanini.
"I think that the repatriation of Congolese refugees from Rwanda will begin next year," she declared.

DRC-CONGO: Needs unmet as refugees flee from Congo to Congo

BRAZZAVILLE, 9 December 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies have been unable to fully meet the needs of tens of thousands of people who have fled inter-communal clashes over natural resources in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). And according to the Humanitarian Affairs Minister in the neighbouring Republic of Congo, the refugees’ destination, time is of the essence. “We are also afraid of low water levels in the River Ubangi [which separates the two Congos],” said Emilienne Raoul. “From 15 December it will be difficult for boats to navigate the Ubangi,” she added. “There are now 77,488 refugees in Congo-Brazzaville,” said UNHCR’s crisis unit chief Ben Boubacar Diallo. “Given the number of refugees, the aid would appear to be insufficient. The needs are enormous,” he said, adding that the situation in DRC’s Equateur province had yet to improve. “We will keep supplying domestic kits [comprising mattresses, mosquito nets, blankets, basins and jerry cans] while mobilizing agencies,” said Diallo.
.We have not yet registered epidemics because agencies offering health services have been efficient and vigilant,” he said. So far the humanitarian response has involved: - The World Food Programme on 8 December sent a boat with almost 300MT of food and 1,500 litres of fuel up the Ubangi river to the northern Likouala region, where the DRC refugees are now living along a 160km stretch of riparian territory. Some 90 percent of the refugee sites can only be reached from the river. - The Italian government announced it has donated 300,000 euros (US$442,597) to help meet the most pressing needs of the refugees for the next six months. - The World Health Organization has made 2MT of medical supplies available to the Congolese government for delivery to the refugees. - Some 500MT of food is warehoused in the southern city of Point Noir but wagons are needed before they can be railfreighted to Brazzaville, from where they will be sent to Likouala.

Six DR Congo soldiers killed in Tutsi attack

AFP) – 2 days ago
KINSHASA — A Tutsi rebel group killed six soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a night-time attack, the UN mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) reported on Thursday.
"On Wednesday, around 4:30 am (O330 GMT), a group of rebels of the Federal Republican Forces (FRF) attacked an FARDC (army) battalion at Minembwe", in Sud-Kivu province, the MONUC military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Paul Dietrich, told AFP.
The attack left six dead and four injured among the Congolese soldiers and "the toll would have been higher had it not been for the intervention of MONUC, which heard shooting and fired back with its armour," Dietrich said.
The FRF are mostly Congolese Tutsis, also known as Banyamulenge, who claim to defend the socio-economic interests of their tribe, based largely in the east of the DR Congo.
In 2008, the FRF was among several armed groups which signed an accord with Kinshasa, which provided for their integration into the army.
But they have refused to join the FARDC and instead pursued their sporadic attacks on civilians and the army.
The FRF is also listed among the armed groups that illegally exploit the mineral wealth of the eastern DR Congo.

Analysis: Guinea leader's wound may end junta rule

CONAKRY, Guinea — Even before Guinea's military strongman was wounded in an assassination attempt and airlifted to Morocco for emergency surgery, top diplomats were discussing how to force him out.
One option: Offer Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara a villa in another African country to get him to leave the nation he has terrorized for the past 11 months.
Now that Camara is in a Morocco hospital with a bullet wound to the head, some diplomats and experts say this is the best thing that could have happened to Guinea, offering the West African country a chance to rid itself of military rule. They say that even if the rogue leader does fully recover, the international community will pressure Morocco to keep him from returning.
"The international community was looking for a way to ease him out," said Africa expert Peter Pham, director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. "When it became clear he didn't want to leave, they were even looking into the possibility of shelling him out. This turn of events has just made it a lot easier. Now he is out of the way."
A delegation of foreign diplomats, including a top U.S. State Department official, will meet Sunday to try to hammer out a plan to return Guinea to civilian rule. The meeting in neighboring Burkina Faso is the most recent in ongoing negotiations between the military junta and the country's opposition aimed at finding a solution to Guinea's political crisis.
The talks have so far failed to produce a clear timetable for when the military will step down. But those returning to the negotiating table this weekend say the dynamics have changed now that Camara appears to be incapacitated.
The 45-year-old has not spoken publicly since being shot in the head by his top aide on Dec. 3, leading many to speculate he is in a coma. The country's spokesman said he will return to Guinea "soon," but a doctor who saw Camara's CAT scan said the leader suffered a serious brain injury and is unlikely to return for a long time — if ever.
Camara seized power in a coup nearly a year ago, just hours after the death of the country's former strongman Lansana Conte. He promised to quickly organize elections in which he would not run. But within months it became clear that he did not intend to step down, prompting massive protests.
On Sept. 28, members of the presidential guard opened fire on unarmed demonstrators gathered inside the national soccer stadium, killing at least 157, according to human rights groups. Women were gang-raped by soldiers chanting slogans in support of Camara.
The shocking display of brutality prompted the European and the African Unions to impose sanctions on Guinea, including an arms embargo and a travel ban and asset freeze on top members of the junta.
Even before the massacre, diplomats had been negotiating exile for Camara, similar to the scenario initially offered to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who lived for several years in a posh villa in Nigeria before being arrested. A top European ambassador who asked for anonymity in keeping with protocol said he had even contacted his country's foreign ministry to see if the European nation could host Camara. A Malian diplomat in Guinea said his government had expressed a willingness to welcome Camara.
The four countries considered seriously, say two foreign diplomats involved in the discussions, were Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali — and Morocco.
Of the four, Morocco is an obvious choice because of the country's long-standing relationship with Guinea. Conte was treated in Morocco for the undisclosed illness that eventually killed him, Pham said.
But Camara was never interested in exile and repeatedly made it clear that he intended to hang on, including to U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa William Fitzgerald who came to Guinea and told Camara that he needed to step down after the stadium massacre, according to a non-U.S. diplomat who was briefed on the visit. Some diplomats even considered a cash payout.
"Say you give Dadis $50 million and a villa in Morocco," said a foreign diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. "That's still a huge savings for the international community compared to the cost of a military intervention or a peacekeeping force — which will go into the hundreds of millions."
Several countries, including some of Guinea's neighbors who fear that instability in Guinea could spread, began to put out feelers about the possibility of a military intervention. Fearing for his safety, Camara imported Israeli security contractors to train an ethnic militia composed of men from his tribe in a bid to secure his power base.
It seemed like an impossible stalemate until Dec. 3, when the head of the presidential guard shot Camara. He was flown to Morocco the next day.
Mohammed Ibn Chambas, an official with the 15-state regional bloc representing West Africa, said shortly after Camara went into surgery that he was an "obstruction."
"The regional position is that we don't see Captain Dadis Camara as playing a constructive role," he told reporters at a London press conference. "No, he is quite frankly an obstruction. He is part of the problem not the solution. We would like to move on."
Chambas leads the international contact group that is meeting with a delegation from the junta on Sunday. The negotiators led by Chambas, with pressure from the U.S. and the European Union, are expected to push the junta to agree on a concrete roadmap for democratic elections to restore civilian rule.
Experts say that two wild cards remain, including the succession of power. In Camara's absence, his deputy has stepped in. It's unclear if Gen. Sekouba Konate, believed to be loyal to Camara, will be willing to hand over power of the mineral-rich nation to civilians. One encouraging sign is that he sent an emissary to speak to a top opposition leader the same day Camara was evacuated to Morocco.
A second unknown is what will happen if Camara recovers from surgery. As head of state, he has diplomatic immunity. There is no international warrant for his arrest. However, a United Nations commission that was in Guinea this month investigating the army-led massacre is expected to recommend prosecution in its upcoming report.
If Camara is named responsible for the killings, the International Criminal Court could issue a warrant — forcing Morocco to detain him. Diplomats are divided on whether Morocco will detain him without legal cause.
Pham, who wrote several articles about Conte's prolonged illness, said the Guinean government bought at least three villas in Morocco for Conte's use during his final years, including one intended for medical visits. It's located just minutes from the hospital in Rabat, Morocco's capital, where Camara is being treated, he said.
"If Morocco decides to keep him, they won't even have to foot the tab of putting him up — they can just put him on a gurney and wheel him over to the villa," Pham said.

Belgian professor and Africa expert speaks on situation in DRC and Rwanda

By Wayne MadsenOnline Journal Contributing WriterDec 9, 2009, 00:18
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(WMR) -- Noted Belgian expert on the history and politics of central Africa’s Great Lakes region and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Dr. Filip Reyntjens of the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB) in Antwerp, spoke at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington on December 3 and leveled a broadside on the policies of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in his nation’s looting of the DRC’s natural resources.
Reyntjens said that in 1997 and 1998, Kagame, a Rwandan Tutsi who grew up in Uganda, decided that the only way to deal with Hutus exiled to Zaire from Rwanda was to “exterminate them.”
Kagame is now lauded around the world by uninformed “human rights” groups and governments for the “suffering” he and his comrades endured after the mass killings of Rwandan Tutsis in the aftermath of the aerial assassinations of the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and Burundi by Kagame’s forces on April 6, 1994.
Eventually, Kagame became such a regional military threat by 2001 that his old ally, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, asked British overseas development minister Clare Short for permission to spend development aid from Britain on defense in order to protect against what Museveni believed was a Rwandan military threat. Rwandan troops began to appear in force in DRC’s Ituri province, which has a border with Uganda but not Rwanda. Rwanda also began supporting a rebel militia in Ituri, composed largely of Hema tribal members, that was originally allied with Uganda but turned against it with aid from Rwanda. Reyntjens believes that such “shifting alliances” are rampant in the DRC and are making it difficult for the central government to reassert its authority over the vast nation.
Essentially, Rwandan and Ugandan forces were competing against one another over the lion’s share of DRC’s rich natural resources, which were and continue to be looted by both countries from the DRC. In fact, Reyntjens pointed out that the expensive villas and office blocks now being constructed in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, are being paid with the profits from the looted natural resources from the DRC.
Reyntjens, like any journalist or academic who criticized Kagame and his dictatorship, stands accused by Kagame’s supporters of having a relationship with the former Rwandan government of assassinated President Juvenal Habyarimana. Reyntjens points out that such was not always the case with Kagame and his government, “I was a hero until I started criticizing Kagame.” Reyntjens says the Rwandan government engages in character assassination when dealing with its critics.
Rwanda is also involved in the illegal exploitation of resources in the DRC, according to Reyntjens. While admitting that Zimbabwe was also exploiting the DRC for its resources, the major difference, according to Reyntjens, is that Zimbabwe was dealing directly with the DRC central government -- a sovereign power -- while Rwanda was not.
Reyntjens cited a recent UN report that stated that in the DRC illegal aircraft movements are the rule rather than the exception. He also said Rwanda used prisoners from Rwandan jails to mine diamonds in the DRC, a clear violation of international law. Reyntjens called what is happening in the DRC the “Luxembourg Effect,” comparing the situation to what the German people would think if tiny Luxembourg wielded control over a large portion of German land and resources.
One of the biggest problems for the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) is the presence of Rwandan-backed Congolese Tutsis in the FARDC command structure in eastern Congo. Reyntjens says the situation on the ground in eastern Congo is that Congolese Tutsis integrated into the FARDC are fighting Rwandan Hutu rebels within the DRC’s borders. Reyntjens does not believe the Rwandan armed forces should be allowed to operate in the DRC in any respect. He believes what the DRC needs is a real army and a real state.
However, since Kagame and his government constantly and astutely use the “Genocide Credit” with international donors, the aggression and interference of Rwanda in the internal affairs of DRC is never discussed. Moreover, Reyntjens said there are now “dozens of American” researchers now operating inside Rwanda and that this is a new development.
Summing up the problems for all of Africa, Reyntjens said that while the DRC must re-establish central control over its territory, including preventing Rwanda from unrestricted border crossings between it and the DRC, many Congolese, like most Africans, are suspicious of central state governments. Most Africans associate “the state” with police, rackets, and prisons, said Reyntjens. Ironically, the United States, through its military incursion into Africa with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), is trying to extend the control of state military structures over the nations of Africa, except, of course, where U.S. and certain foreign economic interests do not find such state control advantageous, as in DRC and Sudan.
Reyntjens is hopeful that a federal DRC will be able to reassert Congolese authority over its territory and cited the 25 new provinces of the DRC where revenues from each province will be distributed as follows: 50 percent to the central government in Kinshasa, 40 percent to the provincial governments, and 10 percent to an equalization fund that will be used to balance the financial disparities between rich and poor provinces.

Wounded junta leader Camara unable to communicate, says official

Guinea junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara is unable to communicate after being shot by an aide and operated on in Morocco for a head wound, his foreign minister said in an interview on Monday.
"I have seen President Dadis. He recognises his entourage," Alexandre Cece Loua told Radio France Internationale from Rabat.

Asked whether he can engage in conversations, the minister said: "No, not for the time being. On the advice of doctors, he cannot yet communicate."
Cece Loua had previously said the junta leader underwent surgery for a head wound and his condition was "very favourable."
"His life is not in danger," he said.
He has indicated Camara may address the nation in the coming days.
Camara was wounded Thursday when his aide de camp, Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite, allegedly shot him in what a junta spokesman said was a bid to seize power in the west African country.
Opposition leader and former prime minister Cellou Dadis Diallo denied there had been a coup attempt and called the shooting a "a settling of scores between two people who were accomplices but who have since fallen out."
Guinea has been tense since junta soldiers carried out a massacre of opposition supporters at a stadium rally in September.
Camara seized power in a coup a year ago following the death of longtime leader Lansana Conte.

Kenya denies claims of harboring wanted Rwandan fugitive

The Kenyan government on Monday denied claims by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Hassan Boubacar Jallow that its harboring wanted Rwandan fugitive, Felicien Kabuga accused of bankrolling and participating in the Rwanda Genocide in 1994.
Government spokesman, Alfred Mutua told the press in Nairobi that the government is not aware of the whereabouts of Kabuga noting that he could be anywhere in the world including Kenya or neighboring countries.
“We find these allegations to be unjustified and not based on the reality of our co-operation with the United Nations and other countries,” said Mutua.
“The Government has issued a statement to the United Nations Security Council in which it points out that the international community might be over concentrating on Kenya, whereas the fugitive could be comfortably living elsewhere,” said Mutua.
He said that the Government is working on a comprehensive reply to the UN over continuous allegations its harboring the fugitive.
He said that the Kenya police have been working together with UN investigators in searching for Kabuga.
In addition we have had the American Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) working in Kenya to search for Kabuga, the spokesman said.
The FBI set up an office in Kenya for over two years and issued a reward of US$5 million to whoever leads to the apprehension of the fugitive.
“So far the FBI and other agencies have been unable to locate Kabuga in Kenya,” Mutua said adding that Kenya has been cooperating with the international community to apprehend the fugitive.

DR Congo rejects calls for more commitment in fighting impunity

The Democratic Republic of Congo has rejected calls by members of the UN Human Rights Council to suspend or prosecute soldiers found to have committed serious abuse, according to UN report.
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The report, which was adopted by the 47-state member council, 11 recommendations "did not enjoy the support of the Democratic Republic of Congo."
They include a call by the United States for Kinshasa to "significantly increase its commitment to fight impunity," by suspending and prosecuting soldiers found to have comitted serious human rights abuses.
DR Congo also refused to "arrest and transfer to The Hague Bosco Ntaganda," a former rebel chief wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Ntaganda, the former chief of staff of the rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) is accused of war crimes, notably for enlisting child soldiers in 2002-2003 in the northeastern Ituri region.
International bodies have called for his arrest since he defected to join the government in January and was brought along with other rebels into the general ranks of the Congolese army, bringing some stability to the restive eastern Congo.
In October, the DR Congo government said it was not in favour of arresting Ntaganda as it could weaken the fragile state of peace in the country.

South African Diplomat Shot and Injured by Congo Army

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A South African diplomat was “seriously” injured after she was shot at by soldiers while driving in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo today, according to the foreign ministry.
The vehicle of the diplomat, Maryse Ash, was fired upon by members of the Congolese Republican Guard after she took a wrong turn while leaving the vicinity of the Congolese president’s residence, according to an e-mailed statement from the South African embassy in Kinshasa.
Ash suffered “serious facial injuries from glass and shrapnel” and remains in hospital but is in a stable condition, the statement said.
The South African government is “conducting an investigation” into the shooting, Saul Kgomotso Molobi, a spokesman for the Department of International Relations & Cooperation, said in an interview on his mobile phone.
Ash will be flown back to South Africa later today for further treatment, Molobi added.