Military boss arrested in Guinea

Two sources close to Guinea's ruling junta say that Col. Moussa Keita was arrested overnight.
Keita was formerly a hard-liner in the junta that seized power in a 2008 coup and remained steadfastly loyal to their military chief who was badly wounded during an assassination attempt last month.
Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara was pressured to step down and agreed to stay in exile in neighboring Burkina Faso in order to allow the country to return to civilian rule. Keita led a delegation of junta hard-liners who chartered a private plane to Burkina in an attempt to bring him back.
His arrest was confirmed Saturday by a retired Guinean diplomat and a military official at the capital's main military base. Both requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Guinea sanctions 'difficult' to lift ahead of polls: Germany

CONAKRY — Sanctions slapped on Guinea's junta following a murderous assault on opposition supporters will be "very difficult" to lift ahead of a new president being elected, Germany's ambassador said Friday.
"It will be very difficult to lift these sanctions against the people directly or indirectly responsible for the September 28 massacre before a new president is elected and installed," the ambassador Karl Prinz told reporters.
The German diplomat was speaking in Conakry following talks with Guinea's interim leader, General Sekouba Konate.
Konate met Prinz along with the ambassadors of France, Spain and the United States as the military leadership seeks to build up international goodwill ahead of the polls, promised within six months.
"We will try to have our experts take up this dossier which also concerns Guinea's most important partners -- the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank," Prinz said.
The EU decided last month to toughen sanctions against the west African state's military rulers, which the UN has accused of crimes against humanity for the September 28 massacre of opposition supporters at a Conakry football stadium.
Troops opened fire on the rally, killing at least 156 people and subjecting more than 100 women to rape or other sexual violence, according to a United Nations inquiry.
The military rulers this week appointed opposition figure Jean-Marie Dore as interim prime minister tasked with leading the country into presidential elections in six months.
Prinz welcomed Dore's appointment and said: "We would hope that the transition begins as soon as possible, and that the government is also formed as soon as possible."
Konate took over after Camara was shot and wounded in the head on December 3 by an aide

Kagame opponent claims persecution in Rwanda

A Rwandan opposition leader who returned from exile days ago to register her party and run in the August presidential election, claimed yesterday she was being harassed by the government.
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who chairs the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF) party, condemned what she called “a media hate campaign” and “vicious propaganda... with the clear intention to bludgeon opponents into silence.”
“Some extremists are currently mobilising associations of genocide survivors, widows and others for demonstrations appealing to the government to suspend our work and put me in jail,” she claimed.
Immediately after returning to Rwanda from years in exile in the Netherlands, Ingabire had laid a wreath at the Gisozi national genocide memorial in the capital Kigali.
There, she had called for former rebels from President Paul Kagame’s ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed during the 1994 genocide.
Her speech had been interpreted by some media and by genocide survivor organisations as negating the genocide carried out by Hutu extremists against Kagame’s Tutsi minority.
According to the UN, at least 800,000 people - mostly Tutsis and some moderate Hutus - were killed in 100 days.
“They don’t yet understand that silencing my voice won’t stop this growing movement of claims as long as many Rwandans aspire to more democracy,” Ingabire warned in her statement.
In its world report released last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch charged that the Rwandan regime was tightening the screw on political freedoms.
“Rwanda has used its criminal law against ‘genocide ideology’ to silence individuals critical of current government policies or those who challenge past abuses committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front,” it said.
Kagame, who has been at the helm the central African country since the end off the genocide, is widely expected to secure re-election this year.