Guinea leader sacks minister, unions say not enough
Source: Reuters
(Adds union reaction) CONAKRY, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Guinean President Lansana Conte dismissed his most powerful minister on Friday, but unions paralysing the country with a crippling general strike said the move was not enough to end the crisis. Union leaders called the indefinite strike in the West African country 10 days ago because they say Conte, a reclusive diabetic in his 70s, is unfit to rule and should step down. They had called for Fode Bangoura, a powerful member of Conte's ethnic Sousou clique, to be removed from office and for a consensus prime minister to be named. Conte said in a decree read on state radio that Bangoura, his minister in charge of presidential affairs, had been replaced by Planning Minister Eugene Camara, seen as a moderate member of his government. "We have nothing against Mr. Camara, but at this stage of the crisis this decree is totally insufficient," union negotiator Ousmane Souare told Reuters. "(Camara) has not been named prime minister and Fode Bangoura was not the master of the game," he said. At least four people have been killed as security forces clashed with protesters in towns across the former French colony. The strike has also slowed vital shipments of bauxite from the world's biggest exporter of the ore. Opposition spokesman Mamadou Ba dismissed the move as little more than a gesture. "How can he name a man as weak (as Camara) to that job in a moment of crisis? The real problem is not somebody else, but Conte himself," Ba told Reuters.
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