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OUAGADOUGOU (AFP)

Guinea’s junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara, who survived an assassination bid in December, was recovering in Burkina Faso on Wednesday where he was flown out from Morocco after hospitalisation.

Officials in Burkina Faso, whose president Blaise Compaore is trying to mediate an end to a political crisis in Guinea, said Morocco had virtually forced the west African country to accept him — a charge denied by Rabat.

“After a month of treatment in Morocco, and considering the evolving state of his health, Moussa Dadis Camara arrived in Ouagadougou where he will continue his convalescence,” said a foreign ministry statement.

Burkinabe Foreign Minister Alain Bedouma Yoda told AFP that Morocco had asked Burkina Faso “with urgency” to receive Camara once his treatment was over.

Morocco’s Communications Minister Khalid Naciri said the kingdom had “fulfilled its duty” in hosting the Guinean ruler.

“I know that he left having been well treated in Morocco,” Naciri told AFP. “Our country has fulfilled its duty.”

He denied that Camara had been pressurised to leave.

“We have behaved in a strictly humanitarian way to give treatment to a head of state with bullet wounds.”

Meanwhile Guinea’s interim leader General Sekouba Konate left Conakry on Wednesday for Burkina Faso, where he is due to meet Camara and Burkinabe president Campaore.

The surprise arrival of Camara in Ouagadougou raised new questions about the future of negotiations between the military leadership and the opposition in Guinea.

Interim leader Konate, who is defence minister, recently asked Guinea’s Forces Vives coalition of opposition parties, trade unions and civil society to share power in a transition government and has called for democracy in the country.

Camara walked “with difficulty” from the plane, supported by two aides, on arrival, a local reporter said.

The junta leader had not appeared in public since being evacuated to Rabat for medical treatment after being shot in the head by his aide de camp on December 3 during a dispute, allegedly over a bloody crackdown on an opposition rally.

“He is lucid, he is speaking,” a source in Compaore’s office told AFP.

It was not immediately clear if Camara intended to stay in Burkina Faso, return to Guinea or travel to another country.

“I don’t know yet because we haven’t spoken since his arrival in Ouagadougou but President Dadis will go back when it is decided,” a top junta official, Moussa Keita, told AFP by phone.

“Nothing is preventing him from going home,” Keita said.

But his unannounced departure from Morocco left a host of unanswered questions Wednesday.

Did the junta chief leave voluntarily or was he expelled by Rabat? Did he choose to go to Burkina Faso rather than directly to Guinea? Is he in a fit state to return to power, given his apparently serious wounds?

The United States expressed concern about the possible return of Camara.

“Any effort by Dadis to return to Guinea would concern us,” said a US State Department official who requested anonymity.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in an address to parliament in December that it would be better for Camara to stay in bed in Morocco “because his return alone is capable of setting off a civil war that we don’t need”.

The bauxite-rich west African country has been under military rule since a December 2008 military coup launched by Camara following the death of longtime leader Lansana Conte. Tensions peaked on September 28 when troops massacred at least 156 people at an opposition rally.

A recent UN report on the stadium massacre in Guinea’s capital Conakry named Camara as a suspect as it accused the army of “crimes against humanity” during the crackdown on the rally. Related article: Erratic Guinean leader ‘chosen by God’.

“Dadis Camara’s return under the present circumstances risks sparking a civil war in Guinea,” said Mamadi Kaba, an official from the Guinean chapter of the African Assembly for Human Rights.

A Guinean banker echoed him, saying: “If the international community wants a new bloodbath in Guinea, it will authorise Camara’s return.”