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Conakry: Guinean President Lansana Conte replaced his defence minister and top army officers yesterday after days of protests by soldiers firing in the air to demand better working conditions.
General Bailo Diallo, a retired former head of the West African state's ground forces, was named defence minister and five top army commanders were replaced, according to a decree read on state radio.
Six people were killed on Friday when mutinous soldiers firing their weapons into the air stormed through the streets of the capital Conakry and other cities, demanding the dismissal of senior commanders and a pay rise.
The shooting followed widespread protests in garrisons across the former French colony a week ago, underlining the simmering instability of the world's largest bauxite exporter, which was rocked by violent strikes earlier this year.
The armed forces received a hefty pay increase in March, shortly after they had helped to quell the strikes and riots against Conte, a reclusive diabetic in his 70s whose opponents say is unfit to rule.
The army, riven by generational and ethnic divisions, has propped up Conte's autocratic rule since he seized power in a coup in 1984, but analysts have raised doubts over how long it will remain loyal in the face of increasingly vocal opposition to him.
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