By Saliou Samb
CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea announced on Tuesday the death of its long-serving president, Lansana Conte, and just hours later soldiers made a broadcast on state radio saying the constitution and government were suspended.
The radio broadcast, which suggested a coup was under way, created confusion after government leaders announced Conte had died following nearly a quarter century of rule over the West African state, the world's leading bauxite exporter.
Journalists at state radio headquarters contacted by Reuters said a group of soldiers had entered the building and forced staff to broadcast the communique which said the constitution and government institutions were suspended.
The statement read on the air said a ruling council would be installed which would name a president in the coming days. It would also name a new prime minister and a government to fight corruption, the broadcast said.
The identity of the soldiers who made the broadcast was not immediately known.
The death of Conte, a diabetic, chain-smoking general, had left a potential power vacuum.
Guinea has experienced anti-government riots and strikes and bloody military mutinies in recent years, aggravated by rising prices of food and fuel. Most of the population are poor, despite the nation's huge mineral riches.
When government leaders gathered to announce Conte's death on state television in the early hours, military commander Diarra Camara ordered troops to protect strategic locations and the borders of the former French colony.
National Assembly President Aboubacar Sompare, accompanied during the broadcast by Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare, Camara and other officials, said Conte had died on Monday night. Conte was believed to be 74.
Sompare asked the country's Supreme Court to name him president in line with the constitution.
Article 34 of Guinea's constitution foresees the national assembly president taking over in the event of the death of the head of state and organising presidential elections in 60 days. Legislative elections were already planned for 2009.
"I have the heavy and difficult task to inform you with great sadness of the death of General Lansana Conte, President of the Republic of Guinea," Sompare said in the television broadcast.
ROLE OF MILITARY
As the television played Guinean music, Sompare declared 40 days of national mourning in the world's number one exporter of bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is made.
Although rumours that Conte was seriously ill had circulated in the dilapidated seaside capital Conakry for days, the government chose the early hours, when most people were sleeping, to announce his death. The streets were calm.
Conte, who said he was born around 1934, had governed Guinea since 1984 when he seized power after the country's first president, Sekou Toure, died in a U.S. hospital.
But he never groomed a clear successor. "I arrived as a soldier, and I will finish as a soldier ... God gives and takes life -- end of story," Conte once said.
Analysts said the way in which the military, a key pillar of support for Conte's rule, reacted to the news of his death would be crucial to the future stability of the country, where major international mining companies have operations.
"The military obeyed Conte ... and now he's not there," one veteran local journalist told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The armed forces are known to be split by generational and ethnic divisions.
Conte, who became reclusive in his later years of rule, had suffered health problems for years, including sometimes collapsing in public. He often travelled abroad for medical treatment in Morocco, Cuba and Switzerland.
Veteran opposition leader Jean Marie Dore of the Union for the Progress of Guinea party, a fierce critic of Conte, said he was saddened by the death of a man he called a "compatriot."
"The most important is what is to come: It is essential that the institutions function correctly and that the provisions of the constitution be respected," said Dore.
Last year, a general strike triggered anti-government riots in which more than 180 people were killed, most of them shot by Conte's forces, according to witnesses and human rights groups.
Units of the army and police staged violent mutinies this year to demand payment of back pay and other benefits.
Foreign companies with operations in Guinea include Alcoa, Rio Tinto Alcan and Russia's RUSAL.
(For GUINEA-CONTE/LIFE (FACTBOX), click on [nLN297634])
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(Writing by Pascal Fletcher)
