By Saliou Samb
CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's military junta appealed for support on Friday to lead the country to elections in two years, after seizing power following the death of veteran ruler Lansana Conte.
Conte was buried in a state funeral on Friday attended by members of the junta, whose swift, so far bloodless coup filled the power vacuum created by his death on Monday,
As night fell on the capital Conakry, soldiers patrolled the streets and enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew, firing shots into the air to keep people at home, police and witnesses said.
The junta was due to meet political and civil society leaders on Saturday, and foreign ambassadors, to explain their takeover and lay out their plans for government.
Tens of thousands of mourners packed the streets and a national stadium to bid farewell to the long-serving leader.
"General Conte was an apostle of peace," the junta's second- in-command General Mamadouba Toto Camara, said in a tribute.
He and the president of the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) junta, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, were acclaimed by the crowds, reflecting the apparent popularity of the military takeover in the West African bauxite exporter.
"The CNDD has the heavy task of continuing his (Conte's) work," General Camara added.
Conte's coffin, draped in a red, yellow and green national flag and topped with a wreath and a portrait, was displayed in the stadium amid heavy security that included two pickup trucks mounted with machine guns. There was a military parade.
The presidents of neighbouring Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Ivory Coast earlier attended a formal ceremony in the People's Palace, seat of the national assembly.
After prayers at Conakry's main mosque, the coffin was taken for final burial at Conte's northwest hometown of Moussayah, where he was born in about 1934. The diabetic chain-smoking general had ruled the former French colony with an iron fist since he seized power in 1984.
While some former army comrades paid tribute, ordinary Guineans hoped his passing and the new military rulers could usher in a better future. Even though Guinea is the world's top exporter of aluminium ore bauxite, most Guineans are poor.
"These people who have come in, and the ideas they express, give us some reassurance. I hope they don't change," said housewife Mariama Mara, recalling that Conte had also started as a reformer before turning into an autocratic, capricious ruler.
CALL FOR SUPPORT
As Conte was being buried, junta leaders moved to shore up their support internally and to try to win international backing for the latest coup in West Africa. They have promised to stamp out graft, hold elections in 2010 and improve living standards.
"Now we need to be supported by the World Bank and by these kinds of institutions, so we can have the financial conditions to carry out this mission," junta vice-president General Mamadouba Toto Camara told reporters.
The United States, the African Union and the European Union have all condemned the coup, which has again battered democratic rule in Africa, already tarnished by post-election crises in Kenya and Zimbabwe and an August coup in Mauritania.
The coup leaders said they wanted to make a clean break with the quarter century of rule by Conte, which concentrated power in the hands of a small political, military and business elite.
Junta leader Camara, a little-known captain in the army supply corps, has been hailed as a hero by crowds in Conakry. Even opposition parties have cautiously welcomed the military takeover, but have called for earlier elections, in 2009.
Deposed Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare endorsed the coup on Thursday, reversing his initial opposition.
Older, senior military officers who were not part of the coup, such as armed forces chief of staff General Diarra Camara, have also now rallied behind it.
Earlier, junta president Captain Camara told France 24 TV he had no intention of clinging to power. "The future of our country is peace, freedom, reconciliation," he said, adding he would not stand in the planned election.
Camara is a common surname and the three men are not related.
The last two years of Conte's rule were marked by bloody anti-government strikes, riots and army and police mutinies. There have been street protests over high food and fuel prices.
The United States has said the military in Guinea must work with civilian leaders to immediately restore civilian rule.
Mining operations have not been affected by the coup.
International companies including Rio Tinto, Alcoa and United Company Rusal mine in Guinea for bauxite.
(Writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
