GBissau-politics


   BISSAU, Oct 10 (AFP) - Guinea-Bissau's President Kumba Yala has named
members to a new State Council to advise him regarding key decisions such as
declarations of war or a state of emergency, officials said Tuesday.
   The consultative body includes members of all political parties
represented
in parliament as well as civic organisations, according to officials in the
small west African country, where Yala won elections in January.
   "Those who consider us totalitarian are wrong," Yala said as he swore in
the new body. At the polls, he defeated the candidate backed by a military
junta led by former army chief General Ansumane Mane.
   Observers noted that the council will be taking over the political role
played by the junta after it ousted president Joao Bernardo Vieira in a May
1999 coup and ran the country alongside politicians until the poll.
   On October 4, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said "the former military
junta still seems reluctant to give up the role it played during the
transitional period" before Yala was sworn in last February.
   Annan also warned that the Bissau government was in severe financial
difficulty and said that the need to pay the salaries of almost 26,000
soldiers "continues to pose an especially worrisome burden".
   The UN Security Council subsequently called on the military to stay out
of
politics in Guinea-Bissau, while urging donor nations to come up with needed
financial assistance.
   aye-at/nb/gd

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