At least 156 people died in the massacre and women were reportedly raped by soldiers on the streets of Conakry, Guinea’s capital. The United Nations, in a 60-page report, has recommended that the International Criminal Court investigate the carnage and that the head of Guinea’s military junta, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, and senior members of his Presidential Guard be charged with crimes against humanity.

The fear, however, is that before international bureaucracy clunks into action the Guinea cauldron will erupt into civil war that will boil over into neighbouring countries, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, all of which have been in conflict recently and where the only chance of earning a living for their poor and unemployed is as militia fighters.

“Should the instability in Guinea – a country neglected by the world and exploited by its leaders – be allowed to grow and continue, it will end up destroying a whole neighbourhood that is still recovering from the horrors of war and brutality,” says Jeggan Grey-Johnson, who works for the Africa Programme of the Soros Foundation.

Ms Grey-Johnson says millions of dollars worth of arms are already filtering from Europe through countries in West Africa to Conakry, to arm the clandestine militia loyal to Captain Camara’s Gueze ethnic group. Ms Grey-Johnson alleges that the group is being trained by mercenaries headed by a South

African veteran fighter and whose parent company is located in Dubai.

“There are at least 30 South African guns for hire milling around Conakry and its environs, obviously waiting for the showdown, with the promise of spoils of war in the form of mining concessions and other worldly treasures,” says the Soros Foundation aide.

Guinea, which appears rarely on British radar because it was a French colony and has been ruled by a series of corrupt and secretive dictators who hanged opponents from street lamp posts and bridges 50 at a time, is the source of more than half the world’s bauxite, the raw material of aluminium. It also has huge reserves of iron ore, gold, nickel, uranium and diamonds. It has gushing rivers ideal for hydropower, verdant forests and fine soils which should, in normal circumstances, enable it to become an economic success story.

Whether Guinea descends into civil war may depend on whether or not Captain Camara is able to return from Morocco, where he has been under treatment for neck wounds after he was shot twice, allegedly by the head of his Presidential Guard early this month. If Captain Camara returns, analysts believe that a bloodbath is likely, as many old scores will begin to be settled.

Western countries have tried to clip the wings of Captain Camara and the junta with sanctions, including travel bans, an arms embargo, financial and asset freezes and diplomatic isolation. Yet Captain Camara and his men have been able to flout these penalties with apparent ease. Camara’s passage to Morocco for medical treatment was eased by neighbouring Senegal.

The defence minister, General Sekouba Konate, a Captain Camara loyalist, has jetted to Lebanon without hindrance to negotiate arms supplies. China, engaged against the West in a new “Scramble for Africa”, has exploited the current upheaval in Guinea by agreeing to take over mining rights to bauxite reserves and in return construct ports, railway lines and power plants.

“I hope that Mr Dadis Camara stays in his bed in Morocco and does not return home as his return would be capable of triggering a civil war that we really don’t need,” Bernard Kouchner, France’s foreign minister, told his national parliament last week. But Mamadouba Diabate, Guinea’s ambassador to Morocco, said: “He is doing better and intends to return to Conakry as quickly as possible.”

The US ambassador to the UN says the International Criminal Court can investigate those responsible for the mass killings and rapes of protesters in Guinea without any action by the UN Security Council. Susan Rice says that’s because Guinea has ratified the Rome Statute, which established the world’s first permanent tribunal to prosecute cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

More than 50,000 people had packed into the stadium on 28 September to protest against the growing certainty Captain Camara intended breaking a public vow he had made not to present himself as a candidate in presidential elections called for early 2010. Soldiers under orders to do whatever it took to break up the protest moved in, with the crackdown quickly turning violent.

Human rights of ordinary Guineans have been systematically abused under successive leaders, beginning with Ahmed Sékou Touré, president from independence in 1958 until 1984. Captain Camara came to power in a bloodless coup in December 2008 following the death of long-time authoritarian

President Lansana Conté, Sékou Touré’s successor.