ACCRA, Ghana -- Ghana's head of state, Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings, closed border points and extended curfew hours to snare rebel soldiers who staged the fourth unsuccessful coup attempt against his military government in a year.
Sunday's attempted coup was crushed after some two hours of fighting in the capital between loyal troops and the rebels, Rawlings said in a Radio Accra broadcast monitored in London.
Rawlings, who seized power for the second time in his own coup only 18 months ago, said several dissident soldiers had been killed and many arrested.
In London, the Guardian newspaper quoted Ghanaian government sources as saying the coup started when some soldiers, currently on trial for staging a coup last November, broke out of their central Accra jail.
The rebel soldiers were apparently led by a man who identified himself on Radio Accra as Ghana's new 'operational commissioner,' Carlos Halida Gyuiwah -- a lance corporal jailed in the attempted coup last November.
Rawlings Sunday night ordered all of Ghana's borders closed until further notice and advanced the regular midnight curfew to 6 p.m., ending at dawn.
Despite his charisma, Rawlings has faced four coup attempts against his ruling Provisional Defense Council since last November alone. The cause lies in Ghana's ruined economy, which the Ghanaian leader -- like his predecessors -- has been unable to revive.
Rawlings, 35, a former Ghana air force flight lieutenant of mixed Scottish-Ghanaian parentage, has seized power in the West African nation twice, in 1979 and 1981, in a crusade against corruption.
First news of the fourth attempted coup against him came from Radio Accra which rebel soldiers seized to broadcast a statement condemning Rawlings as inefficient and claiming his ruling council would be disbanded.
The rebels also called for the arrest of 10 military officers, including Brig. Arnold Quainoo, Ghana's chief of defense staff and army commander.
Explosions and heavy fighting were reported near the army headquarters, the airport and Broadcasting House, the headquarters for Radio Accra, diplomatic sources in London said. They said there were no immediate reports of foreign casualties.
When forces loyal to Rawlings regained control of the radio, an army captain went on air to reassure the populace and urge rebels to surrender.
Ghana was the most prosperous nation in black Africa when it gained independence from Britain in 1957. Within 25 years it has become one of the poorest countries in an impoverished continent.
