POLITICS-GUINEA: Intervention Force Awaited to Avert Humanitarian Catastrophe

By Saliou Samb Reprint | | Print |

Saliou Samb

CONAKRY, Jan 7 2001 (IPS) - African leaders are hoping to avert a humanitarian catastrophe by deploying additional military observers at Guinea’s border with Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Since September, villages and towns on the Guinean side of the border have been under brutal attack by rebels from the neighbouring nations. Tens of thousands, traumatised by the bloodshed in the area, have fled to the Guinean capital of Conakry and other areas of the country which have so far remained peaceful.

According to official sources in Conakry, the fighting has pitted the Guinean army against rebels of the United Revolutionary Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, which is supported by Liberia.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) the situation is ironic since 500,000 refugees who have fled both Liberia and Sierra Leone are presently living in the troubled area. Approximately 150,000 are from Liberia, while the remainder come from Sierra Leone.

At Kissidougou, for example, UNHCR is planning to build a refugee camp for 50,000 if the present troubles persist. At the same time, it has decided to pull out of Gueckedou, a town of 100,000 before the rebel attacks. Today, Gueckedou is a virtual ghost town, with only 3,000 residents remaining.

UNHCR also notes that the Guinean army has closed all major highways in the combat zone in order to prevent further rebel infiltration.

The worrisome situation has led the defence ministers and army chiefs-of-staff of member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to mobilise a 1,600-member military mission to Guinea to help stave off a possible humanitarian tragedy.

The exact deployment date has not yet been set, but the troops, to be sent to bolster the numbers of soldiers of the Economic Community Cease- fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), are expected to be deployed for six months in the first instance. Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, and Gambia have already expressed their willingness to participate in the intervention force, which would serve mainly as an observer mission.

However, an observer mission was not exactly what the Guinean government had in mind. The Minister of Defence, Dorank Assifat Diasseny, believes that ECOMOG troops stationed in Guinea should be empowered to quash the slightest hint of rebel activity, no matter what its country of origin.

In short, Guinea is not at all keen to receive a military force, which could only observe aggression and not stop it.

Thousands have already died in such confrontations and thousands more continue to flee their villages seeking refuge in safer areas.

Towns in the country’s south, such as Macenta, Gueckedou, Kissidougou, and Faranah, and in the west, such as Forecariah, have sustained bombings and deadly gunfire, whipping the civilian population into a panic.

Recent figures show that there have been more than 1,000 killed and thousands more injured. The Guinean Minister of Finance says that the confrontations have caused property damage valuing almost 300 million US dollars.

Guinea is not the only country to protest the incessant rebel attacks. Liberia, too, has reported the presence of subversive rebel factions in Loffa and Wondjimai counties, both located near the Guinean border.

Guinea’s forest-dwelling citizens expressed their extreme displeasure with the situation several weeks ago in a letter to President Lansana Conte. They said they were “disgusted to see the Ulimo, the Liberian rebel faction of Aladji Kromah, still active in Guinea’s southernmost reaches”.

The leader of the Guinean People’s Party (PPG), Charles Pascal Tolno, who lives in the region, demanded that a commission of inquiry be established to investigate Ulimo’s activities in the area.

“I’ve always wanted a commission of inquiry to study Ulimo’s presence in Guinea. Aladji Kromah, the leader, is gone but people say the rest of the group is still going strong,” said Tolno.

“That Ulimo members should still be around is one thing, but if it’s true that they’re here to attack Guineans, that’s quite another story. They’ve been accused of rape, robbery, and all sorts of other crimes. The stories may be false, but the whole situation needs to be investigated,” he said.

During the war in Liberia, when Charles Taylor’s troops were at the gates of Monrovia, the capital, the Guinean army was the first to come to the aid of President Samuel Doe.

The intervention of ECOMOG prolonged this unusually bloody war for five long years. Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor, who is today the Liberian president took a dim view of the decision of the Conakry regime to halt the advance of the rebels.

The Taylor administration was also unhappy that Aladji Kromah and his cronies were able to continue to live normal lives in Conakry and he deplored the initial attacks on Loffa and Wondjimai counties, which were perceived as Conakry’s attempt to undermine the foundations of his new Liberian regime.

Given ECOMOG’s previous failures, Guineans are less than enthusiastic about the arrival of reinforcements.

Political leaders such as Jean Marie Dore have already spoken out against the deployment. Mamadou Ba of the opposition Union for Progress and Renewal (UPR) declared he was sceptical about how effective the new troops could be.

The announced deployment has raised a glimmer of hope for UNHCR, which would like humanitarian organisations to be able to resume operations in this country, where thousands of refugees and Guineans are in need of emergency aid.