DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-GUINEA: Turning Up The Heat On Government

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Nov 7 1998 (IPS) - Rights groups in the West African state of Guinea have turned up the heat on the government of General Lansana Conte in the run-up to Presidential elections in December.

A scathing statement by the Guinean Association for Human Rights last week dubbed the government’s rights record “poor and unacceptable”.

It cited a number of alleged political killings, disappearances, and torture of detainees and arbitrary arrests and detentions of the critics of the ruling Unity and Progress Party (PUP).

Top on the Association’s list is the fate of Colonel Giarra Traore, who was implicated in a coup plot in 1995, and has since been unheard of.

More than ten other military officers, who were arrested and detained, in connection with a failed coup attempt in 1996, are also held incommunicado, at arious detention centres around the country.

The Association alleged the incommunicado detentions or disappearances of whole families, suspected of being opposition sympathisers. It called for the release of political detainees in the spirit of reconciliation and nation-building.

The campaign gathered momentum, after the dismissal two weeks ago of the Speker of the Legislator Assembly, by the ruling party, for what is generally believed in Guinea to e the Speaker’s open criticism of the government’s rights record.

The Speaker, Alhaji Bubakar Biro Diallo, though a founding member of Gen. Conte’s PUP, has criticised he torture of detainees and the unlawful detentions of suspects in Guinea.

Diallo’s dismissal is likely to enraged his powerful constituency. As a Fulani, one of the major ethnic groups opposed to Conte, Diallo is responsible for the winning over of Fulani votes for the PUP, dominated by Susu. “I cannot compromise principles at the altar of political expediency,” he told journalists in the Guinean capital of Conary after his dismissal.

“If by speaking up against some of the most horrendous human rights abuses means losing my job, then so be it,” he said.

Conte seized power in 1984, in a bitter power struggle that followed the death of Guinean dictator, Ahmed Sekou Toure. Four years later, the country held its first elections since independence in 1958, and the General transformed himself into a civilian, contested and manipulated the elections in his favour.

He has since then ruled the country with an iron fist, staying in the military barracks and heeding less to the principles of democracy.

Oppositions rallies are often violently disrupted by militants of the ruling party. Nor are the opposition given due coverage on the national radio and television. Military officers and territorial gendermerie are always on high alert to coerce the slightest attempt by opposition supporters, to either demonstrate on the streets or embark on the campaign trail.

Recently the leader of the Union of the New Republic (UNR) party, Ba Mamadou, a former World Bank official, was briefly detained by the authorities for alleggedly “inciting supporters to disrupt the public peace”.

Guinea’s vocal press, too, has not been left out in the fray. In the run-up to elections, there have been repeated ransacking of independent newspaper offices and the confiscation of printing materials.

At least four foreign journalists working for “l’independent’ and ‘l’Oeil’ have been deported, on allegations that they were sympathising with the opposition.

Others have been detained without trials, or intimidated by agents of the ruling party. “The climate of fear and intimidation is very much around,” says Abubacar Conde, editor-in-chief of l’Independent. “It is pretty difficult these days to to practice journalism in Guinea, but we stand for the people’s right to know and so we cannot be intimidtd”.

The opposition political parties are also unhappy about government’s refusal to allow independentonitors to witness ecember’s polls.

“How can we talk about democratic elections when there is no independent electoral commission nor a willingness on the part of the PUP government to allow foreign observers to monitor the elections,” says Alphajor Barrie of the opposition Party for Renewal and Progress (PRP).

Meanwhile, Guinea’s divided opposition have formed the Coordination of the Democratic Opposition (CODEM) — a coalition of 20 parties and 20 associations — to challenge Conte. “As far as we are concerned, general Conte is not genuinely committed to holding free and fair elections,” Says Jean-Marie Dore of CODEM.