Guinea: Aftermath of assassination attempt on military ruler - full text
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Immediate Context
Capt. Camara and his military junta, the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), had seized power in December 2008 following the death of President Lansana Conté, who had ruled Guinea with an iron fist since 1984. Whilst some of Camara's policies and methods appeared erratic, he initially endeared himself to Guineans by arresting senior figures within the Conté regime and charging them with involvement in drug trafficking. During the last few years of Conté's rule, Guinea became a major drug-trafficking hub. International drug traffickers from Colombia, Venezuela, Nigeria and Spain, among other countries, had moved their trade up the coast from Guinea-Bissau (widely considered to be Africa's first narco-state) to Guinea after being driven out of Bissau because of increased government scrutiny.
Any lingering domestic and international support for Capt. Camara and his junta quickly evaporated on Sept. 28 when government soldiers, led by members of the presidential guard, opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators at the national football stadium in Conakry. Opposition groups had rallied against the intention of Capt. Camara to stand in presidential elections scheduled for January 2010. Capt Camara had initially promised to guide the country back to civilian rule, but soon dropped hints that he would stand for president himself. At least 157 people were killed and more than 1,250 injured during sustained attacks in and around the stadium. Local human rights workers claimed that dozens of women were raped in a co-ordinated attack by the military, which prompted international outrage.
Activists blamed both Capt Camara and Lt Diakite for the massacre. Capt Camara initially tried to distance himself from the incident by saying that he was not in full control of the officers at the opposition rally. A number of reports claimed that Lt Diakite had been personally commanding some of the troops who opened fire at the stadium. However, in his Dec. 16 interview with RFI, Diakite blamed the whole incident on Camara and said he "knew the reality on the ground very well". Diakite said that Camara had brought in 250 new recruits from the training school for the navy who had been ordered to dress in civilian clothes and were armed with knives.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held an extraordinary summit meeting in Abuja (the capital of Nigeria) on Oct. 17 and agreed to impose an arms embargo on Guinea. It was reported on Oct. 28 that the EU had imposed targeted sanctions against members of the CNDD. The USA and the African Union (AU) followed suit on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30, respectively. However, The Guardian of Nov. 3 reported that the ruling military junta had recently imported light arms worth US$45 million in defiance of the embargo. Sources suggested that the weapons had been bought in Ukraine by the defence minister, Gen. Sekouba Konaté, during a recent private visit. Their arrival was supervised by a specially hired group of South African "security advisers".
In early November Blaise Compaoré, the president of Burkina Faso, launched ECOWAS efforts to mediate in the political crisis that had erupted in the aftermath of the Conakry massacre. West African nations and France (the colonial power) had all called on Capt. Camara to stand down, as demanded by Guinean opposition parties and groups, and not to contest the January 2010 presidential election. The Guinean opposition had refused to play any part in a government of national unity with the junta - Alpha Conde, the leader of the opposition Rally of the Guinean People (RPG), told the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Nov. 10: "We are calling purely and simply for Capt. Dadis [Camara] to go and for the dissolution of the CNDD".
Capt. Camara was shot by Diakite on Dec. 3 and he was immediately flown out to Morocco for treatment. Junta officials acknowledged that Camara had been injured in the shooting, but insisted that he was "in good health". Analysts were agreed that the shooting highlighted deep rifts within the junta in the aftermath of the Conakry massacre. Capt Camara's deputies moved to squash rumours of a power vacuum and confusion over who was in charge. On Dec. 10, interim leader Gen Sekouba Konate (the defence minister) appeared on television to urge unity. At the same time, the military was reported to have launched a crackdown on anyone they believed could be linked with Diakite or the plot to kill Camara. The authorities said on Dec. 10 that more than 100 soldiers had been arrested since the shooting.Reaction and Outlook
The Dec. 3 assassination attempt on Capt. Camara by Lt Diakite highlighted the deep divisions that had emerged within the ruling junta following the Conakry massacre of Sept. 28. To shore up support, Camara had started recruiting militia units from among his minority Guerze tribe, one of more than a dozen smaller groups from the forested "forestier" region in the south-east which had generally been marginalised since independence from France in 1958. Camara had also promoted fellow forestiers to senior positions in the military in preference to those from other tribes. The military, therefore, was deeply divided raising concerns that ethnic and regional divisions in the country could deepen.
The country had traditionally been dominated by the Malinke, Peul and Sousou ethnicities, but Camara's coup drew support from forestiers who felt that their region and its people had been underrepresented in power. The strong support among forestiers came despite widespread outrage over the Sept. 28 Conakry massacre in which more than 150 people, mostly Peul, were killed by a force that witnesses said included many forestiers.
Prior to the attempt on Camara's life, reports emerged that he had set up a military camp outside the capital, using foreign mercenaries to train a force of mostly Guerze soldiers to secure his place in power. Witnesses near the camp, just outside the village of Forecariah, had said more than 1,000 soldiers were in training and that white mercenaries could be seen leading the recruits.
There was serious concern that if Camara returned from his hospital in Morocco to power he might choose to blame other ethnicities for supporting the attack and that this could lead to civil war. However, some analysts believed that an ethnic conflict might not be in Camara's interests given that the Guerze made up just 1 per cent, and the forestiers just 10 per cent, of Guinea's population of 10 million. Interim leader Gen Sekouba Konate—a Malinke—had taken temporary control during Camara's medical treatment and had directed a violent sweep of the military to root out renegade elements, although there was no evidence that the reprisals were ethnically based.
A further concern was that conflict in Guinea could again spill over into neighbouring Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire, which had only recently emerged from years of violent conflict. Camara's Guerze tribe were related to the Kpelle, the largest ethnic group in Liberia, and there were unconfirmed reports in November of former Liberian combatants joining pro-Camara militia units.
The BBC reported on Dec. 14 that the West African ECOWAS bloc had proposed sending an "intervention force" to Guinea, to prevent further regional destabilisation. Abdel Fatau Musah, the bloc's political director, told the BBC's Network Africa programme that ECOWAS and its partners "will not stand by while the situation in Guinea continues to deteriorate and threatens the very stability of neighbouring countries". However, a spokesman for the ruling junta, Col Moussa Keita, called the idea an "assault on the authority of the state".
There was growing evidence during December that the junta, with or without Camara, was unlikely to heed to the demands of ECOWAS or the wider international community. Guinea was the world's biggest supplier of bauxite (the raw material from which aluminium was produced) and its bauxite deposits—found in the Conakry area and at Boké, near the border of Guinea-Bissau—were among the largest in the world. The junta was set to earn US$7 billion in return for mineral and oil rights recently granted to a Chinese company, and was therefore no longer reliant on sales to the West.
Historical Context
The southerly migration of Susa tribes, related to the Malinke, from the desert in the 9th century AD forced the original inhabitants of Guinea, the Baga, south to the coast. By the 13th century the Susa kingdoms had extended their authority over the coastal region. During the 16th century the Fulani conquered the Fouta Djallon plateau and from 1725 prosecuted a holy war to convert its inhabitants to Islam.
The Portuguese arrived at the coast in the mid-15th century and the slave trade soon developed. In the early 19th century French traders established a settlement on the Nunez river and proclaimed the coastal region a French protectorate in 1849. Initially administered from Senegal, the region became the colony of French Guinea in 1890. Opposition to colonial rule was particularly fierce in Fouta Djallon.
In 1958 Guinea chose full independence from France when most other French colonies became autonomous members of the French community. France responded by withdrawing its financial support. Ahmed Sekou Touré, the country's independence leader, was elected as president in 1961 and he maintained a firm grip on the country, being re-elected for a fourth consecutive seven-year term in May 1982. Sekou Touré died in March 1984 and the military seized power with Lansana Conté as the new president. Following the general African trend, Conté was confirmed in office in the country's first multiparty elections held, in an atmosphere of violence and confusion, in December 1993. The country's first multiparty legislative elections were held in June 1995 and resulted in an absolute majority for President Conté's Party of Unity and Progress (PUP).
In November 2001 a new constitution was approved by referendum, removing the limitation of the presidential mandate to two terms in office, thereby allowing President Conté to stand for re-election. Conté was duly re-elected as president in December 2003 with some 96 per cent of the vote. In February 2007 President Conté was forced to impose a state of emergency in an attempt to halt a general strike launched by the country's main trade unions. Amidst reports of the president's declining health, the situation in Guinea became increasingly chaotic in 2007 and 2008. In December 2008 President Conté died and a section of the military, led by Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, a junior officer hitherto in charge of the army's fuel supply, seized power.
