- Title: GUINEA: Guinea's president calls for unity as clashes hit the capital
- Date: 22nd January 2007
- Summary: PEOPLE MILLING AROUND PEOPLE RUNNING, SMOKE SEEN
- Embargoed: 6th February 2007 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Guinea
- Country: Guinea
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVABLHXW05M7Y18BL2FWFC0IW0HT
- Story Text: Guinean president call on the people and army to unite behind his rule while the opposition's general strike turns violent. Guinea's President Lansana Conte called on the population and the army to remain united behind him on Sunday (January 21) after days of violent protests against his rule during a crippling general strike in the West African country.
Union leaders launched the 12-day-old stoppage because they say Conte, a reclusive diabetic in his 70s, is unfit to govern. Clashes between protesters and the security forces have killed at least 11 people across the world's top bauxite exporter.
The ruling party called the protests an attempt to seize power.
"We have come to the conclusion that it's not about a syndicates strike, but it's about political demands. Today's events confirm that we are right. They (strikers) completely left the grounds of syndicate demands, to go on political ground," said Sekou Konate, the secretary-general of Conte's rulling Party of Unity and Progress (PUP).
Conte's rule has long been based on the support of the military, but diplomats question how long the army -- itself riven by generational and ethnic divisions -- will remain loyal in the face of popular revolt.
People on the streets of Conakry ran in panic on Wednesday (January 17) as clashes between the security forces and protesters grew louder and louder, however Konate said the situation was all in hand.
"Until now I don't want to send my troops out. The security is all in place. The soldiers would very much like to get out there, but we are calming them down. We don't want to be classed as in other countries, where the militants of the party in power are classed as the trouble makers," said Konate.
Conte, a reclusive diabetic seized power in Guinea in a 1984 coup and the strike poses the toughest challenge yet to his 23-year rule, threatening to throw the former French colony into turmoil.
Conte dismissed repeated calls by strike leaders that he hand over the running of the country to a consensus unity government, and refused to come out publicly during the first week of the strike, answering the syndicates through his aides, only on their demands related to the quality of life.
This angered unions and prompted protesters to come out on the streets of Conakry.
"The demands that the syndicates are making are divided into two categories. One category concerns the structure of the state, the other are demands to do with our quality of life. The government exclusively answered only the demands to do with the quality of life and I think this is what upset the syndicates," said said Jean Marie Dore, head of the opposition Union for the Progress of Guinea (UPG) party.
Groups of youths stood on otherwise-deserted streets among charred remains of barricades in parts of the tense capital, Conakry, on Wednesday, watched by riot police brandishing tear gas launchers.
A nine-year-old girl was hit in the stomach by a stray bullet when the security forces fired into the air to disperse youths in the suburb of Hamdallaye-Concasseur, residents said.
"We had stopped, and were looking around, at the road, and the others were running towards Abdalaye, when the presidential guard came and started to shoot at us," said a friend of one of the people killed in the clashes.
The strike, launched by union leaders who say Conte is unfit to rule and should step aside, has paralysed the West African nation, triggering the beginning of an economic meltdown.
Guinea is the world's biggest shipper of the bauxite ore from which aluminium is extracted. But despite this mineral wealth, most of the nearly 10 million population are poor.
Every day during the strike protesters gather at the headquarters of the National Confederation of Workers in Guinea, to discuss the way forward.
"One person dying is very bad, but if it's about the whole population dying, then we don't have any more fear, honestly, it must be said. They can't come kill the whole country. With all the demands of the youth, if all the youth rises now to say that we don't want this regime anymore, even if the security forces intervene or not, we are not afraid," said one of the syndicalists, Kemoko Bangoura.
Strike leaders say Conte is too sick and erratic to rule, citing a spate of confused cabinet reshuffles and his intervention to free from jail two ex-allies accused of graft.
With popular discontent so strong, analysts and diplomats say the latest general strike presents the most serious threat yet to Conte's near quarter century in power.
"We have had enough. You know there is a saying: 'Enough is enough." You can hurt us once, twice, three times. But after the third time, it becomes impossible. Once it's like that, people have had enough. So the people of Guinea, we now want to try another regime. If it works, OK, if it doesn't work, then we change that regime too. So this is our objective," Bangoura added.
The violence spread on Friday (January 19) to Guinea's south, a region seen as particularly vulnerable because of its porous borders with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
West African heads of state voted at a meeting of the regional body ECOWAS late on Friday to send a high-level commission to Guinea to urge negotiations between the unions and the government.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo both volunteered to head the delegation.
Guinea's opposition said the planned mediation was too little, too late. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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