GUINEA: Life means terror in army-run Conakry

CONAKRY, 16 February 2007 (IRIN) - “The boss made reference to President Lansana Conte and gave us the order to shoot anyone provocative, so whoever provokes me, I will shoot him without any hesitation,” said a Kalashnikov-toting soldier in the main street outside the Donka hospital in central Conakry on Thursday, who refused to give his name.

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday security forces have killed at least 22 people using this justification since last weekend.

Of those, HRW said at least one was killed since President Conte imposed 10 days of martial law on Monday night, although news reports have recorded nine people killed around the country since then.

In addition to the HRW count, IRIN has confirmed that a seven year-old girl, Aicha Diallo, was shot and killed during random shooting by uniformed soldiers in the Taouyah suburb of Conakry on Thursday. CLICK to read Aicha Diallo’s story

Guineans say uniformed soldiers have also been looting, raping and beating people at random in most of the sprawling city’s suburbs.

Violence erupted in Conakry and in towns across Guinea on Saturday after President Conte announced on Friday evening he would appoint a man seen as his close ally to the prime minister post, a position populist unions now leading calls for his resignation say he promised to an independent candidate.

Most areas of Conakry are calm since the army took over, although demonstrations have been reported in the towns Banankoro in the south and Labe in the centre of the country.

Provocations

Guineans struggling to live in Conakry, the rundown capital, where they are only allowed out of their houses between noon and 6pm, say ‘provocations’ can include staring, wearing a desirable pair of shoes, or simply being in the wrong place when the jeeps of soldiers careering around the city start shooting their guns in the air.

Photo: Pierre Holtz/IRIN
Conakry is a sprawling maze of tin shacks and dirt roads

Alseny Bah, 21, was leaving his house in the maze of alleyways in the Petit Lac areaof Taouyah district in the north of Conakry on Thursday, looking for an open kiosk to buy food.

"When I left the house, a soldier saw me straight away. I ran away but he trapped me in a corner and beat me with his fists. When I fell down he went through my pockets,” Bah said on Thursday.

Bah lost his cell phone, and the equivalent of US $8 in cash. The soldier even took his worn Nike running shoes.

Shot hiding in the closet

In the Hafea district in the east of the city, Aminata, 30, didn’t even leave her house but still got caught up in the violence, according to her sister, who gave her name as Djenadob.

“We heard trucks pulling up outside and shouting, then shooting started,” Djenadob said. The girls hid inside their wardrobe, but when the shooting stopped Aminata was slumped, bleeding.

Neighbours said later the soldiers were shooting into the air as a warning to people not to come outside. One of the bullets pierced the flimsy tin walls of the sisters’ shack and clipped Aminata.

The family borrowed a neighbour’s car and risked the long drive to the city’s only functioning hospital. Aminata’s condition later was unclear.

Stoned, raped

At the Donka hospital, the mother of a young boy who was hit in the head with a rock thrown by soldiers on Wednesday says he has not eaten or spoken since the attack.

“The soldier was going to shoot him but his colleague stopped him, so he threw a rock instead and it cracked his head,” she said.

In its statement on Friday, HRW said at least three women living in Conakry’s suburbs have been raped by uniformed personnel, including soldiers and presidential guardsmen.

“At least one victim was reportedly gang-raped,” the statement said.

“People in the suburbs are terrified because they say the soldiers are going to come in and ‘kill and rape us and send red berets into our homes’,” said HRW researcher Dustin Sharp who was in Conakry until Thursday.

Culture of impunity

Guineans say they are far more afraid of the army than the regular police or gendarmes.

“It’s the army that kills,” said a 33-year-old journalist, who did not want to be named. “We have much more reason to fear them than the police or gendarmes.”

HRW has previously accused the Guinean security services of torture and murder and said there is a “culture of impunity” compounded by a weak judicial system.

The army chief-of-staff, Gen Kerfalla Camara, told journalists in Conakry on Friday that a commission has been set up to look into allegations of army abuse.

But Sharp said no Guinean security personnel have ever been prosecuted for serious crimes, including the shooting of 13 unarmed students during a strike in June last year.

Despite the unrest, Sharp said many people he met in Conakry still wanted to demand Conte’s resignation when martial law is lifted.

“It’s an open question to what extent the resistance has been broken,” Sharp said.

Civil society leaders are due to sit down with the military on Saturday to start negotiations to end the crisis.