Guinea rally death toll nears 130
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Frame grab of security forces moving towards protesters in ConakrySource: Reuters -
Map locating Conakry in GuineaSource: AFP -
Frame grab of people entering the stadium in ConakrySource: Reuters -
Frame grab of people running from security forces in ConakrySource: Reuters -
Frame grab of an injured protester receiving aid in ConakrySource: Reuters -
Frame grab of protesters in ConakrySource: Reuters -
Goldstone Head of Fact Finding Mission on Gaza Conflict looks on as UN ...Source: Reuters -
Guinea's coach Titi Camara looks on after his team lost to Malawi in ...Source: Reuters
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Guinea rally death toll nears 130
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Page last updated at 14:12 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 15:12 UK
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by Tokun Lawal, reporting for Biodun Iginla @ BBC News
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Opposition leader Sidya Toure: "They just started to shoot people directly"
At least 128 people were killed when Guinean troops opened fire on opposition protesters on Monday, rights groups and opposition figures claim.
Earlier police said 87 people had died, but local activists say hospital sources confirmed a much higher toll.
Human rights groups say they have had reports of soldiers bayoneting people and women being stripped and raped in the streets during the protest.
Junta head Capt Moussa Dadis Camara denied knowledge of sexual assaults.
But he admitted that some of his security forces had lost control.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France was suspending military ties with Guinea after the "savage and bloody" crackdown on opposition protesters, the French news agency AFP reported.
Out of control
About 50,000 people were protesting over rumours that Capt Camara intends to run for president in an election schedule for next January.
ANALYSIS
Paul Melly, African analyst
This reminds us that the army which took power in December is in fact the same army that underpinned the Lansana Conte regime and the same army that was involved in the very bloody repression of protests in January and February of 2007.
Capt Moussa Dadis Camara promised he wouldn't stand in any election in 2009 but by putting the election back to 2010 he has, as it were, got out of that promise.
Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sidya Toure represent potentially the greatest threat to any candidacy by Dadis Camara should Guinea be allowed a free election. Both originated as prime ministers attempting to carry through reforms under the old regime; both found their reform programmes derailed.
Guinea is naturally quite wealthy. It's not easy to just force down a regime through external pressure. The Conte regime survived years of the suspension of European aid without ever caving in to the EU's demands for political reform.
But soldiers moved in to quell the rally using tear gas and baton charges and firing live ammunition into the crowds.
The Guinean Organisation for Defence of Human Rights put the toll at 157 people killed and more than 1,200 wounded, although this has not been corroborated.
Human rights groups said there were widespread reports of rape.
"The military is going into districts, looting goods and raping women," Mamadi Kaba, the head of the Guinean branch of the African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), told AFP.
"We have similar reports from several sources, including police sources and some close to the military," said Mr Kaba, from his office in Dakar, Senegal.
An eyewitness told Human Rights Watch: "I saw several women stripped and then put inside the military trucks and taken away. I don't know what happened to them."
"They were raping women publicly," opposition activist Mouctar Diallon said in an interview with French radio station RFI, adding that he had witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts during Monday's protests.
Guinean human rights activist Souleymane Bah told Reuters news agency that people trying to escape from the shooting were "caught and finished off with bayonets".
A doctor at a government hospital in Conakry said his wards looked like "a butchery".
Threat of sanctions
The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in Conakry says Capt Camara acknowledged that "uncontrollable soldiers" were responsible, but did not say how many people had died.
About 50,000 people were said to have protested
Capt Camara told local radio stations that it was difficult to control the soldiers when there was tension in the country.
Our correspondent says the capital is calm at the moment, with the shops and schools closed, and little traffic on the roads.
There has been worldwide condemnation of the violence.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Guinean authorities to exercise maximum restraint, while the West African regional body Ecowas is reported to be pursuing sanctions against the military regime.
Capt Camara staged a coup last December hours after the death of President Lansana Conte, who had ruled for more than two decades.
The military takeover initially had some popular support, but in recent weeks there have been several anti-government protests.
Guinean officials and former aides of Capt Camara have been accused of corruption and links to the drugs trade, including the son of former President Lansana Conte, who was shown confessing on TV to smuggling cocaine.
Guinea expert Gilles Yabi told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the rally was "only the beginning" of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations that can be expected in the next few months.
Should Capt Camara stand for president, he said, it would be a violation of the tacit agreement between military and civil forces which has kept him in power.
And it would mark a perpetuation of the kind of rule that Guinea has seen for the past decade - which the military had promised to sweep away.
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Page last updated at 14:12 GMT, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 15:12 UK
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
by Tokun Lawal, reporting for Biodun Iginla @ BBC News
Advertisement
Opposition leader Sidya Toure: "They just started to shoot people directly"
At least 128 people were killed when Guinean troops opened fire on opposition protesters on Monday, rights groups and opposition figures claim.
Earlier police said 87 people had died, but local activists say hospital sources confirmed a much higher toll.
Human rights groups say they have had reports of soldiers bayoneting people and women being stripped and raped in the streets during the protest.
Junta head Capt Moussa Dadis Camara denied knowledge of sexual assaults.
But he admitted that some of his security forces had lost control.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France was suspending military ties with Guinea after the "savage and bloody" crackdown on opposition protesters, the French news agency AFP reported.
Out of control
About 50,000 people were protesting over rumours that Capt Camara intends to run for president in an election schedule for next January.
ANALYSIS
Paul Melly, African analyst
This reminds us that the army which took power in December is in fact the same army that underpinned the Lansana Conte regime and the same army that was involved in the very bloody repression of protests in January and February of 2007.
Capt Moussa Dadis Camara promised he wouldn't stand in any election in 2009 but by putting the election back to 2010 he has, as it were, got out of that promise.
Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sidya Toure represent potentially the greatest threat to any candidacy by Dadis Camara should Guinea be allowed a free election. Both originated as prime ministers attempting to carry through reforms under the old regime; both found their reform programmes derailed.
Guinea is naturally quite wealthy. It's not easy to just force down a regime through external pressure. The Conte regime survived years of the suspension of European aid without ever caving in to the EU's demands for political reform.
But soldiers moved in to quell the rally using tear gas and baton charges and firing live ammunition into the crowds.
The Guinean Organisation for Defence of Human Rights put the toll at 157 people killed and more than 1,200 wounded, although this has not been corroborated.
Human rights groups said there were widespread reports of rape.
"The military is going into districts, looting goods and raping women," Mamadi Kaba, the head of the Guinean branch of the African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), told AFP.
"We have similar reports from several sources, including police sources and some close to the military," said Mr Kaba, from his office in Dakar, Senegal.
An eyewitness told Human Rights Watch: "I saw several women stripped and then put inside the military trucks and taken away. I don't know what happened to them."
"They were raping women publicly," opposition activist Mouctar Diallon said in an interview with French radio station RFI, adding that he had witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts during Monday's protests.
Guinean human rights activist Souleymane Bah told Reuters news agency that people trying to escape from the shooting were "caught and finished off with bayonets".
A doctor at a government hospital in Conakry said his wards looked like "a butchery".
Threat of sanctions
The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in Conakry says Capt Camara acknowledged that "uncontrollable soldiers" were responsible, but did not say how many people had died.
About 50,000 people were said to have protested
Capt Camara told local radio stations that it was difficult to control the soldiers when there was tension in the country.
Our correspondent says the capital is calm at the moment, with the shops and schools closed, and little traffic on the roads.
There has been worldwide condemnation of the violence.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Guinean authorities to exercise maximum restraint, while the West African regional body Ecowas is reported to be pursuing sanctions against the military regime.
Capt Camara staged a coup last December hours after the death of President Lansana Conte, who had ruled for more than two decades.
The military takeover initially had some popular support, but in recent weeks there have been several anti-government protests.
Guinean officials and former aides of Capt Camara have been accused of corruption and links to the drugs trade, including the son of former President Lansana Conte, who was shown confessing on TV to smuggling cocaine.
Guinea expert Gilles Yabi told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the rally was "only the beginning" of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations that can be expected in the next few months.
Should Capt Camara stand for president, he said, it would be a violation of the tacit agreement between military and civil forces which has kept him in power.
And it would mark a perpetuation of the kind of rule that Guinea has seen for the past decade - which the military had promised to sweep away.
Did you see the rally? Are you in the area?
Send your comments using the post form below.
A selection of your comments may be published, displaying your name and location unless you state otherwise in the box below.
Name
Your E-mail address
Town & Country
Phone number (optional):
Comments
The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.
Terms & Conditions
Bookmark with: Posted by BiodunIginla at 4:26 PM Labels: bbc news biodun iginla, guinea, tokun lawal 0 comments: Links to this post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
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News Stories
- News Source: BBC | about 1 month agoThe security forces struggled to cope with the large crowd, witnesses say. The bodies were brought to the mosque from a hospital morgue so people could pray for them. The military authorities in Guinea say 57 people were killed in the violence, but...
- News Source: Sydney Morning Herald | about 1 month agoThe military junta on Thursday opened the morgue of one of Conakry's main hospitals to journalists and asserted that 56 people died in Monday's brutal repression in the capital's biggest stadium. Environment Minister Papa Koly Kourouma said at the...
- News Source: Al Jazeera | about 1 month agoCaptain Moussa Dadis Camara, the country’s leader, called on Monday for a government of national unity after local human rights groups said a crackdown on an opposition rally had killed at least 157 people. The move was seen as an attempt to ease...
- News Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation | about 1 month agoCaptain Moussa Dadis Camara also called for the setting up of an interim government until elections due in January. Bowing to mounting global condemnation of the worst carnage in the west African country in 25 years and the European Union threatening...
- News Source: BBC | 2 months agoGuinea's military leader has called for a government of national unity days after dozens of opposition supporters died when protests turned violent. The rally was triggered by rumours that Moussa Dadis Camara, who seized power in a coup, would run...
- News Source: The Daily Star | 2 months agoGuinea on Wednesday banned “subversive” gatherings as it announced two days of national mourning after troops killed at least 157 people in a brutal crackdown on an opposition rally. The country’s military rua day after the crackdown, and...
Blogs
>
- Blog Source: blog.taragana.comGuinea's mineral-rich soil had been plundered by two consecutive dictatorships before Camara seized control of the country a day after President Lansana Conte, who had ruled for nearly a quarter-century, died on Dec. 22. ... Some 50000 demonstrators
- Blog Source: blog.taragana.comCamara came to power in a coup hours after longtime dictator Lansana Conte died. Camara initially said he would not run in a presidential election set for Jan. 31 but recently said he has the right to run. ... Some 50000 demonstrators gathered in the
- Blog Source: luishipolito.wordpress.comProtesters killed in Guinea rally. 2009 September 28. tags: Guinea, Protests and Demonstrations. by Luis Hipolito. Security forces in Guinea have used tear gas, live ammunition and baton charges to quell an opposition rally – killing at least 10 ...
- Blog Source: www.makatilocal.comthe capital Conakry. Some Guinean soldiers lost control at an opposition protest in the capital, Guinea's military leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has admitted. He said in an interview on French and Senegalese radio that the security forces had
- Blog Source: www.digitaljournal.comSecurity forces in Guinea opened fire on Monday on an estimated crowd of 50000, which had gathered in the country's capital Conakry to protest at the rule of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, killing at least 87 people. ... An official in Washington spoke
- Blog Source: niger1.comThe clashes took place Monday in the capital, Conakry. Witnesses say Guinea's security forces opened fire on demonstrators who had gathered in a large stadium to protest against the possible presidential candidacy of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, the
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- Video Source: youtube.comGlobal Scorn at Guinea ...Video Source: youtube.comPeople flee in terror as Guinea soldiers fire into a crowded sports stadium....
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- Video Source: youtube.comGuinea junta lead war on drugsVideo Source: youtube.comIn this edition: Spotlight on Guineas where captain Moussa Dadis Camara ...
- Video Source: youtube.comFlying into Conakry, GuineaVideo Source: youtube.com
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