After Massacre, Guinea Sees Hope of Lifted Chains

Guinea opposition leaders have been appointed to positions in government following a massacre last year that killed over 150 people. Jean-Marie Dore, right, standing with his predecessor, Kabina Komara.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

February 3, 2010
After Massacre, Guinea Sees Hope of Lifted Chains

By ADAM NOSSITER
New York Times

CONAKRY, Guinea — Something rare has happened in a region often given to brutal autocracy: power has been peacefully transferred to a civilian, just four months after an army massacre that recalled the worst of Africa’s past.

On Sept. 28, at least 150 demonstrators died in this city’s main stadium. More than 100 women were raped or sexually abused, a United Nations panel found, while many other protesters were beaten — including the man who is now Guinea’s prime minister.

Now, the swift and unexpected turn of events has surprised Guineans, who wonder warily if the new prime minister, Jean-Marie Doré, a gaunt and wily opposition leader who left the stadium bleeding, can actually deliver democracy in a country that has never truly known it. The omnipresent military, arbiter of power for decades, hovers in the background, a potential foot on the fragile plant of civilian rule.

“Things have happened so fast,” said Sydia Touré, a widely respected opposition leader.

“This is something we couldn’t have imagined two months ago,” he said. “It’s a new vision.”

People here are still trying to understand exactly how the transition occurred, as the larger question arises of whether Guinea holds any lessons for the region’s future.

It was, bitterly for Guineans, the massacre that might have finally unchained this long-repressed country. An unusual set of events followed: the grave wounding in December of the country’s military dictator, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, in an assassination attempt; then what appeared to be acquiescence by his second-in-command, Gen. Sékouba Konaté, to a switch to civilian leadership; and finally the scene of hope last week when Mr. Doré took power and promised the nation its first truly free elections within the year.

“Democracy!” people shouted after Mr. Doré left a downtown restaurant, slapping the hands of well-wishers from his S.U.V. He was guarded, paradoxically, by the same cadre of red-bereted presidential guards responsible for the stadium massacre.

“It’s you: Jean-Marie!” the crowd yelled.

Guinea could be the rare case in which swift international sanctions actually worked, politicians and diplomats here say. Sharp words from the United States and France in October were quickly followed by travel and aid bans, which struck hard in an impoverished land where over half the budget is financed from abroad.

The United Nations and the International Criminal Court investigated the stadium massacre, with the United Nations focusing on the junta — including its erratic chief, Captain Camara — for crimes against humanity. Pressure built, and the government gave in.

“We now know to what degree the international community is allergic to violations of human rights in general, and unpunished massacres in particular,” Mr. Doré said in an interview last week, outside a raucous but hopeful — and aboveground — meeting of former opposition parties.

Mr. Touré, a former prime minister and now a likely candidate for president, said: “The pressure from the international community, the pressure was very strong, and very fast. The horizon was closed very quickly.”

All the makeshift promise and risk of this country’s new democratic experiment were evident at the meeting of former opposition members, in a brightly painted open-air former restaurant called Buddies First. Representatives of about 40 political parties and 30 organizations crowded in. Leaders who a few months ago had gone into hiding, nursing wounds from the massacre, sat in the front row and cheered as the gathering chose a spokesman.

“People have died for this,” said the man eventually picked, François Lonsény Fall, a former prime minister.

“We have a historic mission to give our country, for the first time, democratic institutions,” he told the crowd.

That will not be easy in Guinea, where one dictator has replaced another in the 52 years since its separation from France. First there was a Stalinist, Sékou Touré, who saw plots everywhere and killed dozens of people to stamp them out; then a military man, Lansana Conté, who bled the resource-rich country dry as his entourage enriched itself; and finally Captain Camara, who ruled until a disgruntled member of his guard shot him in the head early in December.

Hope was tempered by wariness at the meeting. “There’s a new momentum that is promising, but it must be well managed,” said Mouctar Diallo, president of an opposition political party who was beaten at the stadium and forced into hiding afterward. “We are optimistic but vigilant.”

Much depends on General Konaté, a burly career military man whose decision to allow opposition forces to pick an interim prime minister — Mr. Doré — was critical in defusing Guinea’s crisis. Diplomats here say General Konaté, the junta’s ailing former defense minister, appears uninterested in political power. Unlike other senior officers, he was not implicated in the massacre, and he has publicly warned about the dangers of isolation and upbraided troops over extortion against civilians.

“What we have from Konaté now is different,” said Mr. Touré, the opposition leader, referring to the tradition of political meddling by the military. “There is a sincerity there.”

Mr. Doré, 71, is something of an unknown as well, despite a long presence on Guinea’s political scene. He is from the same region, Guinea’s forests, as Captain Camara, which helped secure him the position of intermediary between opposition forces and the junta.

Mr. Doré’s main role is to form a government — with 10 representatives from the former opposition, 10 from the junta and 10 from provincial governments — and oversee preparations for elections. A fierce competition for these positions is now under way, and Mr. Doré is already being criticized for being too slow, a week after taking office.

Elected twice to Guinea’s largely impotent Parliament, Mr. Doré refused to sit in it after 2002 elections to protest electoral fraud, but he kept lines open to the country’s succession of dictators, according to the Guinean press. On the nation’s future, he gives the measured responses of a political professional.

“I can’t predict what’s going to happen, but I think the army and its chief understand the necessity for Guinea of ending this incoherence,” he said.

There have been brief outbursts of joy to greet what appeared to be the return of civilian rule, but also much wariness. Mr. Doré has given ambiguous statements about running for president, and some worry that he will be reluctant to hold elections in which he is not a candidate. Many also worry about the military.

“I’m really genuinely cheered that people are concerned here, that they aren’t dropping their guard, assuming it’s done,” said the American ambassador in Conakry, Patricia N. Moller. “Because it’s not done.”

That wary hope was evident. “We’re a little relieved, but there is concrete work to be done,” said Hourana Camara, a fisherman. “We haven’t seen anything yet.”

Ian Fisher contributed reporting.