Tag: Guinea

  • Guinea rejects Ecowas sanctions against Mali amid rumbling UN power tussle

    Guinea rejects Ecowas sanctions against Mali amid rumbling UN power tussle

    Guinea’s ruling Committee for National Restoration has dissociated the country from the unprecedented financial, economic and border blockage imposed on Mali by ECOWAS on 9 January.

    There is reported intense power game playing out at the UN Security Council pitting France/Western allies against Russia/China over Mali, while the military-dominated Interim Authority in Bamako has called for a nationwide demonstration on Friday against what it called “extreme sanctions” imposed by ECOWAS on the country with some 19 million people.

    Apart from the declared Guinean solidarity with Mali, Algeria, another Malian neighbour is believed to have also thrown its weight behind Mali.

    The Guinea ruling Committee in a Communique recalled that ECOWAS suspended Guinea from all regional institutions in September 2021 following a military coup that month.

    Consequently, the Committee said that Guinea could therefore not associate itself with the regional sanctions, adding that the country’s land, sea and air borders would remain open to all friendly nations in line with Pan-African solidarity.

    The Communique further said that Guinea would continue to respect all international agreements and obligations.

    There are also unconfirmed reports that the Col. Assimi Goita-led Bamako regime could demand the withdrawal of ECOWAS member States’ personnel from the UN Mission in Mali, MINUSMA.

    ECOWAS nations and Chad account for about 70% of the MINUSMA personnel. The UN Mission has been in Mali since 2013 as part of the international fight against terrorism, albeit without much success.

    Algeria, in an effort to keep terrorists and armed jihadists outside its territory has a vested interest in the political stability of Mali. Algiers hosted the signing of the Peace Accord by Malian protagonists in 2015.

    Like Mali, Guinea is under military rule following the coup that toppled the government of elected President Alpha Conde in September 2021 after changing the national constitution to elongate his tenure.

    The Col Mamady Doumbouya-led ruling military Committee in Conakry has yet to announce a transition timetable, ignoring ECOWAS’ six-month timeline given to it.

    Some critics believe that the ECOWAS unprecedented blockage of Mali was instigated by Paris to punish the junta for daring to lean towards another super power for military support.

    France, which has made no secret of its opposition to Russian military presence in Mali is currently reducing its forces supporting the fight against terrorism and insurrections in the Sahel region including Mali.

    The Mali junta accuses France of abandonment and defends the country’s sovereign rights to seek support from any quarters to deal with insecurity crippling the nation.

    Meanwhile, it was reported that before the ECOWAS Sunday summit in Accra, the Col. Goita-led junta had suggested a modified 24-month transition timetable, which was dismissed because the Francophone Economic and Monetary Union UEMOA, had already taken a “common position” against Mali.

    Furthermore, the fact that Mali’s military agreement continues to figure in ECOWAS Communiqués is considered unprecedented and leaves many wondering why ECOWAS would join France in questioning a member State’s bilateral defence pact.

    After 60 years of independence, African countries cannot continue to blame foreign powers for interference or their woes.
    African leaders and their bad governance are the continent’s major problem.

    Unfortunately, the once internationally acclaimed ECOWAS appears to be losing the capacity for independent decision and moral authority. This could mark the beginning of an end to its relevance.

    Military rule remains an aberration. But only good governance not sanctions, will guarantee democracy in Mali and Africa as a whole.

    African leaders must play by the rules to deliver good governance and the citizens must rise to their civic responsibilities by demanding accountability.

    Paul Ejime is a Global Affairs Analyst and an Independent Consultant to International Organizations on Corporate Strategic Communications, Peace & Security and Elections.

  • ECOWAS Meets Again to Review Political Situation in Mali, Guinea

    ECOWAS Meets Again to Review Political Situation in Mali, Guinea

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is meeting again for the third time to review the political situation in two of its 15-member nations — Mali and Guinea.

    Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is leading the Nigerian delegation to the Extraordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government on Sunday (today) in Accra, the capital of Ghana, on the political situation in the Republics of Guinea and Mali.

    According to a release issued by the Media Assistant to the Vice-President, Laolu Akande, Sunday’s extraordinary meeting, which will be the third on the same agenda this year, will assess previous resolutions and further review the political situation in the Republics of Guinea and Mali.

    Osinbajo, who left Abuja earlier Sunday, accompanied by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, is expected back in Abuja later in the day.

    The vice-president had participated in the second ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit on the political situation in Guinea and Mali held on 16th September in Accra, Ghana.

    Before then, he had also attended a virtual ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit held on 8th September on the same agenda.

    ECOWAS leaders in the communique issued at the end of the last special summit in Accra had, amongst other resolutions, decided to freeze the financial assets of members of the military junta, place a travel ban on them, while also demanding that the junta return Guinea to constitutional rule within six months.

    Nigeria’s position on the situation in Guinea had been restated by Prof. Osinbajo at the summit, calling for the unconditional release of President Alpha Condé and more pressure to be put on the country’s military leaders to return the nation to democratic rule.

    The vice-president had commended the efforts of stakeholders in Mali and re-emphasized the need to strictly respect and follow the electoral timetable for transition to civil rule.

    At the virtual summit earlier, Osinbajo proposed punitive measures and proactive preventive steps towards addressing military intervention in civil rule in the region, which includes that the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), Commonwealth, and other relevant or related financial institutions act in unity simultaneously “to suspend a country, where there has been seizure of power, from these bodies”.

    He also proposed engagement with the military junta and all stakeholders in Guinea and the enforcement of necessary “punitive measures that will ensure that the military junta does not overstay in power”.

    The vice-president further reiterated Nigeria’s position, calling on all leaders to always respect the principles of democracy and the constitutions of their respective countries.

  • Guinea: The fall of President Alpha Condé

    Guinea: The fall of President Alpha Condé

    By Joshua Tasie

    Following Guinea’s coup d’etat on 5 September led by Mamady Doumbouya, the regional bloc ECOWAS has just announced its suspension.

    A high-level mission will be sent over to evaluate the situation before any further decisions are made.

    But in the aftermath of the coup, there are questions that stand out: Why was it so easy to capture President Alpha Condé? Why did he ignore everyone’s warnings about Doumbouya?

    And where does Conakry’s new master really come from?

    Why was Alpha Condé so easily captured?
    In principle, the presidential palace of Sékhoutouréya – located on the peninsula of Kaloum, in Conakry – was surrounded by a triple security cordon consisting of soldiers from the Bataillon Autonome de Sécurité Présidentiel (BASP), which was based at Camp Makambo, in the Boulbinet district, only a few kilometres away.

    But in the early morning of 5 September, the small detachments, who were sporting red berets and managing the three checkpoints along the avenue leading to the palace’s entrance gate, were still sleeping.

    The BASP soldiers were loyal to the President – some of them came from within the ranks of the ruling Rassemblement du Peuple de Guinée (RPG) – but were neither properly trained nor armed.

    French General Bruno Clément-Bollée, who worked hard to restructure the Guinean army as per Condé’s request, said that Sékhoutouréya was “one of the worst guarded palaces in West Africa.”

    Compared to how well protected the Plateau Palace in Abidjan is, “it’s night and day,” he adds.

    Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya came down from his base at Kaleya in Forécariah, in Lower Guinea, which is about 85km away.

    He headed a column made up of about 50 trucks and pick-ups armed with 12.7mm machine guns and went straight to Kaloum, where he made his entrance at around 8am on the day of the coup.

    The lieutenant-colonel deployed almost the entire Groupement des Forces Spéciales (GFS), around 500 men, to the mission.

    Some of these soldiers, who were heavily armed, took up positions in front of the Makambo camp to prevent the Presidential Guard reinforcements from leaving.

    Meanwhile, the others – including special unit 8602, who were trained by the French and Israelis – headed for Sékhoutouréya, along with an armoured vehicle and several mortars.

    Condé, a notorious insomniac, had finally fallen asleep at the first light of dawn. He had just returned a few days earlier from Sardinia (a stay which, it should be noted, was not a medical one). While there, the President had visited his friend, the Italian-Eritrean entrepreneur Makonnen Asmaron, with whom he was preparing for President Isaias Afwerki’s official visit to Conakry, scheduled for 9 September.

    83-year-old Condé lives alone in an icy palace that was built by the Chinese during the time of Lansana Conté.

    Djene Kaba, the first lady, resides elsewhere and his only child, Mohamed, lives in San José, Costa Rica.

    At most, five or six plainclothes bodyguards are stationed on the ground floor and in front of the bay window that serves as the front door.

    Upstairs is his office and bedroom, where Lieutenant-Colonel Mamadou Alpha Kaloko – head of the BASP, who had rushed to Sékhoutouréya with a handful of men as soon as the first shots were fired – came to inform him of the situation. He was also captured there.

    Outside, the confrontation was brief but deadly. According to our information, about 20 presidential guards were killed, including Colonel Yemoiba Camara, commander of the head of state’s bodyguards, and at least two members of the GFS.

    Guided by a BASP defector who was a regular visitor, the coup plotters blew up the glass window and rushed up the stairs to the first floor.

    They tackled Kaloko to the ground, seized the President, handcuffed him after threatening him (“If you move, we’ll shoot!”), and then took him down to a ground-floor lounge where they filmed and photographed him, stunned, distraught and full of contained anger.

    These images, reminiscent of those of the haggard Gbagbo couple when he was captured in April 2011, were shared around the world, along with the rather degrading pictures of Condé being paraded by his captors in the back of a 4×4 with all the windows open through the streets of Conakry.

    During this time, if we are to believe a witness’s account who looked in on the scene, Doumbouya’s men “visited” the whole palace and no doubt took the bags of cash that, like most of his counterparts on the continent, Condé had kept in his room and office.

    All over the capital, but particularly in the districts that favour the opposition, scenes of jubilation followed after the first photos appeared on mobile phones.

    As predicted, the Ministry of Communication, the headquarters of Radio Rurale, the government newspaper Horoya and the former ruling party, the RPG, as well as those of the electoral commission were attacked and vandalised.

    This mixture of certainty and leniency is directly responsible for Condé’s error of judgement, and even his near blindness towards Doumbouya.

    For a few hours on 5 September, defence minister Mohamed Diané, who is very close to Condé, believed that it would be possible to launch a counter-attack and return to power with help from the regiments – presumably loyal – of the army, paratroopers and gendarmerie.

    But the President’s arrest and immediate dissemination of the images on social media, a 3.0 strategy obviously thought out in advance, took the high military hierarchy by surprise and left it paralysed.

    One after the other, the camps in Conakry and then in the interior of the country rallied to the coup – all the more easily because Doumbouya is a Malinke from Kankan, thus of the same ethnicity as the President, his defence minister and most of the senior army officers. Therefore, the sectarian divide played no role.

  • ECOWAS Suspends Guinea

    ECOWAS Suspends Guinea

    West Africa’s main political and economic bloc suspended Guinea’s membership on Wednesday following a weekend military coup that ousted President Alpha Conde and dealt the latest in a flurry of setbacks to democracy in the region.

    During a virtual summit, leaders from the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) demanded a return to the constitutional order and Conde’s immediate release, and also agreed to send a high-level mission to Guinea as soon as Thursday, said Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Alpha Barry.

    “At the end of that mission, ECOWAS should be able to re-examine its position,” Barry told reporters.

    He did not announce any immediate economic sanctions against Guinea, as ECOWAS imposed against Mali following a coup there in August 2020.

    Some experts say ECOWAS’s leverage with Guinea could be limited, in part because the country is not a member of the West African currency union and not landlocked like Mali.

    The economic bloc’s response is being closely watched amid criticism from pro-democracy advocates that it has not stood up robustly enough in recent months against democratic backsliding in West Africa.

    ECOWAS remained silent last year as Conde and Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara sought third terms after changing constitutions that would have forced them to step down, moves denounced as illegal by their opponents.

    Activists say this has contributed to West Africans’ loss of faith in democracy and made military coups more likely.

    Mali’s military staged a second coup in May this year. ECOWAS said on Tuesday it was concerned transitional authorities there had not made sufficient progress toward organising elections next February as promised.

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    Guinea’s coup leader, Mamady Doumbouya, a former French legionnaire, has pledged to install a unified, transitional government but has not said when or how that will happen.

    In an apparent gesture to Conde’s civilian opponents, at least 80 political prisoners detained by the president were released on Tuesday evening, many of whom had campaigned against his constitutional change.

    Doumbouya also met the heads of Guinea’s various military branches for the first time on Tuesday, hoping to unify the country’s armed forces under the junta’s command.

    Guinea’s main opposition leader, Cellou Dalein Diallo, who finished runner-up to Conde in three successive elections, told Reuters on Tuesday he would be open to participating in a transition back to constitutional governance.

    In a statement on Tuesday evening, Conde’s party said it “noted the advent of new authorities at the head of the country” and called for the president’s swift and unconditional release.

    Since the putsch, life in the streets of Conakry appears to have returned to normal, with some military checkpoints removed.

    Fears that the power struggle could hinder Guinea’s production of bauxite, a mineral used to make aluminium, have begun to ease. The country’s largest foreign operators say they have continued to operate without interruption.

    Aluminium hit a fresh 10-year high on Monday after news broke of unrest in Guinea, which holds the world’s largest bauxite reserves. Doumbouya has pledged that mining will continue unhindered

  • Senegal beat Togo as Guinea Bissau and Guinea draw

    Senegal beat Togo as Guinea Bissau and Guinea draw

    Senegal secured a 2-0 victory over Togo at the Lat Dior Stadium in Thies on Wednesday, in Group H’s opening match of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

    Sadio Mane and Abdou Diallo scored the two goals for the Teranga Lions as they started their campaign for a ticket to Qatar on a high note.

    The Senegalese had a bright start to the match and asked the first questions from the Sparrow Hawks.

    Fifteen minutes into the game, Papa Matar Sarr should have done better with a pass off Gana Gueye, but his control let him down with good space in front of him.

    Mane and Boulaye Dia were also threatening for the Senegalese, but they could not find the back of the net, as the two teams went to the break tied at 0-0.

    Senegal came back with all claws on and they got into the lead in the 56th minute.

    Mane, the 2019 CAF African Player of the year, played a quick interchange of passes with Dia before controlling the ball with his left and firing home on his right.

    The Senegalese kept their command on the game but they had to wait till the 80th minute to seal the game.

    Diallo hit the back of the net with a sumptuous shot on his national team debut.

    The Senegalese, finalists at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) held on for the win to earn an advantage from match day one.

    Namibia and Congo will play in the other group match on Thursday.

    Meanwhile, at Nouakchott’s Olympic Stadium in Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Guinea played to a 1-1 draw in an entertaining Group I fixture.

    Guinea Bissau’s Djurtus have been forced to play their home matches in Mauritania.

    This is because their home turf, the Estadio Nacional 24 de Setembro, is yet to pass the necessary approvals to host international matches.

    In Nouakchott, Guinea Bissau found themselves trailing after seven minutes when Francois Kamano broke the deadlock for the Syli Nationale.

    But Guinea Bissau gave a fight and just a minute into the second half got back into contention with the equaliser, coming off Joseph Mendes.

    Morocco and Sudan, will play the group’s other match on Thursday.

  • WHO Declares An End To Second Ebola Outbreak In Guinea

    WHO Declares An End To Second Ebola Outbreak In Guinea

    The World Health Organization on Saturday officially announced the end of Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak which was declared on February 14.

    “I have the honour of declaring the end of Ebola” in Guinea, WHO official Alfred Ki-Zerbo said at a ceremony in the southeastern Nzerekore region where the disease surfaced at the end of January.

    It was the second such outbreak in the poor country of 13 million people since the devastating 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which left 11,300 dead in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

    Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.

    It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

    Guinea reacted quickly to this year’s outbreak, however, building on its previous experience of fighting the disease.

    Among other measures, the country launched an Ebola vaccination campaign this year with the help of the WHO.

  • Guinea begins COVID-19 vaccinations on govt ministers

    Guinea begins COVID-19 vaccinations on govt ministers

    The West African nation of Guinea has begun administering coronavirus vaccines, making the country among the first on the continent to roll out the vaccinations, an official said on Thursday.

    Ministers were seen on television receiving their doses at the presidential palace on Wednesday evening.

    They were reportedly injected with Russia’s Sputnik V shot, a vaccine that has been met with scepticism in the international medical community but which is also being used in places like Belarus and Argentina.

    “We are the guinea pigs,” Guinean Parliament Speaker Amadou Damaro said after getting the shot.

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    “The government’s permanent concern is to fight this disease … We hope that this vaccination will be extended to the rest of the people and that it will be the beginning of the eradication of this disease,” he said.

    In Guinea, 13,680 infections have been registered so far, according to figures from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Eighty people have died.

    Russia became the first country to introduce a vaccine against the novel coronavirus five months ago, in August, with the state-produced Sputnik V vaccine.

    But the vaccine, endorsed by Russian government officials while it was still undergoing clinical trials, has courted controversy among the international scientific community amid questions of whether it was sufficiently tested. (dpa/NAN)

  • Alpha Conde wins third term in office in controversial Guinean presidential election

    Alpha Conde wins third term in office in controversial Guinean presidential election

    President  Alpha Conde has secured a third term in office by winning Guinea’s controversial presidential election with 59.5 percent of the vote. 

    The electoral authority president Kabinet Cisse said Conde’s main opponent Cellou Dalein Diallo polled 33.5 percent of the vote.

    The announcement on Saturday October 24, came after days of deadly violence in the wake of the October 18 vote. While the opposition said 27 people have been killed, officials have put the death toll at about 10.

    Doubting the independence of the electoral authority, Diallo had on Monday October 19 declared himself victorious before the results were announced. This triggered confrontations between his supporters and security forces.

    In an interview with DW’s French for Africa Service, Alpha Souleymane Ba Fisher a lawmaker from the ruling RPG party, accused opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo of stoking unnecessary political tension.

    Fisher said; 

    “He invited his activists to take to the streets and attack people so that the country would fall into chaos.”

    In 2010, Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected leader after decades of military rule. He was re-elected in 2015. Before becoming President, Conde had been a long-standing opposition figure who was jailed and exiled for his views against Guinea’s military government.

    Diallo on the other hand, is a former prime minister who also finished runner-up to Conde in the 2010 and 2015 elections.