Any similarities in the story below with our dear old Gambia?




Guinea: Economic Crisis And Liberian Gunmen Threaten Stability

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
ANALYSIS
July 15, 2004
Posted to the web July 15, 2004
Conakry

When Guinean Prime Minister Francois Fall resigned in May after only two
months in the job, protesting that his attempts to introduce political and
economic reform were being blocked, President Lansana Conte did not bother
to tell the nation officially that his right-hand man had quit and gone into
exile.

Neither did he appoint a successor.

The tough-talking former army colonel is notorious for ignoring his
ministers and the bigwigs of his ruling Party of Unity and Progress (PUP)
when it suits him.

But Conte, who has ruled this West African country with a rod of iron for
the past 20 years, reacted speedily enough when gangs of youths started
pillaging trucks of rice in the capital Conakry in early July.

The riots were triggered by a steep increase in the price of rice, Guinea's
staple food, to the point where ordinary people in the city could no longer
afford to buy it.

Conte immediately announced that the government would subsidise the price of
rice to calm the situation.

But importers, waiting to bring ashore over 100,000 tonnes of rice sitting
on ships in the port, wondered where he would get the money to pay them an
11,500 Guinean franc (US$ 4) subsidy for every 50 kg bag of rice sold to the
public at the new controlled price of 40,000 francs ($ 14).

That still compares unfavourably to the average Guinean wage of about 50,000
francs ($18) per month.

Starved of aid by western donors upset at Conte's refusal to clamp down on
high-level corruption and embrace reform, and hamstrung by a decline in
export earnings, the government has virtually run out of foreign exchange.

As a result the dollar now trades on the parallel market at a 40 percent
premium to the official exchange rate.

"Empty stomachs will drive Guineans to protest"

"Guinea is like a boiling big pot," Jean-Marie Dore, leader of the
opposition Union for the Progress of Guinea (UPG) party, told IRIN in an
interview in Conakry.

"Empty stomachs will drive Guineans to protest after years of suffering," he
warned, prior to the latest outburst of public anger.

This occurred in the town of Telimele, 200 km north of Conakry, on
Wednesday.

Residents said a peaceful demonstration in the town by teachers protesting
at the local authorities' failure to pay their salaries for two months soon
degenerated into a violent protest by a wide cross-section of townspeople
against the recently appointed Prefect (senior government administrator),
Issiagah Maah.

Eyewitnesses said the prefect was forced to flee with his family. Meanwhile,
the local police contingent was overwhelmed by the protestors and stood by
while the angry crowd vandalised government offices.

"Riots represent the main risk of destabilisation for Conte's regime right
now," Sidikiba Keita, coordinator of the Paris-based organisation Defence of
Rights and Freedom in Guinea, told IRIN by telephone from France.

"The situation could explode at any time because people are crying famine.
They can no longer afford to feed their families," he added.

Guinea contains a third of the world's bauxite reserves and an abundance of
diamonds, gold and iron ore. Plentiful rainfall should enable the verdant
country to easily grow enough food for its eight million inhabitants. Guinea
has the potential to be one of the most prosperous countries in West Africa.

However, with per capita income is just US $350 per year, the country relies
heavily on food imports, its neglected infrastructure is falling apart and
export revenues are falling.

According to World Bank sources, Guinea's official income from exports by
the mining industry dropped sharply to US$ 568 million last year from US$
894 million in 2003.

But the threats to Guinea do not just come from a crumbling economy.

Worries about Conte's health and the succession

Diplomats fret about the health of Conte, who is now 70 and unable to walk
unassisted as a result of diabetes and heart problems.

Above all they worry that in a country which has known only two
authoritarian presidents since independence from France in 1958, Conte has
chosen no obvious successor and the country is starting to crumble beneath
him.

The political opposition is weak and divided along ethnic and regional lines
and diplomats say no credible leader has so far emerged from its ranks
capable of mounting a serious challenge to Conte.

They fear that when the crunch comes, the army, which brought Conte to power
in 1984, may be unable to control intense rivalry between Guinea's three
mean ethnic groups, the Peul, the Malinke (Mandingo) and Conte's own people,
the Sousou in order to ensure a smooth transition of power.

"The Guineans are hungry, scared and disgusted by political affairs," one
western diplomat in Conakry told IRIN.

"The opposition cannot pull its weight and all the political and economic
conditions are in favour of instability," he said.

"Living conditions are deteriorating, insecurity causes a lot of problems,
external funding is becoming scarce and the political situation is frozen,"
the diplomat continued. "The situation has reached a critical level."

Rising ethnic tensions in the remote Forest Region of southeastern Guinea
are the cause of particular concern.

An influx of idle gunmen

An influx of idle gunmen from Liberia since the country's civil war ended in
August last year has made the situation in the Forest Region even more
tense.

In June, two people were killed when Mandingo fighters of the Liberians
United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement used their
guns to side with Guinean Mandingos in two days of ethnic clashes with the
indigenous Guerze community in Nzerekore, the capital of the Forest Region.

The army eventually intervened to restore order, arresting over 200 people,
most of whom were LURD fighters and members of the Konianke sub-division of
the Mandingo tribe from Guinea.

Colonel Lamine Bangoura, the governor of Nzerekore, dismissed in the
disturbances in the city of 500,000 people as a "fleeting problem."

"Security has been reinforced at the borders. We have made arrangements for
avoiding fresh trouble, but we call on the population to be vigilant against
the spread of disputes and the destabilisation of our country," he told
IRIN.

However, diplomats and aid workers have long worried that the Region
Forestiere is a powder keg waiting to explode.

Up to 100,000 former Guinean migrants to Cote d'Ivoire were forced to return
home when civil war erupted in the country in 2002. They now live in the
frontier districts of the Forest Region, eking out an existence without any
stable income or food source.

There is mounting resentment among these returned migrants and their local
hosts that they receive virtually no overseas assistance, while
international relief agencies provide food, shelter, healthcare and
education to 60,000 Liberian, Sierra Leonan and Ivorian refugees living
nearby, many of whom have been in Guinea for years.

And now the former LURD fighters have begun drifting in to cause trouble.

"The risk of violence goes beyond a possible succession crisis in the
capital," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report on Guinea
last December. The Brussels-based think-tank went on to express particular
concern about the situation in the southeast.

"The large number of weapons and irregular combatants circulating in this
region is one of the main elements of concern," it stressed.

LURD fighters are now moving into Cote d'Ivoire

Diplomats and aid workers say that Conte was the main backer of LURD, which
operated from rear bases in Guinea from its launch in 1999 until the end of
the Liberian civil war in August 2003.

They worry ar reports that several hundred idle LURD fighters have drifted
back into Guinea, ignoring calls to hand in their weapons to the UN
peacekeepers who now control security in Liberia.

The Guinean government, which fiercely opposed the regime of former Liberian
president Charles Taylor, has publicly denied backing LURD.

However, residents in Nzerekore told IRIN they knew many LURD fighters in
the Forest Region who were convinced that Conte had once helped them send
Taylor into exile in Nigeria, but had now turned against them.

Aid workers and local residents in the Forest Region fear that Conte may now
be dragging his country into a fresh involvement with the smouldering
conflict in Cote d'Ivoire.

They suspect he is doing this in order to get rid of these LURD combatants
who are now threatening to cause trouble in his own country.

Several sources told IRIN that Conte was trying to re-export the Liberian
fighters to Cote d'Ivoire to reinforce militia groups backing President
Laurent Gbagbo in the turbulent west of the world's biggest cocoa grower.

"He has already sent former Liberian fighters to Cote d'Ivoire, to help the
president Laurent Gbagbo to get rid of his rebels," one Nzerekore-based
human rights activist told IRIN. "Such a policy could be against Guinea's
interests," he warned.

Back in Conakry, 850 km to the west, people struggle to cope with stagnant
incomes, rising food prices and an urban infrastructure that has virtually
collapsed.

"Look at our misery"

The mains electricity supply in Conakry seldom works. And although Guinea
boasts high rainfall, the taps in the city of two million people are
frequently dry for days on end.

"Look at our misery," said Alpha, a 19-year old youth dressed in a ragged
red tee shirt as he waited for water at a public fountain in one of
Conakry's run-down streets. "Nothing works: there is no electricity, no
water, we look miserable," he said with a shrug of exasperation.

"The lack of water and electricity is only due to bad policy," said former
prime minister Fall in an interview published interview last Sunday.

Before his short stint as prime minister, Fall had served Conte as foreign
minister and Guinea's representative at the UN. He was a respected figure
who was well known internationally.

Diplomats said he was given the top job in government to provide a veneer of
respectability to Conte's regime, which was fast losing its few remaining
friends in the donor community.

But lacking the authority to impose genuine reform, Fall chose to quit
during an official visit to Europe, after first making sure that his family
was safely out of the country.

He now lives in New York, from where he openly denounces the shortcomings of
Conte's regime.

"We observed that 50 percent of imported goods benefit from tax exemptions,
and we know who is behind this," Fall told the internet-based news service
Guineenews.

"We tried to put an end to these operations, but such habits are deeply
entrenched in Guinea and the men in charge of them are very close to the
President,"Fall said. "We could not make ourselves heard."

The World Bank suspended aid to Guinea in May after the government failed to
pay accumulated arrears.

And without deep reform, there is little prospect of Guinea being able to
access a 221 million euro (US$ 274 million) aid package witheld for several
years by the European Union.

The African Development Bank (ADB), the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (FIDA) have also
suspended their aid programmes in Guinea, complaining about poor governance
and debt arrears.

"We are getting tired of it. They make no efforts"

The United States, which took over from the Soviet Union as Guinea's key
foreign backer in the 1980s following the death of the country's founding
president, Ahmed Sekou Toure. But even Washington is getting fed up with the
situation.

"Guinea was a good friend of the US, but we are starting to get tired of it.
They make no efforts," one US diplomat in Conakry complained.

"The current environment, including rising ethnic tensions in southeast,
provides us some new elements to determine our strategy in Guinea," he
added, stressing that so far there was little sign of positive change.

Opposition parties are tolerated in Guinea and the government allows private
newspapers - but not privately owned radio or television stations - to
operate.

However all opponents and critics of President Conte are kept on a short
leash.

The opposition, grouped in an alliance of seven parties known as the
Republican Front for Democratic Change (FRAD), has so failed to find a
credible leader, capable of overcoming its ethnic divisions and personality
clashes.

Its leaders also suffer frequent harassment by the authorities. Several,
including Dore and former prime minister Sydia Toure, have been arrested for
questioning about alleged plots to destabilise the country and have been
prevented from travelling abroad.

FRAD boycotted presidential elections in December last year, saying
conditions did not exist for a free and fair poll.

As a result, Conte ran virtually unopposed, and claimed the right to a
further seven-year term in power.

However, the opposition alleged massive fraud when the government announced
that Conte had been returned to office with a majority of 95.2 percent on a
turnout of 85.6 percent.

FRAD said no more than 15 percent of the electorate actually voted.

The government has ignored such criticisms and continues to respond to all
perceived threats to its authority by imposing tight security.

But one human rights activist warned: "The more the government suppresses
popular discontent, the greater the risk of radicalization."

"We are at the turning point of a dangerous game," said one diplomat in
Conakry.

"The risk of instability in Guinea will threaten the entire region as long
as the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire lasts," he said. "We are right on the edge."




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