Waging Peace: Guinea

Political History

On Oct. 2, 1958, by public referendum, The Republic of Guinea was the first French-African colony to opt out of the French colonial system.  After achieving independence, Guinea experienced 26 years of authoritarian rule by Sékou Touré, who crushed all dissent, using torture, imprisonment without charge, and extrajudicial killings.  When Touré died in office in 1984, fully one-third of the population (2 million people) was living in exile.  Colonel Lansana Conté took power in 1984 in a coup d'état, beginning 24 more years of increasingly authoritarian rule, despite the introduction of nominally democratic presidential elections in 1993, 1998, and 2003.  These elections, like the two legislative elections that took place under his rule, were widely considered to have been rigged, and all major opposition parties boycotted the 2002 legislative and 2003 presidential elections.

In December 2008, Conté, too, died in power. Captain Moussa Dadis Camara led a junta that took power in another coup several hours after the announcement of Conté's death.  Because the coup was bloodless and was led by younger officers who promised not only to usher in a new generation of leaders but also to do away with the corruption and nepotism of the prior regime, many Guineans initially welcomed it. However, the new president soon showed himself avid for power, and by April 2009, many Guineans had begun to doubt Camara's initial promises to turn power over to civilians via elections by the end of the year. Camara's increasingly erratic behavior was accompanied by a rising incidence of abuses of civilians by the armed forces, who roamed the streets of Conakry stealing cars, robbing gasoline stations and banks, and raping Guinean women and girls with total impunity.

This dynamic culminated in the much-publicized massacre of Sept. 28, 2009, during which Guinean armed forces, mostly believed to be members of the presidential guard, massacred more than 150 unarmed demonstrators and publicly gang-raped over 40 women in Conakry's main football stadium, whose metal gates had been locked shut and connected to power lines so as to electrocute those attempting to escape. In the weeks after this massacre, Human Rights Watch and a U.N. commission of inquiry both charged the highest levels of the junta, including President Camara, with having planned and ordered the massacre and rapes.  Fearing he was to be made the scapegoat for these crimes, Camara's aide-de-camp attempted to assassinate Camara, shooting him in the head and causing his evacuation to Morocco and eventually to Burkina Faso, where he remains today.

On Jan. 15, 2010, Camara, Konaté, and Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré produced the Ouagadougou Political Agreement that promised a return to civilian rule in Guinea within six months, that the military would not contest upcoming elections, and that Camara would continue his recovery outside Guinea.  Veteran leader of the opposition coalition Forces Vives, Jean-Marie Doré was appointed prime minister of a six-month transitional government on Jan. 21, 2010.