Guinean Army, Police Are Deployed as U.S. Condemns Post-Election Violence
Guinean presidential Candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo
Defeated Guinean presidential candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo denounces on November 16, 2010 reported 'torture' by Guinean forces to his supporters. Photographer Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Defeated Guinean presidential candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo denounces on November 16, 2010 reported 'torture' by Guinean forces to his supporters. Photographer Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Guinean Army Deployed; U.S. Urges Calm After Clashes
Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Police patrol in the Cosa area in a suburb of Conakry, amid violent protests following Guinean presidential elections.
Police patrol in the Cosa area in a suburb of Conakry, amid violent protests following Guinean presidential elections. Photographer: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Guinea’s authorities deployed army and police forces across the country as the U.S. urged political leaders to calm their supporters amid violence sparked by the disputed outcome of a runoff presidential election.
At least seven people have died in clashes that began when Alpha Conde was declared the winner of the Nov. 7 vote, Agence France-Presse reported today, without citing anyone. Conde’s rival in the election, former Prime Minister Cello Dalein Diallo, has contested the results.
“The army must be deployed across the whole country with the police force to safeguard order and discipline,” General Nouhou Thiam, the army chief of staff, said in a statement broadcast on state-owned Radio Television Guinneene in the capital, Conakry, late yesterday.
The West African nation hasn’t had a democratic transfer of power since it gained independence from France in 1958. The clashes are certain to deepen ethnic tension between members of the pro-Conde Malinke people and the Peul, the nation’s biggest ethnic group, which mainly backed Diallo, said Mohamed Jalloh, a West Africa analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
“The Malinke side of the army is being sent to the streets to shoot at civilians who are mainly Peul,” he said. “How that will play out in the military is yet to be seen. It’s a highly dangerous situation.”
Security Patrols
Police and army vehicles patrolled districts of Conakry including Hamdallaye, Babmeto, Cosa and Enco-5 where Diallo’s supporters protested on Nov. 15. Some shops in the city’s main business district of Kaloum were opened, while the main market at Madina remained closed.
Guinea holds as much as half of the world’s reserves of bauxite, an ore used to make aluminum. It also has more than 4 billion metric tons of “high-grade” iron ore and “significant” deposits of diamonds and gold, according to the U.S. State Department.
Aluminum for delivery in three months rose $9.50, or 0.4 percent, to $2,285 a metric ton at 12:40 p.m. on the London Metal Exchange.
Companies operating in Guinea include Russia’s United Co. Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum producer, AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Africa’s biggest gold miner, and Brazil’s Vale SA, the No. 1 iron-ore producer.
Rusal’s operations in Guinea are working normally and there are no plans to evacuate any staff, the Moscow-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. “The state of emergency hasn’t affected our company’s activities,” it said.
Bauxite Production
Rusal, which currently obtains more than 40 percent of its bauxite from Guinea, employs more than 2,300 people in the country, most of them Guineans.
General Sekouba Konate, the interim president, declared a state of emergency yesterday that will last until the results of the election are confirmed by the Supreme Court next week.
AngloGold’s Siguiri gold mine also hasn’t been affected by the violence, spokesman Alan Fine said in an interview from Johanensburg today.
Three bodies were found yesterday in Taroma, the only suburb in Conakry where Diallo won in the vote, AFP said. That adds to four deaths in earlier unrest, the news agency said.
“The U.S. condemns the violent clashes between rival political supporters in Guinea,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in an e-mailed statement. “The U.S. calls on Guinea’s political leaders to urge their supporters to refrain from violence.”
French Warning
France warned its citizens against traveling to Guinea and is monitoring the situation in the country “with concern”, AFP said, citing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages.
Guinea has faced political instability since a group of military officers took power in December 2008 after the death of former President Lansana Conte, who had ruled for 24 years.
The country’s $4.3 billion economy is forecast to grow 3 percent this year and 3.6 percent next year after contracting 0.3 percent in 2009, according to data on the International Monetary Fund’s website. It ranks 156th out of 169 nations on the United Nations’ 2010 Human Development Index, a measure of living standards.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ougna Camara in Conakry via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
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