Guinea: Change or Chaos - New Crisis Group report

Guinea: Change or Chaos - New Crisis Group report

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW REPORT

Guinea: Change or Chaos

Dakar/Brussels, 14 February 2007: The international community needs to help bring about peaceful but radical change in Guinea if the country is to avoid a blood bath that could spread to its neighbours.

Guinea: Change or Chaos,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the current system under President Lansana Conté and the situation in the country after the January strike, deadly protests and the nomination of Eugene Camara, a close Conté associate, as prime minister on 9 February.

“The choice of Camara was a tragic mistake that was received in the country as a provocation”, says Crisis Group Analyst Gilles Yabi. “It was promptly followed first by riots, and then renewed violent repression”.

Guinea has been dominated for nearly 23 years by the unique figure of General Conté, corrupt and desperate to hold onto his privileges. The opposition to the Conté regime, begun during the general strike at the beginning of the year, has taken a bloody turn and has mutated into an unprecedented popular uprising.

Guinea now faces two possible scenarios. There is still a chance, though a diminishing one, for a negotiated solution involving key Guinean, regional and wider international actors.

Alternatively, if the Conté regime continues to rely on military repression, it could rapidly bring Guinea to a dramatic spiral of violence: full popular insurgency, with increasing chaos that is likely to stimulate a military take-over in a blood-bath, leading in turn to a possible civil war comparable to those that have torn apart its neighbours in the past decade and with uncontrollable consequences. Chaos in Guinea’s Forest Region, bordering Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire, could well destabilise its frail neighbours. Likewise, politically unstable Guinea-Bissau could suffer if its president, Joao Bernardo Vieira, seeks to support his long-time friend, Conté.

Western governments as well as multinational firms that benefit from the country’s natural resources value political quiet, but they would be making a serious mistake if this led them to support, even by passivity, an effort to retain the Conté system.

Guinean actors and the international community need urgently to cooperate to implement an action plan that brings about peaceful change and prevents an escalation of violence. In particular, the involvement of John Kufuor, president of Ghana, in engaging with Conté is crucial, as is the role of France and the US to prevent a military coup.

“The January revolt has created an opportunity for genuine change after 49 years of misery in Guinea”, says Carolyn Norris, Crisis Group’s West Africa Project Director. “The challenge now is to make that a positive change and not repeat the mistakes of the past”.

Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels)

Kimberly Abbott (Washington)

The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation covering over 50 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.