Opposition leader arrested after new PM tries to reopen dialogue

Efforts by Guinea's new prime minister to relaunch a dialogue with opposition parties have been blighted by the unexplained arrest of Antoine Soromou, a leading figure in the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party of veteran opposition leader Alpha Conde. Mamadou Ba, the chairman of the Republican Front for Democratic Change (FRAD), a coalition of Guinea's six main opposition parties, said Soromou was arrested on Thursday. He was detained just 24 hours after opposition leaders met with recently appointed Prime Minister Cellou Dalien Diallo to relaunch a dialogue with the government. Diallo, who was appointed last month by President Lansana Conte, promised at Wednesday's meeting with opposition leaders to lift a government ban on private radio stations and bring more transparency to government. But his initiative was undermined by Soromou's subsequent arrest. "That's the problem with this government. They say one thing today and do the exact opposite the next," Ba told IRIN on Friday. The FRAD chairman said opposition leaders had so far failed to secure Soromou's release and the police had given no explanation for his arrest. However, Ba said the opposition was still prepared to hold a fresh round of talks with the government to test its sincerity. President Conte, a former army colonel, has ruled Guinea with an iron hand since he came to power in a 1984 coup. His government's previous attempt to woo the opposition collapsed in April when Diallo's predecessor as prime minister, Francois Fall, resigned after only two months in office and fled into exile. Fall said he decided to quit because Conte was blocking all his attempts to bring about economic and political reform. Soromou first came to prominence in 1998, when he was arrested and charged alongside Conde, the leader of the RPG, of plotting to overthrow the president. The two men were tried and convicted in 2000, along with 46 other members of the party, but were subsequently released in 2001.