Economic crisis and Liberian gunmen threaten stability

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). The new rice price 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.

Jean-Marie Dore, leader of the Union for Press in Guinea (UPG) opposition party

“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 Marah. 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 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 ethnic group from Guinea. Colonel Lamine Bangoura, the governor of Nzerekore, dismissed 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.

Girls in a Conakry shantytown in front of an election poster of President Lansana Conte.

“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. Government officials have often justified this approach by pointing out that while neighbouring Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau have all slipped into civil war over the past decade, Guinea has so far been able to maintain internal order. 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.”