Former top military officer arrested in continuing swoop

Guinean authorities continued a three-week swoop on perceived opponents of President Lansana Conte's government arresting a former top army officer, Commandant Kadr Doubuya, on Thursday as he was about to board a plane to neighbouring Mali, military sources said. Family sources told IRIN on Sunday that the former officer, who is diabetic, was being held in the capital, Conakry. A former head of Guinea’s paratroopers, Doubuya left the army in 1997 following a conviction by a military tribunal for involvement in a plan to overthrow Conte. Sentenced to five years in jail, he was released after serving two years. Doubuya's arrest on Thursday was the latest in a swoop by the military on soldiers suspected of being disloyal to Conte. No official explanation has been given by the government for the wave of arrests, but the swoop comes ahead of presidential elections scheduled for 21 December. Sources said several dozen army officers and men were arrested in Conakry, Labe, Kankan and N’zerekore over the last two weeks. They include Sidiki Camara, a senior official of the Gendarmerie training school, and Lieutenant Alpha Diallo, son of a former speaker of parliament, Boubacarr Biro Diallo. Conte, in power since 1984, is campaigning for another seven year term, virtually unchallenged. A lone candidate from a small party which supports the ruling party in the national assembly, is the sole challenger to Conte. All the main opposition parties boycotted the poll in protest at Conte's refusal to appoint a genuinely independent electoral commission and allow opposition candidates free access to state television and radio. On Monday, the Guinean rights pressure group, "AGUILUCIA", issued a statement deploring the continuing arrests. "What remains deplorable is the silence on the part of the authorities on the arrests...it gives rise to all sorts of theories as reason for these arrests," it said. Last week another rights group, the Guinean Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights (OGDH), expressed deep concern over the arrests of the soldiers.