West African nation teetering on the brink, says ICG

With prices spiralling out of control and the head of state in declining health after 21 years at the helm, Guinea stands on the brink of explosion, diplomats and a leading think-tank warned this week. "Guinea risks becoming West Africa's next failed state," the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a 24-page report. It said this year's serious slide in the health of President Lansana Conte, who took power in a 1984 coup, raises the possibility of a military coup, or worse, continued mismanagement of the mineral-rich nation by a small clique of president's men grown rich by pillaging the state. The weekly magazine Jeune-Afrique l’Intelligent last month reported that Conte was frequently slipping into diabetic coma for several hours at a time. "But it is important to depersonalise Guinean politics," the ICG report said. "The reforms agreed to by its government give Guinea its best chance for leaving behind decades of personalised rule." Faced by angry protests and strikes over food and energy hikes, Conte and his new Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo have embarked on a programme of political and economic reform destined to shore up donor cooperation with the country of 8.5 million people. Diallo, a trained economist aged 52, took over as prime minister in early December. That was a full eight months after his predecessor, Francois Fall, resigned during a trip to Paris and went into exile after only two months in the job. He complained of being unable to get the reforms going and feared for his personal safety after his dissent. Meanwhile, impatience is running out on the streets as inflation spirals. Official inflation, at single digits four years ago was the fourth worst in Africa by 2004 at 28 percent. The ICG said projected inflation for 2005 was 22.6 percent, second only to Zimbabwe, which is in the throes of an economic meltdown. Fuel prices were increased by 55 percent last month, sending goods and transport costs soaring. The Confederation of Guinean Workers (CNTG), the country's largest trade union, this week issued a 10-day ultimatum to the government to up salaries fourfold or face a national strike. Guineans, whose average salaries are US $30 a month, have seen the cost of a 50-kg bag of rice rise from 35,000 Guinean francs (US $9.50) in March 2004 to between 75,000 (US $20) and 100,000 GF (US $27). Civil servants meanwhile have not seen a salary rise since 1996. The result has been a series of protests and strikes that have sent teachers, miners and just the plain hungry onto the streets month after month. "It is high time the truth is told about this country," former prime minister and opposition leader Sidya Toure told IRIN. One diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the country was losing steam. "There's no more iron in those fists," he said, referring to the former wrestler head of state. But Information Minister Aissatou Bella Diallo countered suggestions of an imminent social crisis, saying, "the country is doing well" and had made tremendous strides in health, education and infrastructure. Successful municipal elections, a crucial first step The ICG said Guinea, which boasts one third of the world's bauxite reserves although its people are poor, could turn a corner as early as this year if it managed to hold free and fair municipal elections. "They (the elections) will largely determine the quality of Guinean democracy. If they fail, the presidential succession will likely be disastrous." The elections scheduled for the last third of the year coincide with a package of reforms proposed by donors, in particular by the European Union (EU), to revise electoral lists, set up an independent electoral commission for the first time, liberalise the airwaves and give the opposition access to state media. Guinea, which was the only country in the region to ban private radio and TV, early this month finally agreed to open up the airwaves to privately owned radio and television, but not to political parties or religious groups, according to a government statement read out on state television. "This is the result of relentless pressure from both we in the opposition and the EU," Mamadou Ba, a member of the opposition coalition, Republic Front for Democratic Change (FRAD), told IRIN at the time. The EU, traditionally Guinea's principal donor, has been withholding more than US $100 million of aid because the government has failed to implement political and economic reforms to improve governance in this poor and notoriously corrupt country. But efforts to strengthen the democratic process will crumble if the military are not given a stake, the ICG warned. "Issues of salaries and career progression must be addressed," it said. This would also help reduce justifications for extortion. Likewise, special tax exemptions to businessmen who work closely with the president must be eliminated, the report said. The international community, the ICG added, needed to provide technical assistance for electoral reform while also making it abundantly clear that an attempted military takeover would trigger a suspension of aid and targeted sanctions. Meanwhile, donors needed to closely monitor the government's use of funds. "Guinea should be held to the same standards as any other country," the report said. "It is rich but its citizens are poor."