One man reported killed as police open fire on protesting workers

One man died when police opened fire unexpectedly on a demonstration by unpaid workers in the bauxite mining town of Fria, 120 km north of the Guinean capital Conakry, residents contacted by telephone said. The incident occurred on Wednesday after the demonstrators had ransacked the house of the manager of the local alumina plant, they said.The local authorities subsequently imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the town. The residents, contacted by IRIN, named the dead man as 25-year-old Mohamed Conde. However, the local prefect (government administrator), Amadou Bah, told IRIN that nobody had been killed in the disturbances. The residents said the demonstrators were mostly employees of sub-contractors to the big US and Russian-owned bauxite mines in Fria. They were demanding the payment of salary arrears and unpaid bonuses, they added. The disturbances in Fria were the latest in a series of protests against the steady deterioration of living conditions in Guinea. A steep increase in the price of rice, the staple food of Guinea's eight million inhabitants, triggered food riots and attacks on rice trucks in Conakry in June. In November, the government repealed a sharp increase in electricity prices after it provoked violent protests in several towns in the interior. And in mid-December the government closed down the country's main university in Conakry after three weeks of strikes and demonstrations by students forced out of dormitories. The authorities said they wanted to knock down the dilapidated buildings in order to build new classrooms. The electricity and water supply in Conakry has been erratic for the past three years and on Thursday an accute petrol shortage added to the woes of residents in the capital. Long queues of battered cars formed outside petrol stations waiting for new supplies to arrive. The country is rich in natural resources. It produces gold and diamonds and holds one third of the world's reserves of bauxite, the metallic ore from which aluminium is made. Guinea also has forests and well-watered highlands which give rise to the Niger, the Senegal and the Gambia, three of the biggest rivers in West Africa. However, during the 20-year rule of President Lansana Conte the country has grown poorer and its infrastructure and public services have become steadily more degraded. Although the country once exported rice, it is now dependent on food imports.