Stories of a Patchwork Coup
The events read like exerts from a spy novel: secrecy, mass deaths and corruption coupled with guiltless decadence. Guinea is an impoverished country in West Africa with virtually no industry or infrastructure. It suffers from the paradox of plenty. It has vast natural resources including gems and petroleum, yet hospital waste litters the beaches of Conakry, the nation’s capitol. The same beaches are mined for their sand, which is then exported. Underdevelopment, instability and corruption walk hand in hand. In December 2009 this former French colony was rocked by a violent coup.
Guinea’s coup occurred immediately after the death of the country’s aged president, Lansana Conté. Conté clung to power for 24 years, unable to rid the country of the devastating cycle of poverty created by the country’s first president Ahmed Sékou Torré. Conté ruled the country despotically. He and his cronies further drained the country of its resources.
It is well known fact within Guinea that his eldest son was a drug dealer. Rosine Snook, who lived in Guinea at the time of the coup, remembers the president’s son. “You could hear the planes coming during the night, bringing the drugs. Since he was the president’s son no one could talk about it.” The drugs came from Columbia; Africa is a transit point for South American drugs bound for the trade in Europe. On the heels of Conte’s death, his son was arrested for his illegal activities. He had previously eluded arrest and could be seen riding through the streets of Conakry in his BMW, on his way to the city’s expensive, foreign restaurants.
Several weeks before Conte’s death, Rosine remembers several strange occurrences. “We kept hearing rumors that the president had been shot. And those others close to him had also been shot. Nothing was verified by the news, or even mentioned.” Compounding the mystery of the country’s leadership, Rosine and her daughter remember an event they witnessed that has never been resolved. They were sitting on the balcony of their house when several cars that had been racing down the street screeched to a halt in front of a nearby hospital. Military men emerged in black uniforms. They extracted a man covered in bloody bandages and rushed him into the hospital. The men left immediately, clearly not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Neither Rosine nor anyone else ever found out if the injured person was one of the president’s men, his enemy, or his fate. It was this same air of uncertainty, which spilled into the coup itself. The coup occurred a couple weeks afterward.
Mere minutes after Conte’s death, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara declared himself military dictator. During this chaos, Rosine remembers the riots in the streets, strict curfews and blocked roads. There was nothing on the TV or radio about the dramatic events transpiring in the country. The most that the state TV said was, “roads are blocked in this area, so avoid [them].” ‘Blocked roads’ became code words for disturbances, shooting and even death. Most people stayed in the house for safety. But even houses were not safe. Stray bullets, from soldiers shooting in the air, landed in some people’s homes.
A true reflection of the chaos, the street in front of Rosine’s house— normally bustling with embassy workers and schoolchildren playing soccer— was now barren. She and her daughter tried leaving the house to buy eggs and they encountered no one. Her daughter Jessica remembers the scene. “We walked until we reached the main road. We saw 10 pickup trucks passing by filled with soldiers, each armed with a long, automatic gun. All had their guns pointed out window as if about to shoot…” This coup brought back painful memories of the last coup in 1984 when Conté had seized power. The populace remembers the widespread violence, rapes and burning of cars.
Camara’s declaration as dictator did little to ease the minds of people. Still, calm was eventually restored to the country. For months after he assumed rule, many people wondered what direction he planned to take the country in. On September 28th, 2009, nine months after Camara declared himself dictator, a group of Guineans gathered at a stadium in Conakry to find out what was happening with country’s leadership. They had been invited to the stadium to find learn about the country’s new direction.
Protesters gathered, prepared to tell the dictator that he should step down. Prompt and in formation, the military opened fire on the crowd, killing those trying to escape the stadium. Rosine’s friend managed to survive. He recounts the horror. “They were raping women and burying bodies to hide them.”
Official counts of the dead diverge. The Guinean government at the time claimed only 87 had been killed. However international and informal civilian reports in Guinea pin the number in the hundreds.
Just as it seemed that things could never improve in Guinea, the American and French governments threatened to take away all forms of aid, a dire blow to this impoverished country, which relies on foreign aid as half its annual income. It was this, as well as a foiled assassination attempt on Camara, which persuaded him to cede power. Recovering from gunshot wounds to the head, he announced that he would go into exile. Two months ago, in February the country was finally handed over to civilian hands, for the first time in its history. Jean-Marié Doré is a beacon of hope for this country; he has promised that democratic elections will soon take place. Doré is also one of the lucky few that escaped the stadium shoot-out that claimed the lives of many of his countrymen.
Fear and uncertainty defined this coup, as well as the weeks leading up to it. From the moment of its independence from France in 1958 it has officially been listed as a democracy, while its reality has been far from it. The country’s convoluted political landscape highlights the moralisms of wanting to mend a country’s government. This desire runs up against the importance of respecting a nation’s sovereignty. At what point does this truism of sovereignty fall away? In the end, it was the severe international sanctions that persuaded Camara to abdicate his power.
In the aftermath of the coup, Rosine remembers the people who have died in the struggle for a democratic Guinean rule. Although she is not Guinean herself, she knew several Guineans embedded in the struggle. Many of them have died under mysterious circumstances. She remembers one government friend who was hiding from the military during the coup. “He tried to stop corruption. He represented change.” The man went into hiding during the coup while soldiers hunted for him. They even beat his brother in an attempt to uncover his whereabouts. Her friend eventually died anyway.
“African stories are complicated,” she said. “You can’t talk about the dead, [you can only] just go home and cry.”
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this is very interesting. thanks for this