Concord Times (Freetown)
Tanu Jalloh
30 May 2008
Freetown — Guinea's hasty attempt to grant the demands of mutinous soldiers ending a two-day civil disobedience over back pay could weaken their authority to manage political and economic pressures in a country that risk a 'coup d'etat,' analysts observed.
The BBC reporter in Freetown Umaru Fofana, versed in regional politics, has however dismissed the possibility of a coup but admitted that there might continue to be a series of such political and economic unrests largely due to external influence.
The military revolt over pay has heightened fears of wider unrest in the country following President Lansana Conte's surprise sacking of a consensus prime minister a week ago, which has infuriated opposition unions and political parties.
"There is a history of these types of pay mutinies going back to 1996 ... it is conceivable it could turn into something more serious," Dustin Sharp, a researcher on French-speaking West Africa for Human Rights Watch had told the British news agency, Reuters.
While a Conakry journalist who closely followed the mutiny described the mutineers as 'grunts' - low-ranking soldiers, the Institute of Security Studies, a regional research institute operating across sub-Saharan Africa, said continuing tension in all four countries -Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire - between underpaid militaries and their government leaders has created instability and a history of coups.
Meanwhile, Reuters has confirmed that protesting soldiers, led by elite young troops at Conakry's biggest military base, had since Monday driven home their demands with volleys of automatic gunfire, mostly into the air, which killed at least two people and wounded dozens.
"There is a credible likelihood of further political unrest in the coming days," Rolake Akinola, senior West Africa analyst with Control Risks.
Other analysts have observed that the government's climb down over the pay revolt, which sharpened a political crisis triggered by President Conte's May 20 sacking of a previous consensus premier, boded ill for the immediate stability of the country.
Guinea's small but restless armed forces, which suffer from generational and ethnic divisions, have long been a prop for the ageing Conte since he seized power in a 1984 military coup.
They have staged several mutinies and protests over the last 12 years, mostly over pay and conditions.
This will make them a factor in any dispute over the succession to Conte, a chain-smoking diabetic in his mid-70s whose own precarious health and capricious rule have also been a source of instability.
In a briefing note on the recent events in Guinea, the Eurasia Group said the latest pay mutiny was a sign of Conte's increasing weakness and that "the country's military will play a strong role in any post-Conte political settlement".
The former French colony holds a third of the world's known reserves of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum. Companies from Russia, the United States and Canada operate in Guinea.
There are fears that union and opposition resistance to the appointment of Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare could lead to a repeat of a bloody general strike and riots last year that for weeks crippled the strategic bauxite industry -- the country's main source of revenues.
More than 130 people were killed in the January and February 2007 unrest, mostly civilians shot by Conte's security forces.
Observers saw the generation factor playing a role in the latest mutiny, in which enraged soldiers looted the home of defense Minister General Mamadou Bailo Diallo before he was sacked.
"It's clearly younger people mutinying against older ones ... they haven't made lots of money in the way some corrupt senior people have," a Western diplomat said.
The revolt had centered on the Alpha Yaya Diallo camp near Conakry's airport, which houses Guinea's elite BATA airborne battalion, some of whose members have had foreign military training.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Concord Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
