Precarious Prefets

Guinean Prime Minister, Lansana Kouyaté, fulfilled one of his long-promised governmental reforms yesterday with the nominations of seven new governors and 30 new prefets for Guinea (out of a possible 33). The decree, signed by President Lansana Conté, effectively reverses almost all his previous governor and prefet appointments to date.

Aminata.com has a more detailed report available to read (in French) here.

Two initial observations on my part:

1. The president's acquiescence is a positive sign that perhaps a smooth transition to democracy will be possible in Guinea, and that Kouyaté's government is, in fact, legitimate.
2. While only one of the new governors and three of the 30 prefets nominated are women, this should be considered an improvement from the previous total of zero.

So, what does a prefet do, anyway? For those of you not familiar with the byzantine layers of complexity of French bureaucracy (which has been painstakingly maintained in Guinea even after its independence), he essentially functions as an administrator of an area comprising 100,000–500,000 people, coordinating various functions at a local level, as well as effecting policy edicts from Conakry. To the ordinary Guinean, however, a prefet is most recognized as the patron ("boss") in flowing boubous who lives in a mansion and swoops in and out of town in a shiny new SUV

Since independence, but especially during the reign of Conté, prefets have become known in Guinea as some of the largest perpetrators of the corruption and graft that has earned Guinea's ranking as most corrupt country in Africa. They often earned their positions through their connections to Conté or to the party.

During my time in the préfecture of Tougué, I got to know two prefets (who also happened to be my next door neighbors). The first, Mouctar Banti Diallo, was so embroiled in any number of scandals involving the re-routing of money destined to fund projects in my préfecture, that it became something of a town joke to cite him as the prime suspect in every theft, from missing cows to missing chalk. He eventually was sent to Pita (where he was run out of town for similar shenanigans during the January riots).

Banti's replacement, Boubacar Baldé, wasn't much better, getting the plum appointment after heading up Conté's reelection efforts (you know, the one where he got nearly 100% of the vote). He spent only a scant few months in Tougué before falling terminally ill and spending the next year in Dakar and dying back in August of last year. Incredibly, Conté hadn't named a successor until yesterday's decree.

The fact Kouyaté has, in one fell swoop, replaced almost every single one of these corrupt do-nothings, suggests that he, too, recognizes the inherent corruption at all levels of Conté's government, and understands the need for fresh blood and capable administration on a local level—to regain the confidence of the Guinean people, if nothing else.

Guinea Gets an "F"

Foreign Policy released its 2007 failed states report, and guess who made the list.

Of course, Guinea isn't the most spectacular failure of a country (that honor goes to Sudan). Guinea ranked 9th on the list, compared to 11th last year—a surprisingly small change considering the recent level of unrest that has racked the country. Then again, considering it was facing stiff competition from war-torn countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, so perhaps its position is about right.

The embarrassing result comes as the latest in a string of ignominious honors for a country so gifted in natural resources, water sources, and rich soil (another being Transparency International's corruption survey in which Guinea was named the 2nd most corrupt country in the world). The ranking also serves as another ringing indictment of Lansana Conté's nearly 25 year-old regime that has utterly failed to institute the smallest meaningful reform since assuming power.

One would hope that the government formed under newly appointed Prime Minister Lansana Kouyaté will be given sufficient latitude by President Conté to institute the reforms Guineans so desperately need. Such optimism is tempered, however, by a recent interview with French television station, TV5, where an ever-stubborn Conté reaffirmed that "Il n'y a pas de transition ouverte. Je suis le chef, les autres sont mes subordonnés" ("There is no open transition. I am chief, the others are my subordinates"). He goes on to minimize the significance of the bloodiest protest Guinea has known during Conté's reign in January and February, in which more than 100 Guineans were killed by army and police actions:

"Quel est le pays qui n'a pas connu d'événements comme ça, d'événements douloureux ? [...] Ça arrive à tout le monde d'avoir des moments de difficultés, d'incompréhensions entre la population et le pouvoir"

("What country doesn't know events like this, painful events? [...] These sorts of difficulties, these misunderstandings between the population and the government happen to everyone.")

Lest there remained any doubt, Conté has made it clear: he's still captain of the S.S. Guinea, even as it sinks beneath his staggering corruption and intransigence.

Household Slavery

It was an all-too-common sight during my time in Guinea: often when I visited my neighbors, I'd be introduced to a young girl I had never seen at the school ironing clothes, making dinner, or sweeping the foyer. When I would ask the girl her name, she would inevitably smile shyly and turn away, not understanding my French. These girls, household servants, were not directly related to the family—they were confiées, given awat by poor families to richer ones in bizarre and complicated forms of exchange I never understood even after two years in the country.

Now, Human Rights Watch has recently released a new report on Guinea focusing on this long-standing injurious practice: the wide-spread abuse of adolescent girls in the form of household help. The report, impressive in tackling a rarely talked about issue of West African culture, is available for download here. The report includes short accounts from the victims of this servitude-bordering-on-slavery. Here's an excerpt:

Sometimes my employers beat me or insult me. When I say I am tried or sick, they beat me with a whip. When I do something wrong, they beat me too.… When I take a rest, I get beaten or am given less food. I am beaten on my buttocks and on my back. —Rosalie Y., age 9

The report only stumbles when it comes to making its recommendations. The report calls for the new government, led by Lansana Kouyaté, to take the initative in combating the abuses of child household labor in Guinean society by strengthening the judiciary and supporting police efforts to follow-up on reports of household abuses. That's a tall order for a government and police force that has yet to gain the respect or trust of the population (especially after the murderous rioting of January and February), but such are the always-idealistic-rarely-realistic recommendations of Human Rights Watch.

30 minutes for Guinea

Between losing a war in Iraq and myriad other crises punctuating the Bush administration (where Bush's recent approval ratings have tied his all-time low at 32%), Condoleezza Rice took a break from arranging the deck chairs to receive Lansana Kouyaté, the new prime minister of Guinea, for a brief thirty minute rendezvous at the White House.

Aminata.com reports (in French) that the issues on the table were America's continued commitment to ensuring a stable transition of power in Guinea (if we've been seeing America's commitment, I'd hate to see its apathy). Rice also hammered home that any economical aid will only come with concrete evidence of Guinea's continued political reform.

A spokesperson for the State Department explained that the U.S. will watch closely the Guinean legislative electives tentatively rescheduled for December for indications of the next steps to take in tightening Guineo-American relations.

Some steps are already being taken, however; former volunteers have been told by Peace Corps administration that the organization plans to return to the country in a few months, barring any further countrywide protests of the sort seen in January and February.

Army of Darkness

Guinea appears once again on the brink of chaos as soldiers have taken to the streets in recent weeks demanding new uniforms, promotions, and long-promised wage increases by firing their weapons and marching on the presidential palace. According to the Guinean government, the nationwide demonstrations have resulted in the death of at least six Guineans, and the injuries of at least 70 others.

Conakry has turned into a ghost town since hundreds of armed soldiers mutinous began marching from Camp Samory Touré, near the internationl airport, towards downtown, seeout of the control of government and senior military officials. This report from IRIN describes how even President Lansana Conté's personal Presidential Guard was forced to flee from the armed mutinous soldiers.

As Lansana Kouyaté explains in his public address to the citizens of Guinea, the government is attempting to meet the demands of the soldiers, but calls for soldiers to first cease their violent demonstrations.

Soldiers' protests in Guinea are held in haphazard, dangerous fashion, usually involving random rifle fire in the air; the stray bullets inadverently hit human targets as they fall back to earth.

Today, the ailing president Lansana Conté (a former army colonel, and self-appointed "general") has met one of the protesting soldiers' demands, purging three of the top ranking generals in the army. However, he has so-far refused to demission Kerfala Camara, the man responsible for the infamous martial law in Conakry during the second round of nationwide rioting in February; and neither the president nor the prime minister have given any response to salary demands. According to the BBC, Kouyaté's government may find it difficult to find a solution since the government lacks any obvious means of meeting demands outside of printing more money—a potentially dangerous move given Guinea's 30% annual inflation.

According to someone close to the U.S. Embassy in Guinea, U.S. personnel remian under a security watch and her personal opinion is that there may be another evacuation of Embassy personnel if the situation doesn't stabilize in the coming days.

Privately, foreign diplomats wonder how much longer Conté can cling to power in an increasingly unstable and volatile political environment where even his own military demands change. The ease with which the disgruntled soldiers reached the Presidential Palace demonstrates the fragility of the regime, and the ease with which a potential coup could be effected.

It appears that hopes for a new, calmer Guinea will have to be put on hold, once again.

Dying for Change

Human Rights Watch, one of the few NGOs doing good work in Guinea (though I can't comment on the controversy over their reporting in Israel), published their report on Guinea's recent riots a few weeks ago, interviewing more than 115 eyewitnesses to the country-wide riots.

The incredible eyewitness tesitimonies from those chaotic days in late-January and early-February make the report a must read.

For those who don't know all the background behind the strike, jilted union leaders galvanized in January to launch an unlimited general strike to absolutely paralyze all activity in the country (after having launched two smaller scale strikes last year). A good summary of the events leading up to the strike can be found here.

The goal of this strike was to see that government promises of wage increases and price controls on basic commodities (rice, kerosene for lamps, and gas for transportation) be met so that Guineans could continue to work and feed their families. The strike launched peacefully on January 10th, but the government made it clear early on that it was unwilling to make concessions; strike leaders decided to make the strike political for the first time in recent years, demanding sweeping government reforms, demanding that President Lansana Conté and his entire Congress step down from power.

The government's unwillingness to meet the strike leaders' demands is not hard to understand: Guinea is bankrupt, the result of decadent and systematic corruption over recent years that has earned it the reputation as the second most corrupt country in the world: Those who own posts of power steal money destined to fund projects and development to buy themselves mansions and Mercedes. In short, the country languishes in poverty and fails to provide basic services, such as electricity and running water, in its capital and major cities (the vast majority of the country has never been electrified and is without running water).

On January 22nd, tens of thousands of ordinary Guineans spontaneously took to the streets, carrying banners such as "We are ready to die for change." President Conté obliged them, ordering the army to open fire on protesters on the crowds. More than 60 people died that day.

I'm posting a segment detailing the bloodiest day of protests on January 22nd only as encouragement to read the entire 66-page report:

According to the government’s own figures, the brutal crackdown resulted in at least 129 dead and over 1700 wounded, hundreds of them by gunshot.

The massacre traces its origin to an economic collapse, and rampant corruption such as the president Lansana Conté securing the release of two of his rich friends who had been arrested on charges of embezzlement in which he

"...traveled to Conakry’s central prison with his motorcade and personally secured the release of two close allies charged with embezzlement from Guinea’s Central Bank, reportedly telling his entourage, 'Je suis la justice' ('I am the law)."

This story, which was to be widely circulated around the country in the following weeks, would prove to be "the final straw" for trade unions who were utterly exhausted with Contés promises. Of the massacre, we now have extensive eyewitness reports, including testimony from the vicitms themselves:

The day I was shot, I was going out to try to find some rice to eat. ...I saw a group of youths protesting on the street. Some of them were throwing rocks at a large group of nearby policemen, who immediately started shooting at us. I felt a sharp pain and looked down and saw blood flowing from my leg and I fell down. I couldn’t walk. ...The police came up and I heard one of them say they should kill me. Then one of them kicked me in the face and I felt the blood start to run. The police left me there...

On January 22nd, one of the largest protests ever seen in Guinea—a veritable "human tide"—took to the streets. In the words of one of the protestors: “When we came out on Monday, we were determined to change the system in place. It’s been 48 years since independence, and we have nothing.”

The scene came to a head that morning near central Conakry. Testimony from one of the eyewitnesses:

During the march on January 22, I was one of the stewards. Our role was to keep marchers from throwing rocks and engaging in acts of vandalism. We wanted to improve upon the marches of January 17, where some youths had thrown rocks and wanted to insult the police....so it was important to calm things down. Those playing this role were just organized informally, and were older guys from the neighborhood who the youth respected. We didn’t get orders from on high.

Nonetheless, security forces did not respect the non-violent nature of the march. Another eyewitness account from the 22nd:

When we arrived in Hamdallaye, there were lots of police and gendarmes and there was lots of firing in the air and lots of tear gas. But it wasn’t frightening people, so they fired straight into the crowd. There was no stone throwing at Hamdallaye. Nothing. Two died there that I saw. One was hit in the forehead, and the other in the chest. I don’t know if it was a policeman or gendarme who fired those particular shots. We took the bodies and put them on a piece of corrugated tin and carried them on our heads. The security agents backed off as we approached with the bodies and we passed forward towards Bellevue.

The scene came to a head at Le pont de 8 novembre ("The Bridge of November 8th"). Another protestor's testimony:

As we neared the bridge, we were chanting, “We don’t want Conté anymore.” We also had a Guinean flag. We had no stones, no arms of any kind. Our only weapons were little tree branches that we were waving above our heads. Around 2 p.m., we arrived at the bridge. There were police, gendarmes, and Red Berets there. The police were there in strong numbers. There were fewer Red Berets, but I tried to stay closer to the police because the Red Berets were firing more. I saw the Red Berets firing straight into the crowds and several people fall on the ground. We panicked and tried to flee. As my friend was trying to climb a wall into a nearby cemetery to get away, someone fired and hit him in the shoulder. He fell town and tried to climb again, and they shot him again in the lower back side. I knew if I tried to climb the wall they’d shoot me too, so I ran towards the police because they weren’t firing as much and they captured me. They struck me with their rifle butts on the back and arrested me.

A foreign diplomat on hand to view the carnage corroborates this accounts:

From what I saw of the march of the 22nd, security forces were firing on an absolutely peaceful march. The protestors had no stones or arms of any kind. At first, security forces did use tear gas to try to push people back. But then the first wave of protestors that was advancing toward the bridge got closer and closer. One protestor was carrying a Guinean flag. A group of protestors got down on their knees in a non-threatening position in front of the soldiers. But the soldiers fired at the one in the first row holding the Guinean flag, as he stood there on his knees. They literally fired directly into the crowd. The Red Berets were firing, but so were the police and gendarmes. Several were wounded at the bridge, hit in the stomach, so they couldn’t have been firing in the air. I saw police kick those who were already lying prostrate wounded on the ground, so the security forces were clearly over-excited. Groups of protestors would disperse in all directions only to come back again. I don’t know why the demonstrators kept advancing. Maybe they thought because they weren’t armed, they wouldn’t be hurt.

For much more, including descriptions from doctors at the local hospitals, families whose homes were sacked by marauding soldiers, and accounts from the strike leaders themselves (who report having been threatened with murder by the president himself), see the report.

If you're still wondering why you should care, even if you've never visited or even heard of Guinea, Guinea visits you every day. The country is the world's second-largest producer of raw aluminum (bauxite); so the spoon you use to eat your cereal or the car you drive to work have been, in a sense, carved from its red rocks. As citizens of the world, we owe it to the people of Guinea to inform ourselves about this tragedy that has unfolded in the country over the last few months. Their loss is our own.

Development at Work

Continuing today's theme celebrating women's liberation, your Miss Conakry 2007:

From guineenews.org:

"Le jury a eu à trancher sur la base des critères comme la beauté, la démarche, la tenue vestimentaire et l'expression orale."

("The jury based its decision on beauty, presentation, dress, and oral expression.")

I knew all those Peace Corps Girls Conferences we organized were good for something.

Something's growing on here.

I'm going to conjecture that the purpose of a blog with four former Peace Corps Volunteers is to talk about Africa, Peace Corps, and Africa, though not necessarily in that order.

The great thing about a blog with Peace Corps volunteers means that you don't have to suffer the hoity-toity, high falutin' standards of news organizations like Reuters, BBC, or IRIN. In short, it means is that we can talk about stuff like:

Perhaps you don't recognize one of the greatest alcoholic beverages known to Man. That's OK; that just means you haven't visited Guinea yet.

Speaking of The Greatest Country in the Universe, nothing much of interest is going at the moment as the new prime minister is still in the midsts of organizing his new government while the general populace holds its breath and the international community pretends the whole charade may actually result in positive change—but we all know who is still wearing the pants in this dysfunctional family (a certain diabetic chain-smoker, son excéllence, le Général Lansana Conté).

Meanwhile, the few media outlets that exist are still trying to make sense of the massive riots that tore apart the country last month. The always redoubtable Guineenews.org has posted an interview with my former prefet, Mouctar Banti Diallo (now occasional-prefet of Pita—when he isn't getting chased out of town). It's an interesting read if you can suffer his penchanct for long-winded extemporations.

Ol' Mouctar was an acquaintance of mine as we lived next to each other when he was Prefet in Tougué and I drew water from his family's pump every other day-or-so and diligently greeted his wife in her multi-colored complets beneath the mango tree. That somehow makes me feel close to him, though why I'd want to feel close to him is another question altogether. Assuming you speak French, you can read his reactions to the riots that lead him to take his family and flee the town while his office and home were sacked and looted, as well as his explanations as to the causes.

Then when you're tired of feeling bad for the state of the world, cheer yourself up with the Garfield comic generator: They literally write themselves!

This one, however, is still my favorite: