Why the radio silence on the coup in Guinea? (Analysis)

All observers have noticed that the international press, particularly French, speaking of coups, only speaks of Mali, Burkina and Niger, never of Guinea. Why double standards? To understand the deafening silence on the coup, let us refer to the opinion of an expert on Africa, the journalist Francois Soudan who wrote in Jeune Afrique:

"Apart from the condemnations in principle of the international community and the concern about his fate expressed by the Ivorian, Togolese, Congolese presidents, or by his former comrade from the Socialist International Antonio Gutteres, no one has explicitly demanded the return of the constitutional order and that of Alpha Condé in power. If the French-speaking media "covered" the event, their English-speaking counterparts were above all interested in the consecutive tenfold increase in the price of bauxite, of which Guinea is the world's largest producer. It is because, in the region and elsewhere, this complex Pan-African with a difficult character had few friends - or in any case too distant to intervene. What could the Angolan Lourenço, the South African Ramaphosa or the Eritrean Afwerki have done for him? How could the Turkish Erdogan, the Chinese Xi or the Russian Putin oppose the coup? Not to mention the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, with whom he had been cold since the latter had criticized his third term. » Indeed, the French media tended to justify the coup d'etat using the pretext of the third term. Today about Niger President Macron talks about the courage of President Bazoum because he did not resign after a month of detention. But President Condé, despite several months of detention, never agreed to resign: when the politician Bouya Konaté brought him the letter of resignation that the junta wanted him to sign, he tore it up and threw it in the toilet. The next day the soldiers who came to get the letter received the president's response: "I am of Mandingo origin and my culture has taught me four things: do not tremble, do not be afraid, be a man of your word and be worthy. of your ancestors. (Mandingo society was a warlike feudal society, from Soundiata to Samory Touré).

It should be remembered that during his detention the President was in solitary confinement, cut off from the world, without means of communicating with the outside world, no internet and even less a mobile phone. On this subject, we then think of the remark of one of his ex-peers to the journalist François Soudan: “A telephone? You do not think about it! You might as well give him a depinned grenade in his hands. No one can control Alpha Condé! " It is also enough to refer to the column signed by the lawyers Maître Boukounta Diallo and Maître Pierre-Olivier Sur in Jeune Afrique to better understand the coup d'etat ("The only crime of Alpha Condé is to have wanted to develop the Guinea”, February 17, 2023). They conclude: "In reality, President Alpha Condé's only crime is to be a sovereigntist and pan- African, to demand respect for the sovereignty of African countries, and to have had the audacity to incite his counterparts to 'cut the umbilical cord” (with the former colonial power). We observe that when speaking of the coup d'etat and General Tiani in Niger, it is said to be "a coup d'etat of complacency and personal convenience". That is to say that he did not make the coup for objective reasons but only to save his skin because the President was going to dismiss him.

What about Colonel Doumbouya? In 2021, President Condé launched a firm fight against drug traffickers. He had started by seizing the land attributed to the notorious drug trafficker Sidiki Mara (cousin of General Didi Amin) and coming from the same prefecture as Bala Samoura and Dansa Kourouma, current president of the National Transitional Council. He had also initiated an investigation of all his property. It was the same Sidiki Mara who had the audacity to ask the investigators to inform the president to be very careful because he had powerful supporters in his regime. The President seized a speedboat carrying 50 kg of cocaine and had entrusted the custody of these 50 kg to BAC 10 (The bacs are elite units made up of gendarmes and police officers responsible for combating organized crime). And to his surprise 25 kg had disappeared. He therefore had all the members of Bac 10 arrested. It should be noted that Bala Samoura was the commander of the gendarmerie for Greater Conakry. It will turn out later that this drug had been imported by Colonel Doumbouya. The main cause of the coup was to prevent the arrest of drug-trafficking officers: 1/ Colonel Doumbouya. 2/ General Ambassador Aboubacar Sidiki Camara, alias Idi Amin (Minister of Defence)

3/ Mory Condé (Minister of Territorial Administration) 4/ Mamady Kallo 5/ Mamady Kaba 6/ Issa Kaba 7/ Raoul Soufiane junior (current boss of Guinea Games) There are also rumors of the names of businessmen who would be mixed up such as Hadja Gnouma, Kerfalla Camara known as KPC, El Hadj Saliou (Sonoko company), Antonio Souaré, Kaba Guiter,

A bloody coup Unlike in Mali, Burkina and Niger, the coup in Guinea was extremely bloody. Many soldiers were assassinated and then buried in a mass grave. And the families claimed the bodies in vain. Since then, everyone knows that Guinea has now become a narco-state. The main traffickers like Papa Fofana, and Doumbouya's entourage, are well- known drug traffickers, especially in the United States. Unlike Mali, Niger and Burkina, there was no political crisis, economic crisis or social crisis. The country was calm. French General Clément-Bollée, who was in Conakry before the coup and who had piloted the reform of the security forces in Guinea, spoke of the tranquility in the country: "I have never seen such a calm political climate , also sluggish. And at the same time all the insiders wondered about the intentions of the special forces and their leader.

President Condé had initiated extremely important economic and financial reforms with the support of all bilateral and multilateral partners. And Guinea had completed with satisfaction the last program of the monetary fund. Important development projects were undertaken in all sectors. In his analysis for Jeune Afrique in his article "The grenade and the legionnaire" (November 2021), the journalist François Soudan estimates: - “This putsch, unlike others, owes nothing to the opposition and to Guinean civil society, nor even to the economic and social situation. On this last point, as Jean-Noël Té-Lessia Assoko pointed out in the last Jeune Afrique, the Alpha Condé decade was rather a success in terms of GDP per capita, access to electricity, growth rate and reduction of wage inequalities. Much more than his controversial third term, what "killed" Alpha was his unique styleof governance, or rather micro-management, which led him to decide everything, to control everything by himself, systematically circumventing the hierarchical chains, at the cost of an incalculable number of frustrations, resentments and humiliations”.

- "It is therefore not through the street, the opposition, the third term, or even the army as such that have undermined the power of Alpha Condé, it is himself and his omnipresent, omniscient personality , so pervasive that it had ended up overshadowing everything else and in particular the promising return of Guinea to the rails of economic development. »

- “This position of President of everything and everywhere reflected on a kind of irremovable and fragile triptych. First of all, a Kevlar patriotism: sincere, deep, devouring. Alpha Condé eats, dreams, breathes Guinea, and only Guinea interests him. »

- “Finally, a deep distrust of Guinean politicians and executives, whom he considers for the most part venal, aboulic and incompetent. A judgment in his eyes valid for the leaders of the Guinean army, all these generals and these colonels whom he has made lose weight in every sense of the word - pay and waistline - and of whom none or almost none, it is necessary to surprised, did not lift a finger to defend it on the morning of September 5th.

From his exile in Istanbul, far from the ocher lands of Guinea, President Condé, determined as ever, spends his time on the telephone, busy as always with the affairs of Guinea and Africa. He took full measure of the progress his country made under his presidency and was also fully aware that his success was overshadowed by his temperament as a demanding fighter. This success that the junta in place led by Colonel Doumbouya is in the process of tearing to pieces.

If he is in Turkey, his heart and his soul are always, and particularly today, with his compatriots abandoned to their fate by the international community and for whom, President who has never resigned, he also once again embodies the ultimate and natural opponent to an authoritarian regime that undermines and plunders their homeland.

By a Pan-African expert

Dr Wassolon Nxumalo Imhotep