N°17-octobre2021 After Chad in April, Mali in May, it is the turn of Guinea, also a former French colony, to experience a military coup.
On September 5, 2021, the junta led by Colonel Mamady Doumbaya having seized power, captured the incumbent and unpopular President Alpha Condé, suspended the Constitution, dissolved the government, instituted a curfew and closed land and air borders.
Alpha Condé, first elected president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015, had the Constitution amended in March 2020 to be able to stand for re-election in October 2020 – an election of which he declared himself the winner.
This coup did not really arouse the general indignation of world opinion, even though popular protests in Guinea left some 30 dead and several dozen injured. In the same period Benny Steinmetz Franco-Israeli mining tycoon appeared before a Swiss court. At the heart of the matter are bribes paid to obtain mining rights to one of the world's largest iron deposits located in Guinea. This country has significant mineral resources: bauxite 1/3 of the world's reserves of this raw material of aluminum, iron, gold, diamonds, petroleum, uranium, phosphate and manganese. Iron and oil are under-exploited. Needless to say that this country is coveted by multinationals. Sékou Touré, actor of Independance and its first Marxist president (from 1958 to 1984) succeeded with his party the Democratic Party of Guinea, in wresting total independence and refusing the French Community. De Gaulle's France waged an all-out economic war against him. In 1960, he went to the People's Republic of China and obtained substantial financial aid invested in the mines. His successors left the door open to North American capitalists, in particular Canadians, and then to the Russians. This September 5 coup is unique in that it provokes only very measured reactions both in Africa and among international organizations. The head of the junta, Doumbaya, is none other than a former member of the Foreign Legion, ex-auditor of the Paris War School in 2017, who hastened to release the political prisoners by promising a government of national union and an “inclusive and peaceful transition”. He especially promptly reassured investors, respected all economic and mining contracts "without witch hunts". Former President Condé is in good health in a wing of the palace.
It is understandable why the UN and the African Union, ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), the EU and other organizations regard this regime with so much lukewarmness and even benevolence. A regime that has no intention of getting the people out of poverty: despite all its wealth Guinea’s GDP ranks 139th in the world and 178th out of 189 for the Human Development Index where 55% of the population lives below the poverty line and 80% of the active population works in the “informal sector”. The almost total absence of trade union and political class organizations orchestrated by capital under the auspices of the former colonial power does not presently allow the Guinean people to take their destiny or that of the country into their own hands. It is only by reclaiming the wealth and its management stolen since the beginning of colonization that the workers of Guinea will emerge from poverty in a country which has all the assets of development in hand.