Drunk soldiers killing demonstrators in Guinea

// added September 29, 2009 // 16 comments //
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Really disturbing story from Guinea this morning as reports are filtering out of the West African nation’s capital about soldiers killing pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets. Its estimated that as many as 157 people have died and the AP reports that soldiers, smelling of alcohol, were witnessed even raping protestors.

From the Washington Post:
"An Associated Press reporter said he saw halls full of wounded patients at the city’s large Donka Hospital, some with bullet wounds, others who appeared to have been beaten. Opposition politician Mutarr Diallo said he witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts during Monday’s protests. He was arrested during the protest but released Tuesday morning. New York-based Human Rights Watch said eyewitnesses also told them that security forces had stripped female protesters Monday and raped them in the streets. Other eyewitnesses said soldiers had stabbed protesters with knives and bayonets."

Guinea has been in trouble for decades. Ever since declaring independence from France, it has been cursed with a series of corrupt administrations focused more on getting themselves rich than bringing stability and prosperity. This corruption and lack of stable law enforcement has made Guinea (and other nations in West Africa) a prime location for drug trafficking into Western Europe. (Our new season of Vanguard will include a story on this by Christof Putzel, actually). At the end of last year, the military took control of the country in a coup. This is the government pro-democracy protestors were hoping to get rid of. So it’s even more chilling that soldiers, directly part of the ruling military body could inflict such damage.

Military leader Capt. Moussa “Dadis” Camara told Radio France International: “Those people who committed those atrocities were uncontrollable elements in the military….Even I, as head of state in this very tense situation, cannot claim to be able to control those elements in the military.”

Well that’s not very reassuring.

We’ll have more updates on this story for you during the day – and video later on in the afternoon.
  1. groups:
    News,   Current Tonight,   News_Featured,   Drug Smuggling
  2. tags:
    News,  Protests,  News_Featured,  Drug Trafficking,  3 more

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