Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Long live the struggle of the proletarians and masses of Guinea!

ICP | 13.02.2007 14:55 | Repression | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements



Guinea-Conakry is a small West African country of 10 million inhabitants, one of the poorest countries on the planet, in spite of the richness of its mining industry: diamonds, gold, iron, uranium and especially bauxite of which it is the 2nd largest producer in the world. Although the majority of the population of Guinea lives in misery, local and foreign bourgeois and the multinationals grow rich, protected by the regime of General Lansana Conté (who seized power after a coup in 1984) against rising dissatisfaction.



In November 2005 the trade unions had organized a 48 hour general strike to demand (ask for) a raise in wages and pensions, the introduction of a minimum wage, etc. In 2006 another general strike in March was followed by a teachers strike in May, followed by a new general strike in June which lasted 9 days before being broken by repression (with scores of dead).

In reaction to the rise in the price of essential goods, on January 10, 2007 the trade unions launched a new unlimited general strike. After 18 days of striking marked by repression which killed more than 60 and with hundreds of casualties, the negotiations between the government and the trade unions arrived at this conclusion: despite the strikers and the demonstrators demanding the departure of Lansana Conté and his clan, on January 27 the Intersyndicale decreed the end of the strike, against, among other things, the promise of the appointment of a Prime Minister. To effect a return to work and to push through this solution, puffed up by the imperialist milieu as a "victory for the people", the trade-union leaders explained that the future Prime Minister would have the real power and that the sinister Conté clan, his racketeers and his murderers, would effectively be rendered harmless.


However, faced with the delay in the appointment of the Prime Minister as well as the failure to respect full payment for strike days among other clauses of the agreement of 27/01, the trade unions threatened on February 2nd to start a new general strike from the 12th. The regime made profitable use of the broad interim left by the trade-union chiefs; in lieu of contacting them as they had wished, in order to negotiate, on Friday February 9 Lansana Conté named one of his close relations: Eugene Camara as Prime Minister. This former Minister of the Economy and as such the person responsible for the disastrous situation of the workers and the masses, had been promoted during the strike to the post of Minister Coordinator of Governmental Actions (to replace Fodé Bangoura, hated for his responsibility in the massacres of June 2006), i.e. de facto Prime Minister: as much as if to say that the agreements of the 27th were not even worth the paper on which they were signed...


This decision immediately provoked spontaneous demonstrations: as of Friday evening the youth in the Hamdallaye quarter of the capital Conakry started to demonstrate. Saturday morning in Conakry the presidential procession was trashed by the pupils of Matam College (the windshield of the car carrying Conté was broken, forcing him to change vehicle): the presidential guard shot at the young people, killing two of their number. In the second city of the country, Kankan, where the demonstrations began Friday, a soldier who had shot at the demonstrators, leaving 4 wounded, was himself finished off. Demonstrations and confrontations were announced in various localities: Coyah, Maferinya, Boké, Dalaba, Labé, Pita (where the offices of the Prefect were torched), Siguiri (where the mansion of the Minister for the economy was burnt), N’zérékoré, etc. Ensuing repression has left several dead and wounded. Meanwhile, whereas the capital is paralysed according to Guineenews.org, hundreds of Liberian combatants were concentrated in the suburbs of Conakry to lend a strong hand to the regime.


The bloody regime of Conté is determined to relinquish none of its privileges, as it already showed by the repression of the general strike of June 2006 and at the time of the strike in January of this year when it used the army, the police force and ethnic death squads. Staunchly propped up by French, American and various other imperialisms, which have always supported it, the regime chose to maintain itself by force, by violence.


But the masses and the proletarians of Guinea have demonstrated their combativeness while fighting against misery, exploitation and repression, and they showed their power to stop the economic activity of the country (including bauxite extraction). They spontaneously resumed the struggle, without awaiting the instructions of the trade-union chiefs, or of the politicians of the opposition who only seek compromise with the bourgeoisie and imperialism. The proletarians of the major capitalist countries must support their current fight against the assassin regime and more generally against capitalism; and this support must be concretized by the class struggle against imperialism which is the most solid support of the Conté regime and capitalism in Africa, and in particular, French imperialism which multiplies its military interventions and to which it could resort at any moment in Guinea.





Class solidarity with the fight of the proletarians and the Guinean masses!


Imperialism, out of Africa!



International Communist Party, February 10, 2007

Correspondence:

Editions Programs

3 Basse Combalot Street

69007 Lyon FRANCE

ICP

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech