Former Liberian rebels participated in a recent bloody crackdown on an opposition rally in Guinea by the country’s military, sources from the army, the opposition and a rights group have said.
The massacre that the UN and rights group say led to more than 150 deaths occurred on Sept. 28 when soldiers opened fire at a crowded stadium in Guinea’s capital.
“It was the presidential guard ... with elements from ULIMO and the NPFL that did that, that massacre,” a military source in Conakry said on condition of anonymity, referring to the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), a rebel group that fought in that country’s brutal civil war and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebels that were led by ex-Liberian president and former warlord Charles Taylor.
“ULIMO members currently surround the head of the junta, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara,” the military source said, adding that ex-NPFL fighters were simply looking to work as mercenaries.
“That’s why they have no pity,” the source said.
Camara seized power in December last year after the death of Guinean strongman Lansana Conte, who had ruled the resource-rich country since 1984.
Conte had supported the creation of ULIMO and oversaw training of some of its members in Guinea, which neighbors Liberia.
Meanwhile, residents of Guinea Forestiere — an area near Liberia’s border — fought on the side of Taylor’s rebels in the 1989 to 2003 war. Many soldiers recruited since Camara took power come from the same region, the source said.
The military source’s claims backed up similar accusations made by opposition members and a rights group official.
One opposition leader, Jean-Marie Dore, claimed at least two of the soldiers who beat him during the crackdown were ULIMO members. He said they carried the same types of charms and necklaces that ULIMO members were known for.
Dore had supported the NPFL during Liberia’s war.
“One told me, ‘We’ve been looking for you for a long time ... I’m going to kill you with two bullets in the head,’” Dore said. “His friend said, ‘No, we have to cut his throat.’”
Another opposition leader, Francois Lonseny Fall, said, “we have never seen such a massacre in Guinea,” with the violence including women being raped with guns and sticks.
“It recalls the techniques used in Liberia,” he said.
Mamadi Kaba, Guinea coordinator for African rights group RADDHO, said a civilian working in a military camp has alleged there were signs Liberian rebels participated in the killings.
“He told us that there were soldiers covered in gris-gris [charms], like during the war in Liberia, who spoke English between them or a local language, and that he has since seen them at a camp in Conakry,” Kaba said.
Camara, who has apologized for the massacre, recently denied claims that Liberian rebels had been recruited.
“I have never recruited men, rebels,” he told Radio France Internationale. “I have never done it.”
Guinea’s government disputes the toll for the massacre given by rights groups, saying 56 people died and 934 people were injured.
Local human rights organizations say in addition to the death toll, 1,200 people were injured including many women who were raped by soldiers during the crackdown.
Liberia was ravaged by its civil war, which left more than 250,000 people dead.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS