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New York City February 2007: - The Guinean Community in America held a
peaceful protest in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York to voice out grievances toward the current ruling government led by President Lansana Conte.
Report by Oyiza Adaba
Protesters
Speak out in peace
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Protesters
brave the cold to be on the street
REPORT:
Conte, a former colonel who seized power in 1984 in a coup now in his 70’s and living in deteriorating health is one of the region’s longest-serving rulers.
Chants like "America Please Help Us” rang in the air as the members of the community marched and circled in New York’s 30-degree cold.
‘Our demands are simple, we want the so-called president to step down period and then nominate a new prime minister and give him power to run the country’ This was according to President of the community Mohammed Diallo.
‘This is neo-colonialism’, shouts a protester who would only id entify himself as Leonard. ‘This is exactly what France wants, to continue to lead Africa through leaders that are dilapidated and dead’
Guinea’s spiraling national economy, high cost of living, growing inequality and rampant corruption have put the nation on the brink of the same kind of institutional failure that plunged its regional neighbors like Liberia and Sierra Leone into civil war.
The unprecedented 18-day strike, which shut down nearly all business and activity in most towns and cities and led to violence and shootings on the streets of major provinces have won support of Guineans both at home and abroad, as well as human and civil rights organizations worldwide.
A similar protest was held in Washington D.C last Thursday during which the community called on the U.S State Department to intervene on the growing crisis.
On President Conte’s last official visit to the U.S in 1999, a similar protest was staged. ‘That was inefficient, it yielded no results and he refused to listen then’, says Diallo. Hopefully the unrest in the country in the last month will jump-start the small West African country and its 9.5 million citizens to a more positive future.
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Oyiza Adaba, International Correspondent
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