African News

Guinea: Junta to announce government of national unity soon

6 September 2021 at 17:35 | 846 views

By Our Correspondent

It was like a bad dream for some, and a good dream for others. But it turned out to be reality.

Guineans in Conakry the capital, woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of heavy gunfire. What was going on? After over 10 years of President Alpha Conde, many Guineans did not expect the 82-year old strong man to be toppled.

Until a tall, military officer in dark glasses spoke on the radio and appeared on the their TV screens and cell phones to announce that he and his men from Guinea’s Special Forces had taken over the country.

His name is Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, a former Sergeant of France’s elite Legionnaires who later returned home to join the Guinean army and rose through the ranks to become Colonel. He is married to a French woman and is Malinke, the same ethnic group to which the deposed president belongs. Doumbouya, who fought abroad for the French army before returning to Guinea, is from Kankan, eastern Guinea.

It has so far been a largely bloodless coup and today Monday, September 6, Doumbouya and his men summoned Conde’s Ministers and other government officials, amid boos from onlookers, to a meeting and told them to surrender their vehicles and passports. He also advised them not to try to leave the country. Meanwhile civil servants have been asked to return to work and everybody else to go about their normal business.

Credible sources say a government of national unity will soon be announced. Doumbouya has been meeting Guinean civil society and other stakeholders this morning.

The junta is also expected to release the large number of political detainees soon. Conde had been ruling Guinea with an iron fist.

Here is Doumbouya announcing the coup, courtesy of VideoLAN. He gave the reasons for their action as corruption, injustice and other ills of the former Conde administration. He announced he closure of land and air borders and advised fellow soldiers in the interior to stay calm and stay where they are.

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