Published on 09.02.2023 at 15:18 by APA
In Guinea, the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) intends to defy the ban on demonstrations on the public highway on February 16. The Guinean capital risks being newly shaken by the “peaceful” march scheduled for Thursday, February 16 by the FNDC. Several people fear the risk of clashes between the police. The last demonstration against the military junta on August 17, 2022 had caused the death of at least two people by gunshot.
A tragic consequence that does not impact the determination of many Guineans who are calling for an end to the transition and respect for the Guinean Constitution. Several political leaders are however placed under judicial control after having supported the last demonstrations of the FNDC.
The spokesman for the transitional government, Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, responded with contempt when questioned on Wednesday February 8 about the new call to demonstrate from this organization, which was nevertheless dissolved in August 2022 by the Guinean authorities. “Let them (FNDC editor’s note) say what they want, I’m not interested,” he said to his ex-comrades.
Mr. Diallo was an activist in the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), one of the major Guinean opposition parties led by Cellou Dalein Diallo, before his exclusion on June 1, 2022. Appointed government spokesperson, this former member of the eighth legislature does not miss the opportunity to tackle his former opposition comrades with whom he fought the regime of President Alpha Condé, overthrown in September 2021 a few months after having succeeded in being re-elected to a third term controversial.
“I belonged to an organization which acted with full responsibility in this country, which led a real fight. We were here in the field. I did not take the plane to go and sit in Dinguiraye, Nzérékoré or Gaoual to tell what I want”, justified Ousmane Gaoual Diallo.
Since May 13, 2022, the National Rally Committee for Development (CNRD), the body that has led the junta since the September 2021 coup which installed Colonel Mamady Doumbouya as head of the country, decided to prohibit all demonstrations on the public highway “likely to compromise social tranquility and the correct execution of the activities contained in the timetable (of the transition) for the moment until the periods of electoral campaigns”.
The Guinean government spokesperson defended the merits of the measures banning political demonstrations without further details. He invites his compatriots to refrain from any “protest and to work for the success of the transition”.
