Guinea police kill 10 in worst day of strike violence

Guinea police kill 10 in worst day of strike violence

	Published : Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:35 By : Agencies Print this Story

CONAKRY (AFX) - Police killed ten demonstrators in Guinea's capital Conakry today, witnesses and hospital staff said on the bloodiest day of a general strike and protests at President Lansana Conte's rule.

In spite of the crackdown, thousands of people held protest marches in towns across the west African country, where 20 deaths have now been reported in nearly two weeks of the third mass strike in 12 months.

The protest, organised by powerful labour unions and backed by 14 opposition parties, began on January 10 over corruption and interference in the judiciary by Conte after he freed two associates facing trial for embezzlement.

Strike leaders then demanded that Conte, who has been in power since 1984, be constitutionally removed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that he is too unwell to hold office.

The protesters want a new broad-based government to take charge.

Today's killings took place in outlying districts of the capital where police fired live ammunition and used teargas against protesters armed with stones.

Three people were killed in the Hamdalaye suburb of Conakry, two were shot in the Lambania suburb, one in Enco 5 and another in Matam, residents told AFP, adding that dozens of people were injured.

Thousands of people later began marching towards the centre of Conakry, whose governor banned all public rallies on January 14, a day after violence erupted in the strike.

'We are going to the (presidential) palace. We will take the palace,' one of the demonstrators yelled.

Earlier in the Lambania suburb, protesters shouted: 'We are ready to die for change. We are fed up with this country'.

'We have no water, no electricity, we have nothing. There has to be change,' demonstrators said.

Several thousand people also took to streets of the central towns of Pita and Dabola, Kankan in the east and Telemele in the north today, demanding an end to the rule of the ailing head of state, who is 72 and suffers from chronic diabetes, witnesses said.

Meantime the UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Guinea's government and unions to reach a peaceful agreement to end the crisis, echoing an earlier appeal by the African Union.

A mediation trip to Guinea by the presidents of Senegal and Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade and Olusegun Obasanjo, under the aegis of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has been postponed by a few days.

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