Voici un extrait (en anglais) du témoignage d’une volontaire du programme Peace Corps à Mamou, sur son blog Yolo in Guinea:
Last Friday: I drive through Mamou, and see HUNDREDS of police officers and soldiers. With big guns. They have innondated the city, and are posted all over the place.
Last Saturday: Dadis leaves the capital Conakry for the FIRST time since he declared himself president. He decides that he’s going to make an appearance in Mamou (my hometown) and Labe (3 hrs north) to try and convince people to stop hating him. I woke up to the sound of a helicopter over my house and people yelling. Wait- Guinea has a helicopter? Anyway Dadis goes to these cities; rumor has it in Labe everyone purposefully stayed in their homes so as NOT to welcome him, and that soldiers took buses to surrounding villages paying people to come fill up the stadium and cheer for him, giving TV viewers the impression of popularity. He was here in Mamou, there were small groups of protestors (who may or may not have tried to open my car door) and things were calm and cool.
Monday: Two weeks earlier, a political demonstration had been organized, with the underlying message: Dadis, do NOT run for president at the end of January. Dadis said that the demonstrations were prohibitied. People went anyways. The military went buck wild. Shot 157 dead. 1,200 others injured. Women were raped and perversely abused at the site of the protests. Military stole random things (like my friend’s cell phones) and were actually using knives and bayonets.
Tuesday: Shortly after arriving at work, someone runs into our office saying that people have begun protesting in town here in Mamou. First we get put on “lockdown” at the office, but soon after we return home. Vehicles are hidden around town (so protestors can’t damage them) and I get a little freaked out. Protestors are fine, burning tires don’t mean a thing, but if the military starts running around with guns, that’s when all hell breaks loose. I stayed home for the rest of the day. The military never went out. Protestors went home. Mamou is cool, calm and collected. Mom and Dad, I repeat, Mamou is cool, calm and collected.
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GUINEA: « The barbarity we saw cannot be described »
DAKAR, 2 October 2009 (IRIN) – Guineans strain to find the words to describe the violence they saw on 28 September when soldiers opened fire on demonstrators, stabbing people with bayonets and gang-raping women and girls. Hundreds of Guineans have been unable to collect the remains of their loved ones, as soldiers blocked entry to morgues and – residents say – loaded up bodies in trucks and took them away.
Residents of the capital Conakry said tension was high on 2 October, as the junta held a ceremony to bury the bodies of the 57 people it says died, most « by asphyxiation » in a stampede. People in Conakry received mobile text messages the evening of 1 October, calling on Guineans to demonstrate the following day, wearing red, to protest the junta.
Here is some of what Guineans told IRIN on 28 September and the days following:
« The barbarity we saw cannot be described. »
« We saw soldiers walking on cadavers. »
“They shoved their Kalashnikovs into women’s vaginas – I saw this.”
« I was completely destroyed by the brutality I saw. If I had a bomb that day I would have pulled a kamikaze. »
« The military is loading up bodies in trucks and hiding them. At the very least leave us the bodies of our loved ones. »
« People were afraid to seek treatment in hospital because some doctors refused to treat the injured, saying the demonstrators were to blame for the violence. »
« We fear civil war. There were militias who were out the next day going through neighbourhoods with machetes. »
« Soldiers are prowling the neighbourhood [Bambeto, on 29 September]. When they see a resident they say: « You move, we shoot’. They say: ‘It’s you, Peulhs, who want to get in our way. We are going to exterminate you all.' »
[Peulh is one of Guinea’s main ethnic groups; junta leader Camara is Guerze, a group from the Forest Region]
« Anyone who is not on their [the soldiers’] side, they are going to slaughter us all. »
« If the impunity continues, that is it for Guinea. Civil war. It will be worse than Liberia. »
« No one is safe. »
np/ci
from: IRIN is a project of the UN office for Humanitarian affairs