Anti-Conde protests: clashes as Guineans return to the streets

Anti-government protests resumed in Guinea’s capital Conakry, with heavy clashes between the protesters and the security forces, resulting in injuries

The resumption on Monday July 20 follows a three-month coronavirus lockdown. Protesters are kicking against the president’s suspected intention of extending his stay in office after a decade in charge.

Cellou Dalein Diallo, opposition UFDG party leader: “I think that we achieved the goal to show that in Guinea there are people who suffer injustice and that the people of Guinea do not support this third mandate of President Alpha Condé.”

However the Guinean Minister of Security and Civil Protection, Albert Damathan Camara condemned the move and called for a diplomatic approach to concerns.

“Given the objectives of the FNDC (the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution), they should have realized since 22 March that this approach had no chance of succeeding and should have relied on what has always brought us together, namely, dialogue.

“Even if it was sometimes difficult to implement the agreements, in the end they allowed us to spend a decade in the exercise of democracy and building our democracy,” Camara stressed.

As the government imposed measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the opposition group suspended protests that had raged since October 2019 over a potential re-election bid by President Alpha Conde.

Conde’s second five-year term ends this year, with an election set for October.

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