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| Rights group: At least 64 people killed in past two days in Guinea
By Paul Fournier ASSOCIATED PRESS 1:24 p.m. February 14, 2007 CONAKRY, Guinea – At least 64 people were killed in Guinea in the past two days as the West African country imposed martial law, a local human rights group said Wednesday. A union leader who has called for President Lansana Conte to step down urged the restart of negotiations with the government. Opposition leaders and trade unions accuse Conte, the ailing leader who seized power over two decades ago in an army coup, of violating a power-sharing agreement and have demanded he relinquish power. Thierno Madjou Sow, president of Conakry's League of Human Rights, said the latest deaths bring his group's tally to at least 120 killed since violent protests began Saturday. The weekend rioting and clashes between protesters and security forces led Conte to declare martial law Monday night, imposing a curfew for all but a few daylight hours and banning all public gatherings. Yet as nightfall brought the return of a curfew to the center of the capital, Conakry, children could be seen playing soccer in the streets Wednesday and some residents strolled down the roads. Much of the violence has taken place outside the city center, in suburbs and the interior of Guinea. Sow said his group received reports of 21 deaths from gunshot wounds in Conakry's suburbs on Tuesday and Wednesday, and another 43 deaths outside the capital. Rabiatou Serah Diallo, head of one of Guinea's major unions, called for restarting negotiations with the government. “We need to meet, we need to dialogue, we need to accept each other, we need to listen to each other,” Diallo told The Associated Press by telephone. “We need, urgently, to find ourselves around the same table.” Still, Diallo said the unions were not planning to change their demands – which they say were ignored when Conte appointed a Cabinet member as prime minister on Friday instead of someone outside the government. “We stay behind our draft agreement which must be respected,” she said. She asked the international community to step in to help Guinea resolve its crisis. The U.S. Embassy has ordered all staff family members to leave Guinea and urged private U.S. citizens to go as well. The embassy flew out about 25 people on a U.S. government plane to Dakar, Senegal. The U.S. government also sent a military team of about 20 people into Guinea to beef up embassy security, according to U.S. European command. Conakry's airport reopened late Tuesday for an Air France flight – the first commercial plane to fly since the fighting started Saturday. A crowd of more than 2,000 had gathered at the airport, and witnesses said most were clamoring to get on the flight to Paris. By Wednesday afternoon, the airport was nearly empty. The violence started after Conte appointed his close ally Eugene Camara, a Cabinet member since 1997, as prime minister. The post had been left vacant since Conte, who seized power in a 1984 coup, fired Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo in April. Last month, Conte agreed to appoint a consensus prime minister who was not a current member of his government in a deal to end a two-week national strike that brought Guinea to an economic standstill and sparked clashes that left at least 59 dead. Many said he sidestepped the agreement by naming a confidant, and angry youths took to the streets, throwing stones and ransacking buildings. Security forces fired into the crowds. Opposition leaders say Conte has let corruption overrun Guinea as people struggle to meet basic needs. Guinea's 10 million people are impoverished and many live without the most basic public services, even though the country has half the world's reserves of bauxite, used to produce aluminum. Conte said martial law will continue through Feb. 23.
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