Guinea - Conakry killings

Opposition leader says aide-de-camp saved his life

Article published on the 2009-12-17 Latest update 2009-12-17 18:53 TU

Guinean soldiers march at Alpha Yaya Diallo military camp in the capital Conakry, last week
(Photo: Reuters)

As Guinea's military government prepares to mark one year in power on 23 December, it has banned all public demonstrations until further notice.

Human Rights Watch says the 28 September violence that left at least 150 dead in the Guinean capital Conakry will probably be classified as a "crime against humanity". The rights group released a report on Thursday implicating both the junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara and his former aide-de-camp, Abubakar Toumba Diakite.

Toumba Diakité has been on the run since shooting and seriously injuring Dadis Camara.

"We spoke to a number of red berets as well as to other people in the military about what had happened and it's very clear to us that the orders to commit this massacre came from the highest level," Peter Bouckart, lead author of the report, told RFI in Paris on Thursday.

"President Dadis Camara himself was very involved in the events," he says, "the morning of 28 September he was at camp Alpha Yaya where Toumba, his personal aide-de-camp left from to command the troops which committed the massacre".

But the leader of the opposition Nouvelles Forces Démocratiques, Mokhtar Diallo, told RFI that Toumba had protected him and his colleagues during the killings of 28 September.

"When we were in the stadium, when we were attacked by the military, police and gendarmes" Muktar Diallo said, "for us opposition members it was Toumba Diakité who protected us".

"Then the attack from the other military who let loose and came towards us to do us in - and he dissuaded them. He brought us to his car, and he got one of his military men to look after us," he said.

"I can say, in any case, he saved our lives," he said.

Also on Thursday, the head of United Nations peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, said that the West African body Ecowas would be best-placed to send peacekeepers to Guinea.

"They are the forces who could intervene most quickly in Guinea because they are close by," he said, adding that the UN Security Council was not "for the moment considering this idea".

The idea of a military intervention was rejected last Monday by the junta after being proposed by the International Contact Group on Guinea.