In a long anticipated ruling by survivors and victims’ families, the former President of Guinea, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was found guilty of crimes against humanity on Wednesday. This decision has been reached in 15 years after an attack at a stadium where pro-democracy demonstrators were killed and numerous rapes made.
Trials and Sentencing
The trial of Captain Camara, as well as eleven others including the former head of the presidential guard, government ministers, and security officials served as a crucial test in holding the military rulers accountable for their actions. The proceedings were followed closely by many out of Guinea’s population that is about 14 million people.
Captain Camara received a 20-year jail term; Lieutenant Aboubacar Diakité, the previous head of the presidential guard got ten years behind bars. The judge found six other defendants guilty but acquitted four including a former health minister.
Massacre
This massacre took place on September 28th, 2009. Pro-democracy protestors had congregated to attend an enormous rally within Conakry’s stadium denouncing Captain Camara who had staged a coup in December 2008.
Camara was accused among other things of having overseen the massacre where scores of security forces stormed the stadium killing protesting crowds. According to witnesses and a United Nations investigation in 2009 quoting victim accounts some armed with batons or bayonets there were at least one hundred and nine women raped or sexually assaulted alongside one hundred fifty fatalities and hundreds wounded in total.
Aftermath And Cover-up
These bodies lie scattered across the playing surface of this stadium and around its gates, walls as well as changing rooms too belonging to those who tried to flee or else hide. Human Rights Watch have said that following this crackdown burial grounds were established for collective graves inside Conakry’s sports complex with soldiers sealing off areas like Conakry’s national stadium where these abuses took place from then on, and that this itself amounted to premeditated and organized abuses since September 28 as crimes against humanity.
Long Journey for Justice
The survivors and families of the victims have tried in vain for more than a decade. An investigation was carried out by the subsequent elected government led by President Alpha Condé who also promised to hold trial. Nevertheless, it is only following yet another military junta led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya ousting President Condé in 2021 that the trial finally took place.
Political Context
It has been viewed as an opportunity for Colonel Doumbouya’s ruling to demonstrate commitment to justice and rule of law hence building international credibility; hence the trial according to observers. Many Guineans celebrated Colonel Doumbouya’s arrival because they hoped that he would be a departure from Mr. Conde’s increasingly repressive regime.
But hope disappeared quickly. Demonstrations were banned under Doumbouya, but protests still continued leading to Amnesty International recording 47 deaths. A coalition of opposition was dissolved while three major independent media outlets in the country have been closed down recently.
Earlier this month, two top opposition figures were arrested and subsequently disappeared causing uproar within the country. The New York Times reported lawyers boycotted Captain Camara’s trial due to these reasons
