Guinea general strike resumes, bauxite mining hit

Unions in Guinea resumed a general strike on Monday in protest against President Lansana Conte’s rule and disrupted mining operations in the world’s top bauxite exporter, witnesses and officials said.

For the second time in a month, markets, shops, schools, banks and administration offices were closed in the capital Conakry and other towns around the West African country, the leading shipper of the ore from which aluminium is extracted.

Operations at the country’s biggest bauxite mine at Sangaredi, north of Conakry, were halted after looting and gunfire there overnight, a Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG) official said.

“Everything is blocked … bands of looters tried to break into shops and the security forces intervened,” the CBG official said, adding that operations at Kamsar export port had also been suspended as a security measure after incidents there too.

At least 17 people were killed in two days of rioting over the weekend in Conakry and other towns, where youths took to the streets to protest against Conte’s appointment on Friday of a close ally, Eugene Camara, as the country’s prime minister.

Heavily armed soldiers and police in the dusty, dilapidated seaside capital guarded banks, petrol stations and strategic points, such as the November 8 highway bridge that leads into the administrative centre from outlying neighbourhoods.

Few pedestrians were on the streets and police were searching cars at roadblocks.

Unions say Camara is merely a political puppet of Conte.

They say his nomination violates an agreement by the president two weeks ago to name an independent, consensus premier that ended an earlier 18-day strike last month in which dozens of people were killed in widespread rioting. Strike leaders say Conte, a reclusive, chain-smoking diabetic in his 70s, is no longer fit to rule the former French colony after 23 years in power.

Source: www.alertnet.org