Ethnic-Political Violence in Guinea

According to France 24, ethnic-political clashes in Guinea this week have claimed the lives of at least 54 and wounded over 130. The news report stated that the violence began shortly after rival political parties in Guinea agreed to hold legislative elections on September 24 after several months of street protest and deadlock, and specifically, when a petrol guard from the Guerze tribe in the town of Koule beat an ethnic Konianke youth to death on an accusation of theft.

Fighting then spread all the way to N’Zerekore, just southeast of the capital, and witnesses said that the ethnic tribes had been combatting each other with “machetes, axes, sticks, stones, and firearms, setting fire to houses and cars”.

  A doctor speaking on a condition of anonymity from N’Zerekore, the state’s 2^nd largest city, reported on Wednesday that several bodies had still not been identified at the mortuary because the methods of murder were so grotesque. The Guerze chief was wounded and the army was unable to quell the violence despite imposing a curfew.

  Eventually the bloodshed caused most to retreat to their homes, though one witness says people are beginning to venture outside again and it remains to be seen if the violence will continue. As explained in the report, the September legislative elections are intended to be the final step toward return of the state to civilian rule after the 2008 coup. 

As France 24 explained, "President Alpha Condé came to power in the 2010 presidential election but his rivals accuse him of attempted vote-rigging". Condé is supported by Guinea’s second-largest ethnic group, the Malinke, "while the opposition is backed by the Peul, who account for around 40% of the population".

This continuing and intensified level of political instability in the nation stands to threaten peace during September's elections now less than two months away, and has also frozen some investments by international mining firms. As an Al Jazeera report on the clashes explained, the Guerze are most Christian or animist, and the Konianke – identified as newcomers – are Muslims, and violence between the two ethnic tribes has been regularly breaking out over religious and other qualms. It remains to be seen whether or not the legislative elections in less than two months will be marred irreparably by these tensions.