Greetings, all,  seems like the anti-aircraft guns are some kind of
odd/weird "security blanket".  Feel threatened?  Want to feel like you
got power?  Pull out the anti-aircraft guns, even if you don't use
them.
Ginny



On 11/5/09, Haruna Darbo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> 'Big guns' herald Guinea's crisis
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> Capt Moussa Dadis Camara seized power in December 2008
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> Tens of thousands of workers in the West African state of Guinea are on
> strike, protesting after government soldiers opened fire on pro-democracy
> demonstrators at a football stadium in the capital, Conakry, last month.
> Mark Doyle reports on how events are playing out on the capital's streets.
> I do not know what it is about anti-aircraft guns that African soldiers like
> so much. Wars in these parts rarely involve shooting down planes.
> But when a crisis strikes, the anti-aircraft guns always start appearing.
> Maybe it is because they are big guns. Or maybe it is because the merchants
> of death, the arms dealers, have a surplus of the things these days. Maybe
> they are cheap.
> Anyway, I was driving past the home of Guinea's defence minister when I saw
> at least three of these giant machine guns mounted on the back of parked
> pick-up trucks. There were hundreds of soldiers milling around the gates of
> his house.
> The minister's residence is large, but the road it is on is very narrow and
> full of potholes.
> Faded promises
> Traffic in the Guinean capital, Conakry, is always chaotic and heavy. So
> what we had here was a sort of militarised traffic jam.
> We edged slowly past the anti-aircraft guns and nudged our way through the
> soldiers. I did not need to encourage my driver to be careful. As a local
> man, he knew the drill.
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> The defence minister is the number two or three in Guinea's latest military
> junta. No-one quite knows the hierarchy any more.
> The minister is an army general, but the junta is led by a man with a far
> more junior rank, an army captain called Dadis Camara.
> Dadis, as he is known locally, was popular when he first came to power.
> He promised a "new broom" purge against corruption and he promised free and
> fair elections in which he, as a military man, would not stand.
> But none of those things look likely now. He has reneged on his promises.
> Massacre claims
> Broken promises are not new in these parts. But worse, much worse, was to
> come.
> On 28 September 2009, a crowd of pro-democracy activists converged on the
> national football stadium. They called on Dadis, the junta leader, to stand
> down.
> Then soldiers loyal to the president surrounded the stadium, walked on to
> the football pitch and the athletics track around it, and proceeded to
> massacre at least 57, and perhaps as many as 160 or more, unarmed people.
> Everyone, apart from the government, agrees that this is what happened.
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>  It was a straightforward, blatant massacre. No doubt about it. The soldiers
> shot to kill.
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> The pro-democracy opposition people agrees this is what happened, of course.
> But so do Western and African diplomats, the United Nations, every man and
> woman on the street I have spoken to, and international human rights
> investigators.
> It was a straightforward, blatant massacre. No doubt about it. The soldiers
> shot to kill. They raped women systematically. They used knives and planks
> of wood with rusty nails to finish people off when they ran out of bullets.
> So now the world has imposed punitive sanctions to punish the killers. There
> are arms embargoes imposed by African countries and the European Union. But
> the regime will not care much about those measures.
> The merchants of death will get round arms sanctions. They always do.
> Rambo ride
> But there are also travel bans on individuals in the regime. And the junta
> will hate that, as there will be no more business deals in Paris, London or
> New York.
> Almost as soon as the travel bans were announced, more anti-aircraft guns,
> or "AAs" as they are called here, came out.
> A man who is supposedly in charge of presidential security, a man who looks
> and dresses like an African Rambo, was seen by a friend of mine driving
> through town in a convoy of seven Toyota Hilux trucks, with three of the big
> guns lashed on board.
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> Soldiers allegedly raped women during the stadium raid
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> Then our old friend the defence minister was seen by another contact of
> mine.
> He left his big house and took to the road, driving through this city of
> some two million terrified civilians, with no less than 26 battle wagons
> with, you have guessed it, at least four AAs strapped on the back.
> These armed men do not trust each other, that much is obvious. I wonder if
> they trust Dadis, the president, and I shudder to think how many
> anti-aircraft guns he has at his disposal.
> The international sanctions have ramped up the pressure. If the United
> Nations does as it has promised to do, it will investigate, then prosecute,
> the football stadium killers.
> That is all well and good, of course, if it happens. But right now it does
> not help the innocent people of Guinea.
> The very idea that an independent body is shining a torch-light into this
> place has terrified members of the junta. Who will be sacrificed to the
> international courts? Who will survive?
> The soldiers do not know. So it is time for them to bring out the
> anti-aircraft guns.
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