Conté nearly out of options

Longtime Guinean dictator Lansana Conté fired the country's top military officials this week, including his own Secretary of Defense, as a response to weeks of rioting by unpaid soldiers. The last time we checked in with Monsieur Conté, it was the general populace that was up in arms over Conté's choice of Prime Minister. During the unrest, Conté relied on the army to quell the riots and restore order. No big story there, right? Just another dictator relying on his armed forces to keep the status quo humming along. Well, Conté's been writing IOUs to his military for years, most notably promising better pay and housing after a full blown mutiny in 1996. This time, however, the soldiers do not appear to be inclined to listen to Conté's empty promises of being paid sometime down the road.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the world's dictators have been able to operate without the benefit of good relations with their own military. However, very few manage to get by with an openly antagonistic relationship. Conté, who is elderly and reportedly afflicted with a serious heart ailment, has already alienated the public, and he doesn't appear to have a real plan to placate the army. With Conté's position quickly becoming untenable, rumors that a military coup d'etat will oust him from power this summer are swirling, leading even the most jaded observers (myself included) to wonder how he's going to manage to hold on this time.

UPDATE: Professor Inertia bites my style without so much as a link to DotW. Scandalous.

Conté cracks down, hangs tough.

Any président pour la vie worth his salt knows that it's going to take more than a little civil unrest to get him to leave office.

And so it goes with Guinean dictator Lansana Conté, who has declared a state of emergency following three more days of intense rioting aimed at his ouster. In my previous entry about the unrest in Conakry, I reported that Conté appeared to be meeting some of the political demands of striking unions halfway (short, of course, of stepping down himself). Under this deal, Conté would have offloaded some of his executive powers to the prime minister, but apparently, union leaders felt the minister was too close to Conté politically, and rioting and striking resumed. Conté, clearly, has had enough.

Orders have been given to the heads of the armed forces to take all necessary measures to re-establish public order and protect the people of Guinea from a civil war.

Conté has finally responded by declaring a state of emergency, and has ordered the army to "restore order". At least 15 people have been reported killed since the declaration, as the army has tackled the rioters head on. Obviously, this includes an as yet unreported number of persons missing and arrested.

The real question is: can Conté hang on? Observers say that Conté is seriously ill, and may be dying of complications from diabetes. It also appears he may be grooming the next kleptocrat in chief to take over where he leaves off. Under Conté's mismanagement, Guinea has become one of the poorest countries on earth, with an economy ruined by inflation, primitive physical infrastructure, and rampant official corruption. Even if Conté were to die, or even more unthinkably, step down, it's hard to imagine the quality of life transforming overnight for Guinea.

... but you have to start somewhere.

Guineans fed up with dictator

The streets of Conakry roiled with rioting as Guineans took to the streets to demand the resignation of their dictator of 23 years, Lansana Conté (seen at left with pigeon).

CNN is reporting that 59 people have died as protesters clashed with the army and police, and that as many as 233 people across the country have been injured.

Prior to seizing power in a 1984 military coup d'etat, Conté was a professor of politics at the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris . Ah. The value of a classical French education. At any rate, one certainly gets the sense that Lansana Conté is in no mood to budge, and that after a proper thrashing, the people of Guinea will return to the unhappy conclusion that their demands for political reform will be ignored, and that they will be stuck with Conté until he finally dies in office, or is overthrown in another military coup. I've been known to be wrong, but West African dictators are certainly among the world's most entrenched.

UPDATE: Conté announced that he will go halfway to meet the rioters political demands, but he won't be stepping down until God removes him.