Guinea opposition march dispersed

CONAKRY (AP) ― Opposition supporters attempting to join a march were violently dispersed, and at least four people were killed when paramilitary police seized control of traffic circles and lobbed tear gas at people walking toward the meeting point, an official said.

Opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo, who lost last year’s election to President Alpha Conde, told the Associated Press by telephone Tuesday that one of the four dead bodies was dumped in front of the headquarters of his party, the Union of the Democratic Forces of Guinea. Three others were at the local morgue, he said.

Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana addressed the nation Tuesday evening on state television and said 23 police officers were hospitalized with injuries after being hit by rocks thrown by protesters.

They were marching to express mounting unease over upcoming parliamentary elections which Diallo and others say are being rigged. He said just two people had died, but reporters who were present when he visited the local morgue said the premier arrived after one of the three bodies stored there already had been picked up by relatives.

“We deplore these acts, which do nothing to advance our democracy and we regret that blood of another Guinean has once more been spilled,” Fofana said.

The opposition had expected to rally supporters from the majority-Peul areas lining the Route du Prince, a major artery that runs across the neighborhoods of Bambeto, Matato, Enco-5 and Cosa ― all of which voted in large numbers for Diallo. On Monday, the government announced that the march was authorized to go ahead, a rare gesture in this nation that knew only strongman rule up until last November’s election.

That vote was considered the first democratic transfer of power in Guinea’s history, but the poll was marred by days of clashes pitting Diallo’s Peul supporters with the mostly-Malinke security force backing the successful candidate, Conde, who is himself a Malinke.