Guinea Killings were 'Organized Operation' Says HRW

Jarrod Rudd
October 30, 2009

A deadly shoot-out last month in Guinea is causing a huge stir because it is being described as an organized operation that was planned in advance by the country’s leadership. A ten day research mission interviewing victims and witnesses of last month’s military crackdown was just completed by a human rights watch group. Corinne Dufka is from the human rights advocacy group and she described the incident in which security forces opened fire at a stadium in Conakry, killing unarmed anti-government protesters. They walked straight into the stadium in which tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered there in quite a joyous atmosphere and directly opened fire on them, then after surrounding the stadium, blocked the entrances to make escape by the panicked individuals extremely difficult. More than 150 people were killed in the incident but the Guinea government put the death toll at 57, and said most of the deaths were a result of crushing by the crowd and stray bullets.

This is just absolutely crazy to me. Why would a government purposely open fire on its own citizens if they were in a stadium having a peaceful protest not really disturbing anyone? The structure of this government really needs to be examined because obviously somebody does not know how to do their jobs. I’m grateful that I live in the U.S. where that hasn’t happened yet but I really wouldn’t put it past anyone to do it. One official in the government can decide that’s what they want to do and if they have the money to do it, it will get done. This situation needs to be resolved and the truth needs to come out about what really happened.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-28-voa36.cfm