Guinea’s military leaders say they will not let deposed ex-President Alpha Conde seek exile, after the West African regional bloc (ECOWAS) attempted to mount pressure to secure his release following a coup earlier this month.
The press statement, broadcasted late on Friday, came after the ECOWAS meeting with Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, the coup leader and head of a Special Forces unit in the military, in Conakry.
“We will not yield to any pressure,” military leaders said following the conclusion of the talks “Conde is and will remain in Guinea.”
The chairman of ECOWAS, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, and the president of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, met Doumbouya and visited the Guinean ex-president Conde, who has been detained since being toppled on September 5 after more than two decades in power.
Akufo-Addo said the delegation had “a very frank, fraternal discussion” with Doumbouya and his associates, adding that “ECOWAS and Guinea are going to do well together.”
ECOWAS has called for Conde’s immediate release and for a swift transition of power, with elections held within six months.
The bloc agreed on targeted sanctions, on Thursday, after Guinea’s military leaders failed to meet its demands.
The adopted sanctions include the freezing of the financial assets and the imposition of travel bans on Guinea’s military leaders and their relatives.
Soldiers behind the coup say they are holding consultations with various public figures, groups and business leaders in the country to map a framework for the transition.
The military argues that overthrowing Conde “was acting in the best interests of the nation of more than 12.7 million people”, as not enough economic progress has been made since independence from France in 1958, according to Doumbouya’s statement in the state Television after the coup.
Guinea is no stranger to coups. Before Condé, a former opposition activist himself, became the country’s first democratically elected leader in 2010, there were two military takeovers, in 1984 and 2008.
Conde won a third presidential term in a violently disputed election last October, after pushing through a new constitution in March 2020 which allowed him to sidestep the country’s two-term limit.
The tense political atmosphere provoked mass protests after the election. Dozens of people died while hundreds were arrested in clashes between supporters of the government and those of the opposition.
Guinea is the third West African country to experience a violent transfer of power in the past five months.
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