During his speech this Tuesday on the situation prevailing since Sunday in his country, the Guinean opponent Cellou Dalein Diallo did not spare the international community. In an unvarnished style, he blasted the attitude of the international community. “when the protesters against the third mandate were shot like rabbits, we did not hear them,” he fires back.
Since the overthrow of the Alpha Conde regime in Guinea, condemnations have been pouring in from all sides. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, the current Chairman of the African Union, Felix Tshisekedi, and the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, as well as the current Chairman of ECOWAS, Nana Akufo-Addo, among others, have all condemned the coup in Guinea, demanding the release of the deposed President.
Asked to give his opinion on these various condemnations of the coup, the leader of the opposition to the regime of Alpha Conde, Cellou Dalein Diallo, did not mince his words: “I think that these are reactions for the sake of form, insofar as ECOWAS and the African Union, when the protesters against the third mandate were shot like rabbits, we did not hear them, we did not see them,” he said in a scathing response.
Cellou Dalein Diallo’s position seems all the more relevant since these condemnations by the international community contrast with the overwhelming joy of the Guinean people who, after learning the news of the fall of Alpha Condé, took to the streets en masse in several localities of the country, in scenes of jubilation.
Not so long ago, the same condemnations were noted in Mali, while the people were in jubilation, the day after the overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.
It is as if the international community’s role, particularly of African regional institutions, is to take a stand against the people, and for the leaders; their voice is barely audible when the people protest, but they suddenly become loquacious and voluble when the leaders are ejected.
