- Summary
- Recommendations
- To the New Government of Guinea and President
- To Address Accountability for Past Abuses and Create a Culture of Respect for Human Rights
- To Strengthen the Judiciary
- To Address Indiscipline and Impunity within the Security Forces
- To Address Endemic Corruption
- To the International Contact Group on Guinea
- To Guinean Civil Society and Human Rights Groups
- To the European Union, the United States, France, China, International Financial Institutions and Other International Partners
- To the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
- To the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
- Methodology
- I. Background: Decades of Impunity from Independence to the Fourth Republic
- First Republic: Ahmed Sékou Touré's Reign of Terror
- Second and Third Republics under Lansana Conté: Entrenching Impunity and Making the Criminal State
- Fourth Republic: The "Dadis Show"
- II. Accountability for Past Abuses
- Justice for the Victims of the 2009 Stadium Massacre, Sexual Violence and Other Crimes
- Weaknesses within the Judiciary
- Security of Judicial Personnel and Witnesses
- The Need for Legal Reforms
- Lack of Law Criminalizing Crimes against Humanity or Torture
- Independent National Commission of Inquiry into the 2007 Violence
- III. Truth-Telling Mechanism
- IV. Strengthening the Guinean Judiciary
- Insufficient Budget for the Judiciary
- Inadequate Funds for Operations, Staffing and Infrastructure
- Inadequate Remuneration of Judges
- Lack of Funds for Defense
- Independence of the Judiciary
- Insufficient Numbers of Lawyers
- Need for Revision of Laws and Training
- Detention-Related Abuses
- Extended Pre-trial Detention
- Inadequate Prison Conditions
- V. Independent National Human Rights Institution
- VI. The Security Sector: Vector of Instability or Guarantor of Security?
- Rapid Growth of the Army
- Inadequate Political Will to Ensure Discipline and Accountability for Abuses
- Police
- Need for Security Sector Reform
- VII. Impunity for Economic Crimes
- The National Assembly (L'Assemblée Nationale)
- Acknowledgments.
The 2010 elections, during which the Guinean people elected their president in an atmosphere largely free of intimidation, fear, or manipulation, were widely viewed as having the potential to end over 50 years of authoritarianism, human rights abuse, and corruption. Guinea's new president, Alpha Condé, inherited a country with profound human rights and governance problems including a culture of impunity, weak rule of law, endemic corruption, and crushing poverty. Since independence from France in 1958, successive Guinean presidents relied on ruling party militias and security forces to intimidate and violently repress opposition voices. Thousands of Guineans who dared to oppose the government have been tortured, starved, or beaten to death by state security forces, or were executed in police custody and military barracks. Guinea's judiciary, which could have mitigated some of the excesses, has been neglected, severely under-resourced, or manipulated, allowing a dangerous culture of impunity to take hold. As perpetrators of all classes of state-sponsored abuses and human rights crimes have rarely been investigated, victims have been left with scant hope for legal redress for even the most serious of crimes. In this report, Human Rights Watch identifies the key rule of law challenges faced by the new administration, explores some of the factors which have contributed to them, and makes recommendations on how to end this history of abuse and impunity and ensure Guinea's successful transformation from an abusive state into one that guarantees the rights of its people. The report calls on the new administration to adequately support and reform the judiciary; ensure those responsible for state-sponsored massacres in 2007 and 2009 are brought to justice; establish a truth-telling mechanism to explore the dynamics that gave rise to and sustained successive repressive regimes; rein in, professionalize, and reform the security sector; and ensure Guinea's population can benefit from the country's abundant natural resources by establishing an independent anti-corruption commission.
