For Crisis In Guinea, President Conte Began Talks with Union Leaders

Conakry - Guinea's President Lansana Conte began emergency talks on Tuesday with labour leaders, a day after 30 people were killed in a crackdown on demonstrators demanding he quit power, said a union official."The main union leaders are currently meeting President Conte and the first lady, Henriette," said Ousmane Wora Diallo of the Syndicated Union of Workers of Guinea (USGT), one of the two labour confederations behind the protests.The talks came after thousands of people peacefully rallied against Conte's rule in several towns across the west African country, which has been paralysed since January 10 by a general strike called by the USGT and the other main labour confederation.Security forces in Conakry were on high alert all day to prevent protesters from volatile suburbs reaching the heart of the capital, after Monday's bloody crackdown by riot police and soldiers on protestors armed with no more than stones, which took the death toll in two weeks to 40.Authorities threw a tight security cordon around the presidential palace and a military base where the ailing Conte, who first came to power in a bloodless 1984 coup, was in residence.

Missing relatives

Presidential guard soldiers manned the key November 8 Bridge, the main access route into Conakry's city centre, where a few vehicles entering were subjected to security searches.
Rabiatou Serah Diallo, secretary-general of the National Confederation of Workers of Guinea, and her USGT counterpart, Ibrahima Fofana, went into talks with the president after the union leaders met to decide on the next step, said the USGT's Diallo.At a city hospital morgue, scores of people file past blood-soaked bodies laid out on reed mats, seeking to identify missing relatives."We heard rumours that my younger brother was in a group which was killed by soldiers yesterday in Hamdallaye," a district on the outskirts of the capital, said Mohamed Amine, 39. "The soldiers, who are our brothers, shot at unarmed youths, we really did not expect this."African Union (AU) commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare expressed particular worry at "the aggravation of the situation in recent days and condemns the repression of demonstrations that led to the deaths of several people?.Konare urged all parties to the troubles in the former French colony to hold talks and thoroughly to investigate the violence that has marked two weeks of political confrontation. For the United Nations, the secretary-general's special envoy to west Africa, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, on Tuesday left Dakar on a flight to Conakry to "assess the situation on the ground," said a UN source.

Conte too sick to rule

In the central town of Dabola and at Kundara in the northwest, residents said that thousands, most of them women demanding that Conte steps down, poured out into the streets.Punctuated by anti-Conte chants, the demonstrations continued peacefully in the towns without any police intervention.A doctor at Donka Hospital, one of the country's largest, said seven more people had died overnight from gunshot wounds received during demonstrations on Monday.
Most of the deaths were recorded in Conakry where police fought running battles with demonstrators in a mass action called by labour unions, whose leaders were arrested on Monday but set free hours later.The strike protest, backed by 14 opposition parties, began due to widespread corruption and interference in the judiciary by Conte after he freed two associates facing trial for fraud.After meeting Conte near the outset of the protest, strike leaders demanded that the 72-year-old head of state be constitutionally removed by the Supreme Court on the grounds that he is too sick to continue in office.

Conte suffers from chronic diabetes.

Conte, who is rarely seen in public and was twice admitted to hospital in Switerland last year, has so far dismissed demands made of him and called on the military to back his government.