Guinea strike hits bauxite mine, union chiefs held
Source: Reuters
By Saliou Samb CONAKRY, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Police in Guinea arrested union leaders and broke up a protest march in the capital on Wednesday as a week-long general strike aimed at ousting President Lansana Conte disrupted the country's strategic bauxite production. For the third day running, there were clashes in Conakry as riot police fired tear gas and warning shots to block a march in the city centre by strike supporters, witnesses said. Some strike leaders were arrested and at least one was injured. Unions launched the indefinite general strike last week in the West African country, saying its president, a reclusive diabetic in his 70s, is unfit to rule. They want him to step aside in favour of a consensus unity government. Escalating the labour action, workers at Guinea's CBG national bauxite company on Wednesday downed tools at the country's main bauxite mine at Sangaredi, north of Conakry. "The union leaders held a meeting with everybody ... and told them to stop ... the production line has been halted," a senior official at the Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG), who asked not to be named, told Reuters. Bauxite and alumina exports are the mainstay of the Guinean economy and the country is the world's biggest shipper of the ore from which aluminium is extracted. But despite this mineral wealth, most of the nearly 10 million population are poor. CBG is operated by Alcoa World Alumina <AA.N> through its Halco venture with Canada's Alcan <AL.TO> and privately owned Dadco. Halco owns 51 percent of CBG and Guinea's government holds the remaining stake. Strike leaders say Conte, who has governed Guinea since seizing power in a 1984 coup, has turned erratic and capricious in his rule. They cite repeated scares over his health, a spate of confused cabinet reshuffles and his recent personal intervention to free from jail two ex-allies accused of graft. MARCH BROKEN UP Late on Tuesday, Conte offered some concessions to the strikers, saying he was ready to slash fuel prices, halt food exports, improve teachers' pay and tackle police corruption. But strike leaders dismissed this and ordered protest marches in defiance of an official ban on public demonstrations. Witnesses said protesters scattered in central Conakry as police broke up the union march. "We'd reached the Niger market. They (the police) started firing tear gas grenades. The crowd broke up and some (union) leaders were arrested," union negotiator Ousmane Souare told Reuters by mobile phone. He said he was among those detained. Souare said another union leader, Rabiatu Sira Diallo, secretary general of the National Workers' Confederation of Guinea (CNTG), the biggest union, was hurt in the clash and was being treated in hospital. As the strike turned violent this week, stone-throwing youths have battled police in the streets of Conakry as shops, banks, offices, markets and schools remained closed. Although Conte's aides have played down his frequent trips to a Swiss clinic for medical checks, analysts say his sudden disappearance could create a dangerous power vacuum. The general strike was the third of its kind in a year. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said at least 13 people were killed in June when police opened fire on unarmed protestors during a strike, as well as beating and raping others.
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