The Socialist International expresses its strongest condemnation of the killings perpetrated by the Guinean army in dispersing the peaceful gathering organised by forces of the opposition on 28 September in the Stadium of Conakry, capital of Guinea. The massacre left more than 150 dead and over a thousand injured.

The initiative of the political opposition, from all tendencies and civil society, had as its objective to protest against the intention of Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to stand in the forthcoming presidential elections scheduled for 21 January 2010.

In effect, as head of the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), a military junta which seized power by coup d’état on 23 December 2008, Captain Camara has been engaged in organising a transition towards restoring civilian rule within a year through presidential elections in which he had affirmed he would not be a candidate.

During the past nine months, his unbridled, populist and arbitrary rule has worried the political parties and organisations of civil society, whose relations with the military junta have continued to deteriorate. Once again, constitutional order in Guinea was violated in December 2008, and it is with a bath of blood that this militarist adventure with popular undertones is being pursued.

For the Socialist International, no effort must be spared to restore constitutional rule which should have happened following the death of President Conté in December 2008. The SI welcomes the unanimous repudiation expressed in Africa and the rest of the world, and reaffirms its full solidarity with the democratic forces in Guinea, particularly the Guinean Peoples Assembly (RPG) of Alpha Condé, a member party of the Socialist International.