Guinea. (Areas of Conflict).

Fighting in Guinea began in September 2000, when the Rally of the Democratic Forces of Guinea (RDFG) staged fierce attacks from neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia. Representing mostly soldiers who fled the country after 1985 and the 1996 attempted coups, the RDFG is fighting to end President Lansana Conte's rule.

Mr. Conte gained power in 1984 in a successful military coup and has run Guinea as a civilian president following elections in 1993. In 1998, President Conte won a second five-year term in presidential elections marred by violence and public unrest.

Lansana Conte's ethnic minority, the Soussou, are over-represented in government and opposition figures are dealt with heavy-handedly by the justice system. At the same time as the September rebel attacks, a Guinean court sentenced Alpha Conde, the leader of the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG), to five years in prison on charges of endangering state security and recruiting foreign mercenaries. The RFDG claimed responsibility for the attacks, although the group is believed to be backed by Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front, and the Liberian government. The fighting has cost more than 1,000 lives and threatens thousands of Guinean villagers and nearly 500,000 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia who had taken refuge in Guinea.

In January 2001, BBC News reported that "The refugees cannot return home because of rebel positions behind them and they cannot yet go farther into safe areas of Guinea, because the Guinea authorities suspect large population movements might mask rebel manoeuvres. Some of the refugees trapped in the border area have not received food aid for five months and they are increasingly falling prey to armed men from all sides in the conflict."

In September 2001, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called the situation in Guinea the worst refugee crisis in the world. Meanwhile, Lansana Conte continues to tighten his grip on power. A November 2001, a referendum on a constitutional change that would allow him to stay in power indefinitely was held. The government says the change was approved by 98% of voters. Opposition parties in Guinea have reacted angrily to the results of the referendum on the presidency, saying it was a "constitutional coup d'etat" and a "masquerade."

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Websites

AllAfrica.com - http://allafrica.com/guinea/

Guinea FAQs - http://www.boubah.com/ Guineenews/GuineaFAQ.html