After the death of its President, Lansana Conté, in December 2008, Guinea experienced a coup d’état led by Moussa Dadis Camara, head of the Guinean junta. After taking power, Camara promised to refrain from running for office during the transitory period expected to end in January of 2010. In September 2009, however, Dadis Camara announced he would be candidate for the presidential elections.

On 28 September 2009-Independence Day-activists from the Guinean opposition reacted to this announcement by organizing a demonstration in a stadium of Conakry, the Guinean capital city. The demonstration was soon quelled by soldiers who allegedly shot at the crowd. According to Thierno Maadjou Sow, President of the Guinean Organization for Human Rights (OGDH), the military repression resulted in the “deaths of some157 people and left 1,253 wounded” while many women were raped.

The international community widely condemned Dadis Camara’s military junta for the alleged crimes. The Guinean Head of State dismissed allegations by saying Camara did not control the army.

On 14 October 2009, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said the situation in Guinea, including the repression of the demonstration of 28 September 2009, was under preliminary examination.

According to Fatou Bensouda, Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC, the Office of the Prosecutor has at its disposal elements indicating that rapes were committed: Women were abused or otherwise brutalized in Conakry’s stadium, apparently by men in uniform who used their arms, Bensouda said.
Aymeric Rogier, investigator at the ICC recalls that at this stage the examination of the situation in Guinea has not yet reached the investigation phase: “We are only in the midst of the preliminary phase, the one during which we gather, evaluate, and analyze pieces of information, especially to determine whether the abuses that were committed can fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC,” he explained.

Guinea is not the only situation to be under preliminary examination by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). Apart from the four situations under investigations by the ICC, the OTP is allegedly analyzing information about at least nine situations on four continents.

We all wait to see if the ICC will really try to prosecute the highest leaders of the alleged crimes and whether Guinea will be willing and able to prosecute the alleged perpetrators at the national level. According to the African Encounter for the Defense of Human Rights (RADDHO), an NGO member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), “In the face of the failure of the judicial system”, the ICC would be “the only jurisdiction to have the capacity to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity that were consistently committed in Guinea.” In any case, it is crucial that those responsible be tried - whether before the ICC or not.

Adélaïde Blot is a fourth year student of translation at the ISIT (Institute of Intercultural Management and Communication) in Paris.

Translation from French is informal and provided by CICC secretariat.