2023-11-06 18:05:18
His conviction in absentia under the regime of Sékou Touré, his arrest in Piné, the former President of the Republic opened his heart to IDM and Nyala production in a portrait entitled : “Alpha Condé, power and life”.
In this portrait taken shortly before the coup d’état of September 5 and published Friday November 3, 2023, the leader of the Rainbow RPG looks back at length on his political journey.
At the beginning, he mentions his conviction in absentia following the Portuguese aggression of November 22, 1970. Which earned him exile for several years.
“One day, I was sitting in a cafe in Paris, someone called me from Abidjan to tell me that I was sentenced to death in absentia. Which meant that I might no longer return to Guinea. I don’t wish exile on anyone. Exile is very difficult to bear morally, being cut off from your family for years. It’s very difficult to be in exile. This is why I do not wish anyone to be in exile. I was struck once, I met a close friend on the Champs Elysées, I greeted him, he didn’t answer me. This means that people were afraid to meet us. If someone met us, they would say they were anti-Guinean. So, it hurts to see many of our friends running away from us so as not to be accused. People who came from Conakry avoided us,” says Alpha Condé.
His participation in the 1993 presidential election
Having become a fierce opponent from the first hours of independence, he and his relatives created the MND party in 1977 which would become, 11 years later, the RPG which would bring him to power in 2010. After the death of Sékou Touré and the capture of power by Lansana Conté who promised to organize free and transparent elections in 1993, the native of Boké decided to return to the country, following 20 years of exile, in order to participate in the presidential election. Finally, on May 17, 1991, he arrived at Conakry international airport where a hundred of his activists were waiting for him: “President Conté did not want me to return. They banned the company from landing at the airport. But my activists said that if I don’t come back, they will hide everything.”
He relates that his very first meeting at the Coléah stadium was violently repressed by the security forces. Alpha Condé says he took refuge for 45 days in the Senegalese embassy in Conakry before being exfiltrated by the then Senegalese president, Abdou Diouf.
Despite the threats weighing on him, he decided to return to Guinea in 1993 to campaign. Lansana Conté won the vote in the second round with 51% of votes once morest 20.58 for opponent Alpha Condé. 5 years later, on December 15, 1998, two days before the presidential election, Alpha Condé was arrested by the gendarmerie in a village called “Piné” located in Lola in the forest region.
Transferred to Conakry, he will be prosecuted for “endangering state security, attempting to flee the territory and recruiting 800 mercenaries from neighboring countries in order to destabilize the Conté regime”. And there too, the opponent will be referred to the Coronthie civil prison where he will be incarcerated while awaiting his trial in cell No. 6. “There is a large building where there are more than 300 detainees, they took everyone away so that I found myself alone in this large building. All the rooms have been emptied. I found myself locked in, isolated. I went on a hunger strike because I was refused everything, read the newspapers and write etc.,” recalls the former head of state.
The Condé trial opened on April 12, 2000, at the end of which he was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He and his co-defendants were released on May 18, 2001, following 27 months of detention. “I don’t blame anyone. You have to know how to forgive,” the former historical opponent resigns.
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