lithics in guinee

guinee is a french spoken country, in westafrica,a former colony. Last week a huge bloodbath happened there, and it was politically coloured. at first camara, the self appointed president answered questions to 157 dead, but his security forces now tell 50, with the UN mentioning 150, and the general newssources saying 157.

so there is the first problem.. who to believe. mh, for now i go for 157, as that figure has went around a long time without much dispute, but i am all but sure.

the UN is not famously impartial, altho sometimes it tries, and camara and his movement, the army, and perhaps a lot of the people were not exactly the west, france's and europe's ideal choice, after the parting of the last 28 years standing dictator.

i think the west wanted to keep things as they were in guinnee, a dictator, poverty and the usual easy acces to resources, or perhaps even because of the semi-consensus on drugs. anyhow like often in similar cases, (on two sides of teh spectrum, madagascar and honduras) we see a greatfear of foreign elite's that such revolutionairy change of status quo once legitimised might affect themselves.

the result is many a dictator or their sun is held at the helm of many an innocent nation. leading to theatrally predictable poverty and repression and the slower emancipation of many and most.

such was the situation in guinnee. corruption and a small clique enriching itself through the leftovers of the capitalist table and the fee's. corruption widespread,
and as allways when corruption is widespread, repression and a violent police and armed force.

such was the situation in guinnee. albeit that the former dictator apparently had better intentions then it worked out to be at least sometimes. but in reality it was a mess. poverty, lack of elementary neccesity's and infrastructure, and a slow development, healthservice and education. although.. perhaps in education the old regime failed not in every aspect, guineans appear eager to discuss and participate.. but..

after this short history recent history section on with camara.

i think camara compares to o'neil in usia. not the most common of names, but quite so. so there are a lot of camara's around there, in burkina faso, in sierra leone, and in guinnee. His initial commitee counted a few camara's.

yet perhaps that must be forgiven, it appears that the soldiers went for him to "make the change" with finally the dictator dead. so i assume he was in dire need of trustee's and that, wich will turn up in another part of my story here, is of some importance.

i watched a few (they are suspectably incomplete) of the weekly television shows of camara on youtube. That was interesting, he is not easy to follow, and in my mind sometimes outrageous, although i understand he feels a need to stress a strong sentiment of patriotic enterprise, in the attempt to revamp guinnee.

but is it, like he says, and sincerely thinks: 'his guinnee', does he see a guinnee that the rest of them wants? people are not satisfied, and maybe.. it saddens him.
you may ccall it anger him, but he is really appearing to try to motivate the people,
and he is in all his absolute unsuitability for that role, a surprising feature as a television entertainer.

my experience tells me that such naivety is a proof of good (still possibly goofed , but that is not the point) intent.

before i try to relate his message or better put his plans, his nightmare's and visions for you ,

the un was secretly planning a peace mission outside any publicity and he spoke predictably tough,

i must warn you, i am not a proponent of military rule and camara is the better example of why that is so,i am quite sure myself he is playing the wrong card, trying to usurp the power and a throne.

yet i suspect his direct political opponents affiliations.
i even suspect such as foreign sponsored activity's (perhaps also 'well intended')
might play a part, the pressure at first has been obvious and at the moment it is outlandish..(that's why the actual deathtoll makes some difference)

the eu/international patron states have done the following:
they request not only the elections be held at the greatest speed,
(in what definetly must feel as a very unaccomplished situation),
they request none of the ruling commitee participate in the elections,
thus actually forcing camara to participate,
but more importantly: guaranteeing a return to the old practices of corruption and exploitation and a reality of lack of progress.

that.. is not fair, not just and also probably not negotiable.
if the eu does not want any of the commitee to be electible.. apparently they stand a fair chance.. or, the eu knows thatteh one in power will allways cheat elections,
also very probable.

anyhow i advise international channels to keep that in mind if they are sincere in wanting to limit victims, violence and misery in guinnee.

rests me one point, camaras psychology, an interesting one.
after saying i think camara should not grab the power himself, should find other ways to represent the progress he stands for nationally and in a political way, obviously i owe him and you an explanation.

btw what went wrong in guinnee so far is shortly put: you cannot organise any nation in a military way, certainly not when uniforms actually represented the rotten part of your society, institutionally or morally. even if the changes you make are patient, carefull and integer people will misunderstand the military and police context and more importantly neither of the two uniformed groups is ready to perform on such level, in such manner that the people will be able to emotionally associate with that cause. (wich is actually one very heartfelt and militairy wampum but requires a very lancune strategy to have civilians freely, voluntarily and progressively succesfully participate.(1))

okay the juicy part, his character.

this is a dangerous man. he has fought a war for the un. he would probably be dead if he wasn't an officer, and it's like he went through bloody hell. he lives because of his comrades, and i think many of them owed some of their lives to him in return.
he is obviously content (and more subconsciously abhorred by what he witnessed) with the role he played as a soldier. in the army are his friends and in the army he found the determination and sacrifice that inspires him to think his people could use some of that to build up their nation.

he is a dedicated patriot, for reasons i don't completely understand, but one of them is he wants his people to engage and he thinks he has to make those patriotic appeals to 'get them in the mood' . the mood he knows, the mood that worked, the mood that worked for him after years of militairy discipline.
to really know we would need to compare his pre-coup attachment to patriotism outside the army formulas. He may well have understood so much from university as well.

so i take it his patriotism is really born from seeing the people of guinnee suffer.

he is easily agitated, although, not insanely easy, he maintains some control, he is a drill sergeant, when he is angry he is like drill sergeant, spitting patriotic and selfcentered text, apparently trying to convince his public of his quality's, it is quite unseemingly.

yet.. he is naive, he likes to make crazy moves,(for example i see quite some reason in him quareling ungraciously with the german ambassador) he appears actually forgivefull, so what goes wrong?

in one word "front neuroses", or maybe mostly the stress, but he is acting with a personality that encorporates his (ptss) emotions in his energy. he may not know that his military drive, anticipation and experiences shape him so sharply.

I think he doesn't realise that his instrument, the army and suborderly police is unsuit, that they are to destructive a tool to treat his traumatised populace to.

he is not very willing to fire his heroes, the ones he can trust, and they are not unaccustomed to brutal violence. since despite violence and sexual assault he wants to keep them he should put them in other functions and in other places but probably he is (quite also out of despair) in for it 'for the money(2)' now.
so that means he may stick to any ally he can get and burn the bridges with his people while confusing responsability with power.

yet.. with secret un mission going, eu pressure and unreasonable quite even incomprehensable demand. like that no part of the let's call it "reorganising commitee's" could take part in elections and forward their and his course and cause,
let's remain him some benefit of the doubt.

what if none in the world notice when he does that great step first. That he really sidestepped power and the options to dictate or instrument a nation, at some point in the future researchers would still notice. against that ofcourse it is because a word is a word, or the man is not a man, his ideal of a constructive engaged and social advance deserves the kind of support that should at least warrant his group an option of representation. at that point i would dare to ask not for a majority, because obviously the camara politics is in need of development, refinement and facilitation.

it is important that the people of guinnee realise that a health investment of say 6.000.000.000 euro in the health sector of an european nation would surprise noone to a great extend. that the kind of money guinnee neeeds and most probably deserves is ordres bigger then anything that ever seeped through to them.


good luck.

here's a link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yreUZP7BKQk




(1)

musharraf had a better starting situation in the sense that the pakistani's as a whole had by several of their rulers and indeed even the english been more prepared for a 'civilised' state. although the pakistani reality was harsh, the army didn't cary a notion of barbarism or combatism. musharraf had an easier time using the army as a civil instrument because untill that point (afghanistan changed it ofcourse) the militairy was not involved in anything but a supra regional attempt on india that long since had been abandoned and that had such absurd scales and proportions as to remind to napoleontic era battle etc. so the army was very organised in a sense, but directed or trained for a struggle against a heaviky armed force in another great nation. that is a situation completely different from west africa's were most struggle's have been thought internally and much more recently, many more irregular incidents, iwth militia and other poorly armed or militarised factions participating and getting the people on their guards.

(2) political economical power, so influence, nepotism and money, he also appearsto have 'the taste of power'. it looks horrible on him.i am not sure if the money part is not pragmatically at least i assume he tells himself it is.