According to a UN investigation, at least 157 people were murdered and 109 women were raped during the 2009 stadium massacre.
The West African nation of Guinea will finally bring to justice the suspected perpetrators of a massacre in 2009 that killed at least 157 people and raped more than 100 women, the justice minister has announced.
Attorney General Charles Alphonse Wright said on Friday he hopes the trial – which is due to begin on the day of the 13th anniversary of the September 28 massacre – will “take up our history, our past, that we will all come out of this with a new vision.” process emerge from our guinea”.
More than a dozen suspects, including the country’s former military coup leader Moussa Dadis Camara, have been charged with crimes related to the horrors of the 2009 attack when security forces opened fire on people protesting at a stadium in the capital, Conakry.
Camara fled into exile in Burkina Faso after surviving an assassination attempt a few months after the stadium massacre.
Last year, Camara returned to Conakry from Burkina and told his supporters he had faith in the country’s courts.
Camara said he was ready to face justice but has since returned to Burkina.
“Apparent lack of will”
For years, the Guinean government had tried to prevent Camara’s return, fearing he would fuel political instability.
However, another coup last year brought into power a military government more accommodating of Camara’s return.
Human rights groups have long complained that there is “an apparent lack of will to complete preparations for the process.”
According to a United Nations International Commission of Inquiry, at least 157 people were murdered and 109 women were raped during the stadium massacre. The victims’ testimonies were staggering, with the UN inquiry concluding that the massacre was a “premeditated act” by the military government.
Camara’s military government blamed “uncontrolled” elements of the army for the rapes and killings.
But Camara’s top aides were at the stadium and did nothing to stop the atrocities, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
Human Rights Watch said its investigation showed that Camara’s red-hatted presidential guard surrounded the stadium where opposition supporters had gathered and blocked the exits.
Troops marched in and immediately opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles as panicked protesters tried to flee. Many were crushed to death while others were gunned down trying to scale the stadium’s walls.
Dozens of women were arrested from the stadium and later from clinics where they were seeking medical treatment for injuries sustained at the massacre site. The kidnapped women were taken in military vehicles to villas, where they were raped by uniformed men for several days, Human Rights Watch said.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) sent a delegation to Guinea in early September to assess the preparations for the trial.
The African Francophone Coalition for the International Criminal Court, a civil society network, said time is ticking.
“Since the investigation before the Guinean courts began in February 2010, many victims have died, some are ill and are living in the most precarious conditions,” the network said in a statement on Thursday.
“To this sad fact we must add the situation of women cast out by their husbands and of those infected with HIV after being victims of rape, without forgetting the orphans who lost their education and have now grown up.”
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