Tierno Monénembo – Mélenchon, this friend of Guineans

The controversy of 3^e mandate and the violent repression which followed aroused in Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the French political party “La France insoumise”, a reaction where the impulse of the heart disputes it with the power of arguments. So that if this admirable gentleman who carries aloud the beautiful motto of his country – unfortunately so often misguided today! – could stand as a candidate, he would be elected President of the Republic of Guinea in the first round.

Where Mélenchon shows his empathy the others multiply contradictory acts

Rather accustomed to general indifference to the extreme ferocity of their leaders, Camara Laye’s compatriots have never received such comforting words. For the famous member of the Bouches-du-Rhône, Guinea is in popular turmoil. She joined “the list of countries in the world where the people are in a citizen revolution”. After having castigated the stubbornness with which Alpha Condé falsified the Constitution to afford a 3^e mandate, he expresses his admiration for these courageous people who are opposed to “having their sovereignty withdrawn”. He adjures the diplomacy of his country “not to act in the direction of maintaining this illegitimate regime”. He explains his apprehension by the fact that Emmanuel Macron had sent one of his ministers to the investiture of the “new” Guinean president while “there was nobody to that of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré in Burkina Faso yet democratically elected at the head of his country …

Macron condemned the violence of Alpha Condé lip service. But at the same time, he sent him a letter of congratulations … Alpha Condé has been shooting his people in revolution since October 2019 (Let us have a moving thought for the teenagers who fell under the bullets), this does not prevent Macron and the International Community to look away. To believe that Guinea is only interested when it comes to looting its mines.

Since then, a few beautiful souls (French or more broadly European elected representatives, human rights organizations, etc.) have come to add their voice to this courageous stand. The fact remains that the loneliness of the people of Guinea is nothing imaginary, nothing phantasmal.

Guinea, a solitude born on September 28, 1958

By voting “No” alone on September 28, 1958, Guineans could not have guessed that they had just pressed the wrong button, that of the grin and abandonment. Few sympathized with their fate when their early hero, Ahmed Sékou Touré, transformed into a tyrant. The African intelligentsia was particularly disappointing: there were flowerbeds for what was called “The Great Syli” and not a word for writer Camara Laye, politician Diallo Telli and many other sons. of Guinea as Koumandian Keita, left to their sad fate by exiles in neighboring countries or prisoners under the guise of the disastrous Boiro camp.

While it is true that Koumandian Keïta was the first political prisoner adopted by Amnesty International in 1964, it should be recalled here that it was not until five former American ambassadors accredited to Guinea went themselves to testify before the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations so that the question of Human Rights in Guinea finally arises. In France, the PS section of Pau had to denounce the atrocities committed at Camp Boiro for bad conscience to win over the Socialists and for François Mitterrand to finally move away from his formidable friend in Conakry.

In the capital of Guinea, we only talk about you, Mr. Mélenchon. In the newsrooms as in the lecture halls of universities and even in the maquis. Thank you ! It’s good, it’s beautiful, it’s soothing to feel that you are not abandoned, alone in the world.