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Washington directly condemned former Guinean president Alpha Condé and announced on Friday December 9 that it would freeze his assets, as well as ban any commercial relationship with him. Though he was hailed by Americans as he became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010, he then violently cracked down on opposition before being overthrown in a coup in 2021.
With our correspondent in New York, Carrie Nooten
With these American sanctions, the pressure around Alpha Condé is tightening, a month after the junta ordered his hiring legal proceedings against him and more than 180 of his top executives or former ministers.
The US Treasury Department justifies its decision in great detail. If Washington has imposed sanctions on former Guinean president Alpha Condé, frozen his assets and banned all commercial relations with him, it is for him ” serious human rights violations ».
Destroyer of democratic ideas, the United States nonetheless appreciated the fact that he was the first president elected in Guinea… before being disillusioned by his authoritarianism. Above all, they accuse him of having created a police unit to counter his opponents, while he tried to stay in power nine years later.
In 2019, these police officers arbitrarily arrested protesters and killed more than a dozen, shortly before his overthrow in a coup.
► Also listen: can a coup be legitimate?
