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GUINEA-OPPOSITION-STRIKE-EDUCATION
Strike grips Guinea’s capital with deadlock over teaching
CONAKRY, Oct 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A “dead city” strike call by the
opposition in Guinea largely emptied the streets of the capital Conakry on
Monday, with no solution in sight to a pay dispute in the education sector.
Streets were deserted in some parts of the West African city, while traffic
was jammed in other areas where all drivers were being diverted, an AFP
correspondent saw.
Troops and police were placed on alert but few were deployed on the
streets. Instead they were gathered in strength in central police stations
and gendarmerie barracks, the correspondent said. Youths burned tyres early
in the day along a main Conakry thoroughfare, Le Prince street, but rain soon
put out the fires and dampened the ardour of would-be demonstrators.
The political opposition called for the strike in protest against what it
considers a violation by the authorities of an agreement reached in August
over the appointment of local government officials elected in a hotly
disputed vote on February 4.
Rivals of President Alpha Conde have also called for a march and rally in
Conakry on Tuesday, a week after a banned demonstration during which
opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo alleged that police tried to
assassinate him.
Also last Tuesday, an 18-year-old was killed in street clashes and his
family blamed police, who denied both shooting allegations.
On Monday morning, hundreds of schoolchildren in Siguiri, a town in the
far north of the country, took to the streets to call for the return of their
teachers, who began “an unlimited strike” on October 3 to press demands for a
raise in minimum pay, according to local media.
The teachers decided to take tougher action after the government announced
that it would not pay October wages for the strikers, said Aboubabar Soumah,
general secretary of the powerful Free Union of Teachers and Researchers of
Guinea (SLECG).
“From now on, it’s not the worker who gets paid, but the work,” Conde
warned on state media.
“Teachers will stay at home until the end of the head of state’s second
mandate in 2020,” the SLECG said in response.
BSS/AFP/RY/1750 hrs