Guinea-- And What The Coup There Can Tell Us About Our Own Government

Moussa Dadis Camara, Guinea's new president

I doubt anyone serious has contemplated the possibility of a military coup in the United States since the dark mutterings of alcoholic rogue politician Richard Nixon hinted at a potential constitutional crisis. Last week, though, while I was in Mali and as Bush and the right-wing coterie around him were preparing to give up their hold on political power, the country next door, Guinea, had a military coup d'etat. The constitution was abolished and a junta of young military officers took over the government.

I suspect most Americans didn't hear much about it. For one thing, American mass media doesn't follow international affairs unless it directly involves the U.S. (and Israel) and almost never mentions any non-genocidal news from Africa. For another, Guinea has no oil.

Still, Condoleeza Rice squawked loudest and longest about how horrible the coup was and how destructive it was to constitutional order. The E.U., UN and some African states were on the same page. One would hardly guess that the people of Guinea weren't. In fact, there seems to be universal support for the coup in Guinea, where the rotting, decaying corpse of an old regime was despised for its tyranny and unimaginable corruption. Keep in mind that Transparency International found Guinea to be the most corrupt country in Africa-- and believe me, that is saying a lot-- and the second most corrupt country on earth, Haiti being top dog. People were relieved when junior Army officers, led by Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, overthrew the hated government when long ailing dictator, Lansana Conté died at age 74 three days before Christmas, 24 years after Conté led a similar coup and took over.

The public is ecstatic, sensing that Camara and his colleagues are patriots dedicated to serving the public interest, rather than their own. Conté's corrupt family, which has stashed away many millions of dollars in Swiss banks, immediately fled the country, a relief to most Guineans, although many would like to see Conté's son stand trial for turning the country into a narcotics transit spot for Colombian gangsters. Just days after taking office the coup leaders declared that there would be zero tolerance for corruption, especially the kind that has drained Guinea's mineral wealth away for a few families and foreign-owned companies.

The coup was bloodless, genteel and polite and there is virtually no opposition to Camara's declaration of a two year interim government while he tries to root out the corruption that has rotted civil society and hamstrung economic development. He's already named an untainted civilian prime minister to help Guinea prepare for a real post-Conté democracy. Except for opposition from conservative foreign governments, the natural resources extraction industries that set their policies towards countries like Guinea, and the IMF, which has had Conté firmly in its predatory grip, the coup is viewed by everyone paying attention as a real step forward for Guinea.

But if the coup has been completely bloodless, Camara is threatening to execute anyone who embezzles state funds.

On a concrete stage inside the barracks from where he launched his rebellion Tuesday, Camara jabbed his finger at the sky as he swore to do away with the corruption that has drained the mineral-rich state's coffers.

"For the person who embezzles money, there won't be a trial. They'll be killed," he said as the crowd went wild. "I was born in a hut. I walked to school. ... Money means nothing to me."

...He said the country's ruling clique "spit on the faces of the poor," enriching themselves at the population's expense.

One of the remedies he proposed was reviewing the country's mining contracts and renegotiating them if the terms are unfavorable.

(Wouldn't it be great if Obama was as straight-forward and hardline about his own anti-corruption standards?)

Flying to Paris from Bamako yesterday I met a geologist who runs an iron ore exploration camp in Guinea. She told me she sometimes comes to Mali to escape the filth and pollution of Conakry. To understand what a shocking statement that was for me, consider what I had just written at the AroundTheWorldBlog a day or two earlier in regard to Bamako's filth and pollution. But she told me that comparison leaves Guinea looking far worse, with most people lacking the most basic amenities like clean water and electricity. She lays the blame for Guinea's problems right at the feet of Conté, his family and cronies. So do most Guineans.

So why can't the Bush Regime put two and two together and just cut Camara and his colleagues some slack? I just happen to be reading Thomas Frank's startling new book, The Wrecking Crew, How Conservatives Rule and, although he never mentions Guinea, he certainly explains a Republican mindset that would automatically condemn and seek to undermine Camara. In demonstrating how right-wing parties extol selfishness as a virtue, Frank claims that GOP leaders "laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense."

[T]hey caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing; they have wrecked federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job... Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exists to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials.

On the surface, Guinea-- and most of the Third World-- is far more corrupt than the United States. In reality, the systemic corruption that pervades American society-- think Enron, Abramoff, Bernie Madoff, Duke Cunningham-- makes Third World corruption seem like mere child's play. Warren Harding spoke for the Republican Party in 1921-- and his words still speak for today's GOP (as well as Blue Dogs and other corrupt right-wing Democrats)-- when he said that what we need is "less government in business and more business in government." That has been one of the hallmarks of Bushism-- and it has brought our country-- and most of the world-- to the brink of Depression, as well as to the widest gaps between the masses and the ownership class since... Warren Harding's days.