Publication of a position paper: The Fight Against Impunity: Progress Observed, Actions Awaited
"The indictment of Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby, who had been implicated by the United Nations, is much-awaited and encouraging news” said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.
Colonel Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby, chief medical officer, was indicted on 13 September 2012, through a judicial procedure on 28 September 2009 massacre and the following days. He is believed to have enabled the military to take control of various healthcare facilities, especially the Donka Hospital, near the stadium, the place to which most of the injured people fled the massacre. He is blamed with deliberately preventing medical care for the wounded. Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby was criticised by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for being among the persons implicated in the serious human rights violations committed in the stadium on 28 September 2009 and the following days.
According to Thierno Maadjou Sow, OGDH President: “What Colonel Diaby is being accused of is very serious and we salute the work of the Guinean judiciary, which seems determined to continue with the investigation and to take it to completion. We need to determine where responsibility lies and ensure respect for the rights of the victims.”
On 8 February 2010, the Prosecutor General of the Conakry Court of Appeals gave three judges a judicial proceeding against “Aboubakar Diakité alias Toumba and any others”. The aim was to establish individual liability in the events of 28 September 2009 during which more than 157 people were killed and dozens of women were subjected to rape and other sexual crimes. Under this procedure, FIDH and OGDH, along with victims’ associations, filed a civil party complaint and supported the 250 victims who have testified in this case up to now in order to contribute to the fight against the impunity of the perpetrators of the most serious crimes.
For Mr. Patrick Baudouin, FIDH Honorary President and head of the FIDH Legal Action Group (LAG): “the indictment of Diaby is the only real tangible progress made in the 28 September case since the indictment of Lieutenant Colonel Moussa Tiegboro Camara on 1 February 2012." [1]
The fight against impunity: progress observed, actions awaited
To mark this new advance in the judicial inquiry of the 28 September 2009 massacre, i.e. the indictment of the ex-Minister of Health, Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby, FIDH and OGDH are publishing a situation paper that offers a preliminary assessment of the fight against impunity in Guinea and of the ongoing judicial inquiries into the serious human rights violations perpetrated during the last few years.
“The Guinean justice has made major progress that was almost unthinkable a few years ago, but the path is still long to winding up the inquiry and holding fair, equitable trials” said Mr. Patrick Baudouin. “The symbolic weight of these legal cases test the capacity and the will of Guinea to enable the justice to sanction violations of the past”, he added.
As part of this fight against the impunity of the perpetrators of the most serious crimes, FIDH and OGDH not only supported the victims of the 28 September 2009 events, but filed two complaints [2] in relation to the violent repression of demonstrations in January and February 2007 and acts of torture committed by the law enforcement officers in 2010, symptomatic examples of a heritage of political violence.
The report “The Fight Against Impunity in Guinea: Progress Observed, Actions Awaited” highlights the outstanding challenges in the judicial procedures, and more generally within the Guinean justice system, to put an end to the culture of impunity that has always been commonplace in Guinea and to respect the victims’ rights to truth, justice and indemnification. To meet these challenges will also require a strong contribution from all the actors and all segments of society, something that could most usefully be guaranteed through the forthcoming national reconciliation process.
Download the report :The fight against impunity in Guinea : progress observed, actions awaited