Guinea president dismisses 173 soldiers for desertion
Guinea’s President Mamadi Doumbouya has dismissed 173 soldiers from the armed forces, including a senior officer who once stood beside him during the 2021 coup that brought him to power.
The announcement, delivered in a decree read on state television by presidential spokesman Gen Amara Camara, accused the soldiers of “desertion.” No further details were provided about the circumstances of their alleged absence from duty.
Among those named was Col Michel Lamah, a former member of the Special Forces Group (GFS). Lamah became a familiar figure during the September 2021 takeover when he was photographed escorting deposed President Alpha Condé after troops stormed the presidential palace.
The dismissals are widely seen as part of Doumbouya’s continuing effort to consolidate authority and neutralize potential rivals within the military. His rise from camouflage‑clad commander to civilian president has been marked by promises of transition that later gave way to entrenched rule.
When he seized power five years ago, Doumbouya pledged not to contest elections and to hand over to civilian leadership. That commitment was abandoned when he stood in last December’s vote, from which two of Guinea’s largest opposition parties were barred. He won with 87 percent of the ballots.
Since then, the West African nation has witnessed a tightening of political space. Media outlets have been shuttered, protests banned, and opposition figures arrested or forced into exile. Civil liberties have shrunk under the former junta leader’s administration, even as he promotes an economic agenda aimed at transforming Guinea’s mineral wealth from raw exports into industrial processing.
The removal of Lamah and more than 170 others underscores the precarious balance between Doumbouya’s reliance on the military and his determination to keep it firmly under control.
Source: BBC
About The Author
