caraobrien:

From Amnesty International, excerpt:

One of our most disturbing findings was that the supplies of ammunition, tear gas, military vehicles and other equipment used on ‘Bloody Monday’ had been authorised in recent years by governments around the world – including from France – despite the Guinean security forces’ decade-long record of violent repression using these kinds of weapons.

Yesterday, the French government issued a bald rejection of Amnesty International’s report, claiming that we misrepresented some of the facts regarding France’s provision of equipment and training. In doing so, however, the French government has unfortunately misrepresented Amnesty International’s own report, and ignored a number of our substantive concerns to help protect human rights in Guinea. We have rebutted each of France’s accusations in a detailed public statement.

But beyond this debate lies a larger point, which we regret France’s statement fails to address. The events of 28th September 2009 were made partly possible by states’ persistent failure to adequately assess the risk that the weapons they were exporting to Guinea would be used in repression and killings – despite the clear evidence of these forces’ human rights records, repeatedly and publicly documented by Amnesty International and others for a decade or more.

In some cases, exports were made without public or parliamentary oversight. We learned from the French government themselves, for example, that they had authorised the supply of tear gas grenades to Guinea’s gendarmerie and police 13 times between 2004 and 2008 – but under a licensing regime that did not have to be reported to France’s parliament and public, unlike most other French exports of arms and security equipment. In 2007, Guinea’s security forces killed over 130 people in a month of violence which included firing tear gas grenades inside Conakry’s main hospital. French exports continued to be authorised. On 28th September 2009, using French-made tear gas launchers, the gendarmerie fired volleys of tear gas against the trapped crowd, causing a stampede that was followed by live fire.

I posted about Bloody Monday a few days ago, so check out those posts for more information.