Reports commissioned by Guinea's military junta into the September 2009 stadium massacre and rape of civilians in Conakry cannot be regarded as credible fact finding, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) said today.

"Guinea has a long history of impunity for state sponsored human rights violations, and has consistently failed to establish effective investigations into [those] abhorrent abuses", said Suliman Baldo, director of ICTJ's Africa Program. "This junta-sponsored investigation is no different."

On 29 September, 2009, more than 150 civilians were killed and more than 100 women raped as they protested against Guinea’s military junta, styled as the Conseil National pour la Democratie et le Developpement (CNDD). The junta confidentially commissioned US-based consulting firm, CW Group International, to investigate. The consulting firm comprises former Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, David Crane, and the Special Court's former Chief Investigator, Alan White.

The firm’s report, known as the Crane Report, was obtained by two media outlets in February and appears to be glaringly inconsistent with the detailed findings of the high level UN inquiry, called the International Commission of Inquiry on the 28 September 2009 events in Guinea. The UN commission found that there was sufficient reason to believe that CNDD leader, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, was directly responsible for the mass killings and rape of protesters, which it also found to constitute crimes against humanity.

The Crane Report apparently exculpates the junta leadership, and confines its finding of responsibility to the army unit led by Lieutenant Aboubacar Sidiki Diakite Toumba. These findings coincide with the official Guinean military view.
 

While the UN commission found that there were grounds to prosecute crimes against humanity, the Crane Report reportedly found that no such grounds existed. It also omitted any mention of the strong evidence of governmental cover-up found by the UN commission, and also claimed a substantially lower death toll.

"An inquiry paid for by individuals or organizations implicated in the very human rights violations under investigation can never be regarded as independent and impartial," Baldo said. "Truth seeking should confront the past with honesty, integrity, and vigor. Any truth seeking exercise to examine Guinea’s record of human rights abuses must meet these standards to be credible."

Source: ICTJ