AS GUINEANS BURY THEIR MURDERED RELATIONS, ECOWAS BRINGS IN CHIEF GUN RUNNER TO MEDIATE - BLAISE CAMPAORE NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

Friday October 2, 2009 was a sombre day for many Guineans in the capital Conakry as the murderers in military fatigues threw open the doors of the mortuary where the slain had been put in storage.

The wailing of relations as their eyes starred at bullet-riddled bodies, many disfigured by discharges from war weapons were obvious. To add to the pain of the afflicted and affected, the beasts in human form parading as "leaders" of Guinea even choreographed, in a macabre manner, those bodies that could be released for collection and burial by relations.

57 corpses. That was all and in keeping in line with what the murderers would have people think of those they dispatched into the next world.

So the question is - where are the other bodies? And even more questions - are the other bodies now buried in mass graves making it impossible for relations to give them a decent funeral? Where are the others of more than a hundred slaughtered by the uniformed murderers?

This is a time for the international community to stand firm and demand that all those who died in that carnage be accounted for.

The Sierra Herald is not impressed with ECOWAS either in letting the chief gun runner and mayhem generator in the sub-region Burkina Faso's Blaise Campaore to be the mediator in such a crisis given his past and propensity to indulge in spreading violence and murder in the sub-region.

Nigeria holds the rotating leadership of ECOWAS and for President Yar'Adua to delegate this responsibility to Campaore is a disservice to reason and a slap in the face of all those who died and survived the brutal suppression unleashed on the unarmed protesting Guineans.

Campaore was sent to broker peace in Ivory Coast because of his support for the rebels who tried to, but failed in their attempt to wrest power in that country getting to the point where the country got divided into 2 with Blaise Campaore being very much interested in getting the rebels occupying the northern half of the country getting things their way.

In Sierra Leone, regular Burkinabe soldiers were involved in the March 1991 RUF invasion from across Liberia into Sierra Leone and investigations carried out by the United Nations clearly fingered Blaise Campaore ferrying arms to Sierra Leone through Liberia for the use of the RUF in that organisation's campaign of murder and mayhem.

With paws in the three rather fragile states of Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, it is the considered view of the Sierra Herald that Nigeria has not lived up to its responsibilities and that a neutral and respected African leader with blood-free hands must be given the opportunity to mediate in what could turn out to be an explosive situation if not properly handled.

Kindly note too, that Sierra Leone's junta led by war crimes fugitive Johnny Paul Koroma yearned and pleaded for Blaise Campaore to "mediate" between their coalition of evil and those opposed to them for "a resolution of the crisis" in Sierra Leone. In Blaise Campaore, they saw their kind and they believed would have not only given them time to consolidate their murderous grip on power, but would have been the first country to have recognised the illegal and murderous regime.

All such plans were foiled by Nigeria under the late Sani Abacha who saw through the antics of the Johnny Paul Koroma junta as well as the hand of Blaise Campaore and refused to have Burkina Faso getting a say in the matter.

Even when it was the turn of Burkina Faso to head ECOWAS at the time, Nigeria duly extended its term thus denying the chief arms runner in the sub-region the opportunity to recognise and further arm the Sierra Leone junta.

Why Nigeria should at this crucial time give way to Blaise Campaore, chief gun-runner and rabble-rouser in the sub-region to mediate at this moment in time is worth watching.

BODIES RELEASED FOR BURIAL

On the Friday release of the bodies of those murdered by Dadis Camara, the BBC has got some graphic pictures that should tell anyone who cares that murder most foul was committed against the people. This should give further impetus to the call that those who carried out those murders must be brought to book.

One picture, a rather poignant one, should send those who were around along memory lane.

It is a picture of an injured survivor in hospital with a saline fluid attached to his body while anxious relations watch him try to get back to life.

It was the same picture witnessed by Sierra Leoneans when the son of the President, one Jengo Stevens a Russian-trained doctor was alleged to have ripped off such life-sustaining drip feeds from students and others who had rebelled against his father Siaka Stevens in 1977.

Apologists were quick to deny the fact insisting that Dr Jengo Stevens never did such a thing.

"How can a trained medical doctor do such a thing", they chorused.

Well many years later, one reporter caught up with Dr Jengo Stevens and asked him to explain his side of the matter.

Dr Jengo Stevens admitted that he did remove the life-giving drip feed from what he called "some patients", but that he did that because the patients had got enough of the medication and needed it off!!!!! "I did not do it to kill or punish people opposed to our government and my father", he proudly admitted.

Dr Jengo Stevens is now our Ambassador (sorry EBK's very own) to some European country - Germany? No...he is not.

And while thinking about this, please do not confuse or make the mistake of thinking that this Dr Jengo Stevens is the same as the man with the name Jongopee.

You will be talking cheese and chalk

Jongopee is EBK's ambassador to Germany.