Camp Boiro or Camp Mamadou Boiro (1960–1984) is a defunct Guinean concentration camp in the city of Conakry. During the regime of President Ahmed Sékou Touré, thousands of political opponents were imprisoned at the camp. [1] It has been estimated that almost 5,000 people were executed or died from torture or starvation at the camp. [2] According to other estimates, the number of victims was ten times higher: 50,000. [3]
Sékou Touré became president of Guinea when the country gained independence from France in 1958. Over the years that followed, his regime became increasingly repressive, persecuting opposition leaders and dissidents from within the ruling Guinean Democratic Party (PDG). [1] The camp, situated in the center of Conakry, was originally called Camp Camyenne. [4] It housed the Republican Guard under French colonial rule. The political prison block in the camp was constructed with assistance from the Czechoslovak government. In 1961 the commandant had the windows reduced in size, since they were too large for condemned men. [5] The camp was renamed Camp Mamadou Boiro in 1969 in honor of a police commissioner who had been thrown from a helicopter in which he was transporting prisoners from Labé to Conakry. [4]
The camp was used to dispose of Touré's opponents. Achkar Marof, actor and former Guinean ambassador to the United Nations, was recalled to Guinea in 1968, arrested and jailed at Camp Boiro. He briefly gained his freedom in the 1970 coup attempt. His family learned in 1985 that he had been shot on 26 January 1971. [6] The so-called Labé plot, linked to French imperialism, was uncovered in February 1969. Touré used this plot to purge the army and execute at least 13 people. [7] A total of 87 people were arrested and detained in the camp, including the Minister of Economy & Finance, Diawadou Barry. Two, Mouctar Diallo and Namory Keïta, died of starvation and dehydration only days after their arrest. [8] Fodéba Keïta, former Minister of Defense, was also arrested for alleged complicity in the Labé plot. He was shot after forced starvation on 27 May 1969. [9]
On 21 November 1970, the Portuguese Armed Forces based in the neighbor Portuguese Guinea, assisted by Guinean oppositionists, executed the Operation Green Sea, an amphibious raid against Conakry aimed to achieve several military and political objectives, including the liberation of Portuguese POWs and the attempt to overthrow the Touré regime. They captured Camp Boiro and liberated the prisoners. The camp commandant Siaka Touré managed to hide, but General Lansana Diané, minister of Defence, was captured. He later escaped and took refuge with the ambassador of Algeria. The coup attempt failed, and in the aftermath many opponents of the regime were rounded up and imprisoned in Camp Boiro. [10] On 23 December 1970, the Bishop of Conakry, Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo, was arrested, and subsequently made a "confession". [11] Tchidimbo later wrote a book about his 8-year, 8-month stay at the camp. [12] Alassane Diop, who was Senegalese in origin, a former Minister of Information in Guinea was arrested and held in Camp Boiro for ten years, returning to Senegal after his release. [13]
The prisoners were given little food other than a scrap of bread the size of a box of matches in the morning, and a ladle of plain rice cooked in dirty water in the evening. There was never any meat except on days when Touré was performing some sacrifice. [14] Starting in January 1971 the prisoners were interrogated by a Revolutionary Committee headed by Ismaël Touré, half-brother of Sékou Touré and minister of the Economy. [15] Some prisoners were placed on the "black diet", meaning no food or water until they died. [16] Prisoners could only show their courage by refusing to confess during torture sessions, and refusing to beg for food when placed on the black diet. [17] Loffo Camara, former Secretary of State for Social Affairs, was hanged on 25 January 1971, the only woman killed at that time. [18] According to El Hadj Ibrahima Diane, an inmate for many years, from June 1972 until August 1973 at least four corpses were taken from the cells each day and thrown into mass graves in the rear yard of the prison. [19]
In 1975, France agreed to restore diplomatic relations after French prisoners were released from the camp. This reduced pressure on Touré. The book Prison D'Afrique by Jean-Paul Alata, a survivor from the camp, was banned from publication in France and had to be printed in Belgium. [20] Further incarcerations followed in the ensuing years. Diallo Telli was a popular politician, loyal to the regime, and former Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). [21] He returned to Guinea in 1972 and was appointed Minister of Justice. On 18 July 1976, Diallo Telli was arrested at his home and imprisoned at Camp Boiro. [22] In February 1977 five prominent prisoners were eliminated through the black diet: Diallo Telli, ex-ministers Barry Alpha Oumar, Dramé Alioune and Fode Cisse, and army officers Diallo Alhassana and Kouyate Laminé. The next month five more people died of starvation. [23] [24]
The arrests and deaths continued. In August 1979 Bah Mamadou, an expatriate from Labé who had moved to France, returned to visit his family. Entering the country from Senegal, all occupants of his vehicle were arrested and jailed at Camp Boiro. Eight of the travellers - all but Bah Mahmoud himself - had died of the black diet within a month. [25] In September 1983 the government announced they had uncovered a plot to sabotage a meeting of the OAU planned to be held in Conakry the next year. Eighty one people were incarcerated in Camp Boiro. [26]
After the death of Sékou Touré in 1984, the military took power in a coup d'état and released many of the political prisoners at Camp Boiro. [27] Many of the leaders of the former regime were imprisoned, and later executed. [28] In the years that followed, the association of Victims of Camp Boiro fought for many years to maintain the memory of what had happened. [29] The council of ministers issued a communique on 27 August 1991 for renovation of the camp and construction of a memorial to all the victims, but no action followed. [30] The Association was forbidden to establish a museum in the former camp. [31] In a 2007 interview, Bobo Dieng, a former senior official in the Touré government, stated that there had been just 117 deaths at the camp. [32] It was not until 2009 that the interim president Moussa Dadis Camara met the members of the association. That year, demolition of the camp buildings began, but it was not known whether a memorial would be erected. [29] As of 2010, there had been no commission of inquiry, and all documents about the camp were inaccessible or had been destroyed.
Conakry is the capital and largest city of Guinea. A port city, it serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea. Its population as of the 2014 Guinea census was 1,660,973.
Ahmed Sékou Touré was a Guinean political leader and African statesman who was the first president of Guinea from 1958 until his death in 1984. Touré was among the primary Guinean nationalists involved in gaining independence of the country from France. He would later die in the United States in 1984.
Boubacar Diallo Telli was a Guinean diplomat and politician. He helped found the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and was the second secretary-general of the OAU between 1964 and 1972. After serving as Minister of Justice in Guinea for four years he was executed by starvation by the regime of Ahmed Sékou Touré at Camp Boiro in 1977.
Trade unions in Guinea were historically important - having played a pivotal role in the country's independence movement - and in recent years have again assumed a leading role.
Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo was a Guinean archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, the son of a Gabonese father and a Guinean mother. He is notable for his eight-year imprisonment during the dictatorship of Sékou Touré.
Ismaël Touré was a Guinean political figure and the half brother of President Ahmed Sékou Touré. He was the chief prosecutor at the notorious Camp Boiro.
Moussa Diakité was a Guinean politician during the presidency of Ahmed Sékou Touré. He was a member of the national Politburo. His wife, Tata Keïta, was half sister of the President's wife Andrée, and his son married the eldest daughter of Ismael Touré, the president's brother.
The Cabinet of the First Republic of Guinea was the governing body of Guinea under the rule of President Ahmed Sékou Touré, from independence on 28 September 1958 until the death of Touré on 26 March 1984, followed by a bloodless coup by Colonel Lansana Conté on 3 April 1984. For much of that time, the country was run by a tight-knit inner group, many of them relatives of Sékou Touré, who became the primary beneficiaries of the regime.
Loffo Camara was a senior Guinean politician and a member of the Politburo of the First Republic of Guinea in the years immediately following independence. After falling out with the President Sékou Touré, she was dismissed from the cabinet, and later was arrested and executed.
Alioune Dramé was a Guinean economist and politician. He also served as an ambassador to Ivory Coast.
Lansana Diané was a general and a minister in the cabinet of Ahmed Sekou Touré, President of Guinea during the First Republic (1958–1984). The military government that took power after Touré's death executed him in 1985.
Alassane Diop was a Minister of Information in Guinea who was arrested and held in Camp Boiro for ten years, returning to Senegal after his release.
Alpha Oumar Barry (1925–1977) was a Guinean politician, a member of the cabinet of President Ahmed Sékou Touré in the first Guinean republic, who was later arrested and died at Camp Boiro.
Siaka Touré (1935–1985) was the commandant of Camp Boiro in Conakry, Guinea during the regime of Guinean President Ahmed Sékou Touré. During this period, many of the president's political opponents died in the camp.
Jean-Paul Alata was a Frenchman who was a political prisoner in Camp Boiro, Guinea from January 1971 to July 1975, later writing a book about his experience which was banned by the French government.
The Ignace Deen Hospital is a hospital in Conakry, Guinea built during the colonial era. The hospital is situated next to the National Museum.
The Monument du 22 Novembre 1970 is a monument in Conakry, Guinea that celebrates the defeat of the attempted coup led by Portuguese troops in 1970, named Operation Green Sea.
Mahmoud Bah is a Guinean political activist and writer born to the Fulani tribe. He is best known as one of the figures Amnesty International were eager to release during his imprisonment in the Boiro Mamadou Concentration Camp between 1979 and 1984 after campaigning in France as part of the Rassemblement des Guinéens de l'Extérieur.
The 1984 Guinean coup d'état was the bloodless military coup that took place in Guinea on 3 April 1984, led by Colonel Lansana Conté. It led to the deposition of Prime Minister Louis Lansana Beavogui, who had held the office since 1972, and had been serving as interim president since 26 March, when longtime President Ahmed Sékou Touré died during an emergency heart operation at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States.
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