2023-11-29 13:53:14
In his autobiographical book seized at the Guinea-Senegalese border of Koundara, the activist revealed how the prisoners of the five-star Hotel in Coronthie obtain telephones and communicate with the outside world. So the escape of November 4 is nothing unusual.
The coordinator of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), several times incarcerated under Alpha Grimpeur and during the current transition, was himself surprised with an Android. It was during a nighttime search, ordered by the manager. As punishment, Oumar Sylla alias Foniké Mengè was isolated for days. But the practice is anchored in the daily lives of prisoners, with the complicity of prison guards. We remember a few years ago, “Junior”, a famous thug, gave himself the luxury of inviting himself on the show Big mouths of Espace FM and TV from his cell.
The escape of Claude Pivi, El Dadis Camara, Tiégboro-bara Camara and Blaise Goumou, who all had telephones in prison, is therefore not surprising. “Nothing could scare an inmate more than the lack of a telephone,” writes the activist in his book published by Feathers inspired. Some detainees pretend in their telephone communications with the outside world to be on a trip. The telephone is very important in prison, but at the same time a source of permanent panic for whoever has it.” “During the periodic searches, I always got away with it until the day the manager himself, accompanied by the head warden, broke into our hold during the 10 p.m. hours,” continues the author. An unusual fact. I was in the first large room chatting with one of my fellow inmates. He asked us to take out our phones: Ismaël Condé (current mayor of Matam), Souleymane Condé (then member of the FNDC) and me. Despite the fact that we complied by handing over our phones, including two Androids, the manager was very angry. The head guard, accompanied by another guard, continued the search in each compartment of the cell. And on the instructions of the manager, the doors were ordered to be closed. ».
Ransoming prisoners’ families
Those who lose their phones always rush to get another one and bribe the prison guards to bring it into prison. The tool is at the center of a vast scam and ransom network led by hold managers. These big, burly bandits, flanked by “aide-de-camp or militiaman and secretary” reign supreme in the “Lazy”, the “Corridors”: the worst places in the prison feared by everyone, where they are parked “like sardines” the destitute unable to afford better conditions of detention. However, they must pay the “hold duty” directly or by calling their families to make a deposit into the leader’s Orange money account. Um yes ! Prisoners don’t just have a phone number, they make money transactions from their cells.
Standing up for the homeland also evokes “the forgotten people of Coronthie”: prisoners, sometimes teenagers, detained for decades without trial. Lack of money, families, files or the inertia of these pro-criers paid to do nothing.
The loneliness of prison
Through arrests for his opposition to Alpha Grimpeur’s third term, then solitary management of the transition, Foniké Menguè took up residence in prison. Deprived of his two daughters and his wife. The latter has used numerous platforms to demand the release of her husband, denouncing the desire of those in power to make her “a young widow”. Despite everything, the activist kept his spirits up, refusing to beg for clemency from Alpha Climber. As others had to do, to regain freedom. The secret of his endurance: faith. “I accepted my stay in prison as a vacation in some place here on earth. I knew the vacation would end one day and I would enjoy my freedom again. I was in harmony with my conscience because I knew, like all the people of Guinea, that I was innocent, without conflict with the law. I was convinced of divine power by telling myself every day that all this will end when God wants. And every time I thought about it, I rejoiced and made fun of Alpha Condé who had started to think he was immortal. Him, a former prisoner.”
Banned from sale in Guinea, Standing up for the homeland which traces the life and activism of Foniké Menguè is available on the online sales platform Amazon.
Diawo Labboyah
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