2023-05-18 01:25:24
The National Union of Workers of Guinea, which is the largest trade union center in the country, was created on May 18, 1961 as a rallying tool for workers and struggle, as a social subject of the revolution, in which it played a role crucial in the fight for independence against the fascist state of Portugal. After the liberation struggle, this union central was hijacked by a single party, inhibiting its true expression of class unionism, it became an organization that responded to the will of the party elites, to the detriment of class interests worker. However, on December 11, 2017, the jurist António Júlio Mendonça was elected the new Secretary General of the UNTG-CS, who, in a universe of 241 voters, managed to obtain 71 votes against his adversary Laureano Pereira da Costa, with 67 votes. .
Fear: UPRG-Cassacá-64
The new Secretary General, in his draft leadership of the UNTG-CS, had as a motto, union paradigm shift, which is, in reality, rescuing the workers’ institution from the hands of the parties so that it can serve as a defense of the opportunities of the working class and consequently of the people. This project, in fact, after he took office, immediately began to revolutionize the way of thinking and doing trade unionism in Guinea, showing the workers that it is necessary and indispensable to combine strikes with demands in the streets. That is why the regime, at that time led by the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), felt this pressure and tried in 2019 to remove the workers from the headquarters with a false question of rehabilitation, because there was talk of a salary increase, there were strikes in all social sectors and the moment was very sensitive due to the general elections. This fight of the UNTG-CS, not only gave it the character of class unionism, but also managed to improve the condition of the working class, which was so miserable, with back wages, in which the minimum wage in 2018 was 31,000 francs. CFA, which did not cover the current expenses of a worker (who pays the rent of the house, with market inflation, private health, children’s education, and without public transport), and managed to get an increase of 50,000 CFA francs through the fight.
Why does the dictatorial regime in Guinea want to silence the working class through a union coup?
This futile attempt to silence the true voice of the Guinean working class in Bissau did not start with a court case, promoted by Laureano Pereira da Costa, which resulted in the illegal boycott of the 5th congress that was scheduled to take place May 9-12, 2022, by the POP (public order police without judicial order) but it is just a continuity of the tactics and strategies of the Bonapartist regime headed by President Umaro Sissokó Embaló, who in the recent past, through the former Minister of Finance Aladje M. Fadia, from this same regime, filed a criminal complaint, on May 7, 2021, against the then Secretary General of the UNTG-CS (Júlio António Mendonça) with the sole objective of joining the struggles that the UNTG-CS it intransigently freed, above all, the tax and contribution employees who were imprisoned at the request of Fadia, who could not respond to the demands for payment of 9 months of back wages.
This case did not have the effect desired by the coup leaders; they came back [, entonces,] to use justice, through the Public Ministry at its highest level of representation, which was the former Attorney General of the Republic, Fenando Gomes, with the same intention of obfuscating the fight of the unions of health workers that were in strike with 100% of its associates attached, because the Bonapartist government did not sit down at the table to negotiate a minimum service, which culminated in the arrest of two union leaders, Yoió João Correia and João Domingos da Silva, accused of the crime of omission of help. This arrest of the two union leaders affiliated with the UNTG-CS was met with a response in the streets, demanding the release of the two unionists, including police brutality and an attack on the UNTG-CS headquarters, with the firing of tear gas, blockade of doors, power and water cuts… it was a real attack against the workers.
And as if that were not enough, the regime decided to storm the UNTG-CS headquarters on May 5 of this year, in a cowardly and shameful way, with policemen armed to the teeth and supporting and protecting a false leadership that was defeated in the process. judicial and in the V congress, which re-elected the leadership headed by Mendonça.
For the implantation of a dictatorial regime, in any part of the world, it is essential to put an end to the organization of the workers. The entire history of dictatorial regimes in the world has already proven this mode of operation dictatorial. However, while Guinea is part of the world and will not be a different case of this dictatorial thinking, the way to do it may be different. That is to say, not to end the organization in the strict sense, but to violently implant, through the use of force, a leadership that will be a robot programmed to collaborate with all the atrocities of the regime installed in the country. That is exactly what is happening in the UNTG-CS, but that regime is not only attacking the working class, but anyone who dares to raise their voices against these cyclical violations of democratic freedoms, which the regime itself calls isolated caseskidnappings, beatings, assassination attempts on political opponents, journalists, shootings at the houses of political commentators and also at radio stations and even against ordinary citizens.
Why is unity, struggle and international solidarity necessary?
We call for unity around the UNTG-CS struggle, because the way in which democratic freedoms have been trampled on by the dictatorial regime headed by Embaló is explicit, but from different political formations, such as MADEM-G15, PRS, APU-PDGB, RGB-BÁ-FATA, the military elites, and with the connivance of the international community and subregional organizations. That unity has to be at the national level through the people and the working class, to fight the dictatorial regime in the streets and not at the polls, as other parties do, mainly the PAIGC. And at the international level, it has to be with different peoples and with the working class, especially the Portuguese people, [ya] that Guinea played a historic role in the fight against the dictatorship in Portugal. The Guinean people need this solidarity to question not only the parliament’s silence on the dictatorship in Guinea, but also the role that the Costa government and the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo Sousa, have been playing in cleaning up the dictatorship in Guinea. If the Portuguese people do not want fascism and dictatorship, know that no people in the world do.
Down with the dictatorship!
Long live democratic liberties!
The UNTG-CS is from the working class, not from the putschists!
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
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