NYT: Guinean Soldiers Who Staged a Coup Underwent US Training

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A coup d’état in Guinea

It all started from a coup d’état that ousted Guinea’s 83-year-old president, Alpha Condé, last Sunday, as an elite Guinean Special Forces unit stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Conakry, amid intense gunfire. Hours later, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya announced himself as Guinea’s new leader.

The Americans knew the Colonel well, but how?

Green Berets; not so green

According to a report published in The New York Times, a team of about a dozen US Green Berets had been in Guinea since mid-July to train about 100 soldiers in a special forces unit led by Colonel Doumbouya. 

However, despite the fact that the training actually took place, American military officials have denied having anything to do with the ouster and said that they had no idea of what their trainees had in mind, claiming that Colonel Doumbouya and the other trainees accused of the coup had left in an armed convoy from that same base early on Sunday, in an insinuation that they slipped away while their instructors were sleeping.

“We do not have any information on how the apparent military seizure of power occurred, and had no prior indication of these events,” Bardha S. Azari, a spokeswoman for the US Africa Command, said in an email.

Going downhill

Things are about to get worse for the Americans, as video footage circulating in recent days showed smiling American military officers in the midst of a crowd of happy Guineans on September 5, the day the coup took place.

As a four-wheel-drive vehicle with Guinean soldiers perched on the back pushes through the crowd chanting “freedom,” one American appears to touch hands with cheering people.

US officials confirmed that the video showed Green Berets returning to the US Embassy on Sunday, but denied any implication of support for the coup. “The US government and military are not involved in this apparent military seizure of power in any way,” Azari, the spokesperson, said.

For many Guineans, the US role in the coup was just one factor in a week overwhelmed with change under the leadership of Colonel Doumbouya.

Who is Doumboya? How is he linked to “Israel”?

Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, 41, is now the second-youngest leader of an African state. He served for years in the French Foreign Legion, took part in US military exercises, and was once a close ally of the Guinean President he himself overthrew. He also served in Afghanistan and Ivory Coast and completed a commando training course in “Israel”, according to his official biography.

The Colonel, after an hour-long gun battle outside the presidential palace on Sunday in which at least 11 people were killed, appeared on state television wearing sunglasses and draped in Guinea’s tricolor flag.

In sum, the president has been ousted by an officer whose career he once blessed, through a coup that was fueled by smoldering rivalries inside Guinea’s defense establishment, one of which involved Colonel Doumbouya.

The fact is US officials have known Colonel Doumbouya since the start of his rise. A photo posted on the US Embassy's Facebook page in October 2018 showed him standing with three US military officials outside the Embassy.

But on Friday, US officials said they were perplexed and did not know why he would choose to mount a coup at a moment when he was working closely with Americans.

However, this is not the first time that coups in Africa have cast a shadow over American training programs on the continent. As insurgents surged across Mali’s northern desert in 2012, US-trained commanders of the country’s elite army units defected at a critical time, taking troops, trucks, weapons, and their newfound skills to the enemy.

Do Guinea’s natural resources play any role in the unfolding events?

“If the Americans are involved in the putsch, it’s because of their mining interests,” said Diapharou Baldé, a teacher in Conakry — a reference to Guinea’s huge deposits of gold, iron ore, and bauxite, which is used to make aluminum.

So, wherever the truth over the coup lies, it goes without saying that Guinea has an abundance of natural resources: it is the source of several major rivers and has exceptional biodiversity. It also has the third of the world's bauxite reserves, as well as significant gold, diamond, and oil resources.

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According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Guinea in 2020 ranked first in the world in bauxite reserves with about one-third of the world reserves, and second in the extraction of high-grade bauxite, the aluminum ore. The Bauxite mining industry provides for about 80% of Guinea’s foreign exchange. Diamonds and gold are mined and exported on a large scale as well, providing additional foreign currency.