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Misanet.com / IPS, 29 May - Government officials in Conakry, Guinea, are hailing recent foreign investments in the cement industry and the mining sector as proof that the war in southern Guinea is having little effect on the country's attractiveness to investors but opposition politicians and others paint a different picture. The latest big investment, which is from Germany, is in a new cement factory in Sougueta, Kindia prefecture, approximately 150 kilometres from the capital, Conakry. Kindia has been the scene of rebel attacks, Construction of the factory, which will cost 10 million dollars, began 15 May. Completion is expected in 26 to 28 months and government officials say total investment in the plant could reach 16-million dollars. According to Mocire Sylla, the director general of the Centre to Promote and Develop Mining (CPDM), the cement factory will have an annual capacity of 523,000 metric tons. The plant will provide construction jobs for 260 people and create 1,000 permanent workers. - The other big project in progress is construction of a factory to produce aluminium, of which bauxite ore is the major ingredient, stated Oumar Babara Touré, the executive secretary of the Guinean Mining Federation. "After Australia, Guinea is the world's largest producer of bauxite, and produces 17 million tons annually." This west African country, which shares long borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone, is involved in a regional conflict that also involves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a Sierra Leone rebel movement supported by Liberian President Charles Taylor. Control over the region's mineral resources, especially diamonds is fuelling the conflict. Sierra Leone is a big diamond producer. According to a UN report, Taylor profits from the war in Sierra Leone by indulging in illegal diamond trafficking. Taylor's emissaries transact nearly 50 million dollars in business each year with the RUF, who get guns in return. Recently, a local satirical weekly, "The Lynx", accused Guinea's military of profiting also from the war in the south by themselves fraudulently mining diamonds. According to officials figures, 43 mining licenses were issued between 1998 and 2000 by the Ministry of Mines. Guinean dissidents include the mysterious Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (RFDG) which claims credit for all attack operations on Guinean territory, but which analysts believe are really carried out by members of the RUF and mercenaries. Among the RFDG, the names of commandants Nfamara Oular and Gbago Zoumanigui have been cited, the latter being a former Guinean Minister of Sports. Both deserted after the 2 - 3 February 1996 mutiny which toppled the regime of President Lansana Conté. When Taylor was a rebel leader on his way to power the Guinea government deployed troops to fight against his 'Scorpions' - an act which Taylor has neither forgotten or forgiven. Now, Monrovia and Conakry mutually accuse each other of being a base camp for dissidents who are seeking to destabilize each other's regimes. Despite the conflicts, government sources, including Aboucar Somparé, the secretary general of the Party for Unity and Progress (PUP assert that Guinea won't have problems attracting investors because of its business environment. It is also one of the few countries in west Africa that has not been plagued by serious problems in the last few years. But according to Professor Alpha Sow of the Union of Democratic Forces (UFD), investors are quite reticent about countries at war, Guinea included. Guinea must find a way to restore total peace to the country if their plans are to be revived and realised. Alpha Sow was the head of opposition leader Alpha Condé's presidential campaign in 1998. One project that could be affected by the conflict is the ambitious Sangaredi alumina and energy project, in the north of the country which the Mining Federation's Touré said should attract as much as 2.5 billion dollars a year for several years. The project is designed to produce 240,000 tons of aluminium annually as well as "construction of a 750-megawatt hydroelectric dam and extension of the Friguia alumina factory, which will bring annual production to a million tons per year," he added. Toure conceded, however, that "in the short term, the Sangaredi factory won't be built for at least another four or five years. Everything will depend on efforts by foreign investors ... who are the ones who have promised to finalise the project." The foreign shareholders in the project include the Marubeni and Mitsubishi corporations of Japan (45 percent), Enron, a United States energy firm (20 percent), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the investment arm of the World Bank.The Guinean government is a 15 percent stakeholder. The opposition insist that investor attitude will be determined, in large part, by the state of the conflict and that projects such as the aluminium factory "will never see the light of day unless the country achieves total peace. Otherwise, investors will continue to be hesitant." In the diamond industry, where the great majority of mines are in Guinea's south, particularly in Kerouane, Macenta, Kissidougou, mine officials continue to be guardedly optimistic, in spite of rebel incursions and reprisals by Guinean soldiers at the borders. The optimism is partly because Guinean army has reportedly gained ground and is doing a better job of protecting the safety and security of its people after the international community set up an arms and diamond embargo against Monrovia's leaders. According to Ibrahima Cherif Bah, the governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Guinea, "more than 335,000 carats-worth of diamonds were traded during the year 2000, nearly 43.7 million dollars-worth, 1.3 million of which were collected as taxes by the Guinean treasury." Officially, permits to mine diamonds along 200 to 250 square kilometre expanses can be awarded upon application for maximum of two years to companies that can prove that they have the necessary margin of financial stability. According to the Guinean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hadja Mahawa Bangoura, more than 1,600 people have died since the conflict began. The Guinean side of the war is financed essentially by the government and its western allies, such as the United States and Great Britain.
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