Papers show what lay behind Condé regime’s Ebola denialism in Guinea

Greater than 11,300 individuals died when the Ebola virus ripped by way of three West African international locations — Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia — from 2014 to 2016. It was the worst Ebola outbreak in identified historical past.

However the variations in responses to the outbreak, significantly in its early phases, have been puzzling. Whereas the outbreak worsened in the course of the March-October 2014 interval, Liberia and Sierra Leone emphatically sought international help. They and different states highlighted the hazard the virus posed to native, regional and international stability. Guinea’s response, in distinction, was to downplay the epidemic. President Alpha Condé insisted his authorities had the outbreak below management.

Because it’s one of many poorest international locations on the earth, with little infrastructure, and nearly no well being infrastructure, why would anybody consider President Condé’s assertion?

For me, this response didn’t seem like in step with the severity of the outbreak, its potential financial destruction, the final dangers to the inhabitants, and Guinea’s general stability.

I made a decision to search out out why Guinea reacted this manner. And I concluded that the explanation was worry that Ebola would panic buyers. Condé’s preliminary response was indicative of a sample amongst some leaders to prioritise the notion of political and financial well being as a substitute of the well being of their residents. As within the present pandemic, this sample is just not distinctive to Guinea or to the Ebola outbreak

Behind Guinea’s Ebola denialism

In October 2014, I filed a Freedom of Data Act request with the US Departments of State and Protection for data and communiqués associated to the Ebola outbreak from the US embassies in Conakry, Freetown and Monrovia.

Learn extra: Marburg in Guinea: the worth of classes from managing different haemorrhagic outbreaks

After three years of prodding and ready, each businesses delivered units of paperwork that confirmed a blunt evaluation of occasions in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the course of the March-October 2014 interval.

However Condé informed US embassy officers that Guinea had the outbreak below management. The paperwork introduced a sequence of communiqués that supplied assessments of the Ebola outbreaks within the three international locations in the course of the March-October 2014 interval. The assessments have been supplied by excessive rating US embassy employees, as much as the extent of US ambassadors.

What I discovered confirmed President Condé’s downplaying of the outbreak. It additionally revealed certainly one of his potential motives in doing so.

The story these paperwork informed revealed coverage failures that had their roots in each Guinea’s underdevelopment and within the deeply corrupt relationship between mining pursuits and the federal government.

If you wish to perceive what a authorities’s priorities are, an examination of its price range spending may also help. In 2017, the most recent out there knowledge indicated that Guinea spent solely 4.1% of its authorities price range on healthcare. Nevertheless it spent 10.2% of its price range on its army. That quantity declined in 2020 to eight.2%, however was nonetheless double the healthcare expenditures.

Learn extra: Ebola strikes West Africa once more: key questions and classes from the previous

Total, Guinea ranks 178 out of 189 international locations on the World Financial institution’s Human Growth Index. The index is a composite measure of well being, schooling and earnings. It’s used as a measure of human poverty and functionality that extends past simply earnings.

Guinea’s mining pursuits additionally performed a job. Because the Ebola epidemic was unfolding in March 2014 – after the Guinean authorities acknowledged the presence of the virus – corruption scandals and mining contract points that had been simmering since Condé took workplace lastly boiled up.

Condé’s authorities wanted extra buyers to develop Guinea’s mining sector. The nation is house to the world’s largest provide of high-grade bauxite, the important thing element within the making of aluminium, and one of many world’s largest untapped iron ore deposits.

For Condé, the chance to advance this and different initiatives got here with the primary US-Africa Leaders Summit held in Washington in August 2014. The summit was essential for kick-starting a brand new spherical of funding after the earlier regime’s mining preparations collapsed.

The Guinean delegation to the convention – the one one of many three Ebola-stricken international locations to attend – defined that they thought the heightened consideration accorded to Ebola within the run-up to the summit would unfairly refuel Guinea’s picture as “too dangerous” and may scare off buyers.

Whereas the summit produced assist in the Ebola disaster, Condé additionally carried out excessive stage conferences with mining buyers to debate over US$20 billion in investments.

Ebola denialism in Guinea had its roots in a worry that Ebola would panic buyers. On August 14, 2014 after the US summit, Condé ordered a nationwide well being emergency, months after the outbreak was declared. The delay in casting Ebola as a nationwide emergency in Guinea contributed to rising an infection charges and deaths within the nation.

Quest for energy trumps public welfare

Condé’s strategy to the Ebola disaster and his courting of enterprise and mining pursuits continued a historical past of African leaders who make use of extraversion methods. These methods enable elites to marshal sources and funds which might be derived from their exterior international relationships. Such leaders have opened their economies to buyers, letting them divert sources for corrupt functions that reach their political and financial management within the state.

Such insurance policies supplied the premise for Condé to consolidate energy by way of a stronger patrimonial community and tighter private and familial management over the nation’s mining pursuits. That management gave him confidence when he sought to increase his time in workplace past the constitutionally prescribed two phrases.

Condé obtained a 3rd time period in workplace in 2020. However his authorities was overthrown in a army coup in September 2021. The coup chief, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, cited Condé’s lack of management, his corruption, and Guinea’s lack of improvement as motivation.

Learn extra: Guinea coup highlights the weaknesses of West Africa’s regional physique

Guinea’s lack of improvement, although not new, is especially poignant because the nation strikes by way of its present COVID-19 wave, with little or no enchancment in its fundamental and medical infrastructure. Notably, Doumbouya was fast to guarantee mining buyers that their contracts have been protected.

Future unsure

Condé’s pursuit of mining pursuits in the course of the Ebola disaster could have foreshadowed his demise as he tightened his grip over energy and plundered the state’s wealth, as many earlier than him did.

Learn extra: Guinea has a protracted historical past of coups: listed here are 5 issues to know concerning the nation

Whereas Guinea’s individuals have been pleased to see him go, the nation’s historical past of corrupt leaders and chronic underdevelopment imply hope for actual change could also be a dream below a brand new army regime.

Robert Ostergard, Jr, Affiliate Professor of Political Science, College of Nevada, Reno, College of Nevada, Reno

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