With Obama as President, U.S. Words Have New Weight in Guinea - NYTimes.com

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By ADAM NOSSITER

CONAKRY, Guinea — The Club Obama does not look like much, just a square thatched-roof platform jutting out to the ocean where jembe music, beer and the young mix at the edge of the pungent Boulbinet fish market.

Soldiers gather there, too, particularly the feared Red Berets; a notorious military camp is within view. Everybody, it seems, wants to relax under the sign of the American president.

There is no Club Sarkozy nearby in this sweltering, squalid capital; in West Africa, the French president cannot compete at present, despite his country’s historic connections as the former colonial power here. Right now, in this volatile region, mere mention of being from America — Obama’s America — is enough to avert an armed soldier’s grim gaze, defuse a mob’s anger, soften an unyielding border guard or lower the demands from ubiquitous bribe-seeking policemen.

The president’s name, freshly painted, appears above a barbershop, a grocery, a school, even tire stores here, as well as the cabaret in Boulbinet. In a leading bookstore downtown, a full-scale poster of Obama looks out from behind a closed door, a visual echo of the sentiments of those who go in to discuss politics.

The implications of this new American authority in an unfamiliar spot received a tryout last week, when the Obama administration sent a senior diplomat here to condemn the massacre of dozens of unarmed civilians protesting Guinea’s military government in September. They seem clear: America punches above its weight, in a part of the world that it has hitherto left to the French. The United States, with few practical sticks to beat the junta, nonetheless has a moral authority in the streets that the big-dog French do not match.

But there is another competitor for influence here, the Chinese, who are seen as supporting the junta, particularly after the junta said it had recently reached an agreement with a Chinese company that could provide it with up to $7 billion in infrastructure. The quid pro quo was not specified, but China is known to be interested in the country’s bauxite and other minerals.

China has not yet confirmed the deal, but analysts said it was a potential boost to the junta and a setback to China’s push to be seen as a responsible competitor for natural resources.

“What happened in Guinea was extreme in terms of its violence and cruelty,” said Princeton N. Lyman, a former American diplomat in Africa who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, so China could become “something of a target in a way they haven’t been for some time.”

The deal arrived amid a wave of popular anger and restiveness that preceded the massacre, fueled by years of lockdown by repressive governments. Guinea’s army has fired on demonstrators before, yet tens of thousands risked their lives by amassing at a soccer stadium last month to protest the junta, which seized power after the death of the nation’s longtime strongman, Lansana Conté, late last year.

On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court in The Hague confirmed that it was looking into the killings.

“We don’t accept it anymore,” said Sow Baïlo, a Guinean actor and intellectual with a wide following. “That’s why we went to the stadium.”

In that context, the tough American stance against the government, as enunciated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, carried a special weight.

“After the declaration of Hillary Clinton, the people regained confidence in themselves,” said Mamadi Kaba, president of the Guinean branch of the African Assembly for Human Rights. “It was a very powerful symbol. People understood that they had not been abandoned.”

There were indications that the junta itself understood the potency of the American position.

When William Fitzgerald, deputy assistant secretary of state, delivered an unusual personal dressing-down to the junta leader, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, the reaction was not sputtering rage, as it had been after tough words from the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. Instead, the volatile officer listened with apparent calm. He kept the American envoy an hour beyond the appointed 60-minute meeting, while repeating his justifications for the massacre and asserting his lack of responsibility.

“We were there for two hours,” Mr. Fitzgerald said afterward. “I was quite uncomfortable.”

Captain Camara kept senior African officials waiting outside, in particular Burkina Faso’s president, Blaise Compaoré, who had just been sent as a mediator by other West African states.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s message to the captain was that the United States held him responsible for the killings, that he was becoming a “pariah” and that he should not run in coming elections.

But the officer, though visibly ill at ease, only rapped the table a few times, according to people who were there.

Similarly, when Mrs. Clinton said the next day that she was “appalled” by the “vile violation of the rights of the people” in Guinea, Captain Camara had nothing to say, publicly at least. But when Mr. Kouchner called for an international intervention force, the captain angrily said, “Guinea is not a subprefecture, is not a neighborhood in France.”

The differing reactions were not lost on local observers. Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, an opposition leader, said Captain Camara “dared to defy France, but he didn’t dare defy the U.S.”

“America is a power that counts,” Mr. Diallo said. “You can’t turn your back on them.”

Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Paris, and Michael Wines from Beijing.