The Upside of Guinea Massacre

From Africa Confidential:

Blamed for the massacre of over 100 civilians last September, the junta in Conakry is trying to improve its image via a United States-based public relations company run by two former Department of Defense officials. David Crane, who was the first Chief Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone before his departure in 2005, has made a surprise return to West Africa as a consultant to Guinea’s embattled military junta.

Crane, together with the Special Court’s former Chief Investigator, fellow US citizen Alan White, has set up a consultancy called CW Group International. According to a copy of a report written by CW Group International obtained by Africa Confidential, the Guinean government engaged its services on 15 October 2009, some three weeks after the 28 September massacre at Conakry’s national sports stadium that brought international notoriety to the government. The agreement was for CW Group to conduct “a confidential investigation into the recent allegations of shootings and sexual assaults” at the stadium…

In its report, CW doubts that there are grounds for international legal action against the perpetrators of the stadium killings. There can be no question of war crimes since these events were not part of an internal or international armed conflict, they note.