In the latest flare up, precipitated by the sacking of former Prime Minster Lansana Kouyate by the ailing Guinean strongman General Lansana Conte, soldiers rampaged in the capital Conakry, looting shops, robbing civilians and firing in the air. Former premier Kouyate was a compromise candidate put forward to appease the soldiers in 2007 during another major military unrest.

The soldiers are angry over the non-payment of salary arrears, some as far back as 1996, and are also angry over the many broken promises by their government over the years. Some of these soldiers served in the West African Peace Monitoring Group ECOMOG in the decade of the 1990's in Liberia.

In a strange response to this intractable military unrests, the lame-duck President Conte has responded by sacking top officials of his government, re-arranging the political deck, making more promises and then going back to "bed."

Guinea has enjoyed relative "peace" since President Conte seized power in 1984, after the sudden death of President Sekou Toure. But this peace can only be described as an "enforced peace" perhaps tragically described as the "absence of war" in this instance.

In its just released 2008 State of the World' Human Rights Report, the United Kingdom- based Amnesty International charged that amidst crippling economic woes, there is arbitrary detentions, unlawful killings, torture, violence against women and attack on free expression in the Conte administration.

At a recent meeting with Liberia's Vice President Joseph Boakai, the Country Director of the International Foundation for Election System in Guinea, Elizabeth Kotty, said Guinea had not been able to organize free and fair elections since the formation of its Electoral Commission. This was a stunning admission by all account but not a surprise.

The latest sacking of the former Prime Minister puts into question international non-governmental organizations and donor's continued commitment to working with the Conte government. The opposition and trade unions have been brow-beaten and stomped into ineffectiveness.

It is incumbent on the regional bodies like ECOWAS, the Mano River Union, and the African Union to ignore the principle of "non-interference" in the domestic affairs of member states, a tenet of the powerless and now erstwhile Organization of African Unity, and stage a robust "political intervention" to save Guinea from itself before all hell breaks loose with the sudden incapacitation of President Conte.

We salute the resilience of Guineans, who have so far chosen to avoid the illegal, violent and undemocratic change of their government as a response to the national malaise plaguing their country. Guinea has so far avoided the plague of external and internal threats and conflict, largely because its people have forged a strong national identity and resource upon which they draw when faced with threats to their national fabric.

But we strongly believe that Guineans must be made whole with the experience of exercising their God-given right of freedom and their civil responsibility of one man one vote in a free, fair and transparent election.