Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, the leader of Guinea’s junta, spoke out against Western-style democracy at the 78th UN General Assembly in New York. As proof, he pointed to recent coups across the continent.
Doumbouya took over after President Alpha Condé was removed from office in 2021. He is one of six military leaders who now run coup-hit West and Central African countries.
The others are Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon. The UN and the West have spoken out strongly against the coups. France, in particular, has not recognized the validity of these military juntas and has repeatedly called for the return of the ousted leaders and democracy.
During the meeting, Doumbouya said that their answer was racist and rude. Saying that armed force was needed “to save our country from complete chaos.”
“Africa suffers from a model of government that has been imposed on it,” he said. “This model works well for the West, but it is hard to adapt to our realities, customs, and environment.”
Doumbouya also talked about how Africans were old enough to come up with their own ways of running things. As well as saying that the West was wrong to worry about the foreign relations of African countries. Countries like France have recently had problems with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where the military government has cut ties with France and made ties with Russia stronger.
“Africans are neither for nor against the United States, China, France, Russia, or Turkey,” he said. “They are just for Africa.”
“It’s an insult to put us under the power of this or that. It shows disrespect and racism towards a land with more than 1.3 billion people.” Saying that Africans are “unfairly put in a box” and made to choose sides in an ideological war that has nothing to do with international relations today.
Other African leaders also talked about the relationship between the West and the UN on the continent. For example, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi asked the UN to pull its troops out of his country.
