24 injured in clash between rival Guinea parties (AP)

CONAKRY, Guinea � At least 24 people were injured when members of Guinea's rival political parties began throwing rocks at each other following a campaign event Saturday, said a campaign official and a doctor at the hospital where the injured were being treated.

The violent clash is one more sign of escalating tension ahead of next week's historic election, which many had hoped would mark a turning point for the troubled country that has known only authoritarian rule since winning independence from France in 1958.

Souleymane Diallo, a spokesman for the Union for the Democratic Forces of Guinea, or UFDG, says that their female supporters were returning from a meeting when supporters of the opposing Rally of the Guinean People, or RPG, began throwing rocks at them and a brawl broke out.

"We were coming back from a meeting of pro-UFDG women, which had been held at the presidential palace, when a group of people started throwing rocks at us," said UFDG supporter Marietou Balde. "We started throwing rocks back at them, and it degenerated. People were injured."

A doctor at Donka Hospital, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed that 24 people had been brought in with injuries, including open gashes.

Cellou Dalein Diallo, the UFDG candidate and a former prime minister, received 44 percent of the vote during the first round of voting in June. He is facing off against the RPG's Alpha Conde, an aging university professor and longtime opposition leader who got 18 percent during the first voting cycle.

Tension between the two is rooted in Guinea's ethnic divide, which has always hovered just below the surface of the country's politics.

Diallo is a Peul, the country's largest ethnic group, which has never had one of its own in power.

Last year, the Peul were explicitly targeted during an army-led massacre of opposition supporters inside the national soccer stadium. Women that had Peul features were dragged to the ground and raped, said survivors including women who were from other ethnic groups and who said that they tried to convince their aggressors that they were not Peul.

Although Conde spent decades as an icon of the opposition, he is a Malinke � a group heavily represented in the army, as well as in the junta blamed for the Sept. 29 massacre.

__

Associated Press Writer Rukmini Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal.

Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds