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 CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) - Mohamed Conte mostly ignored his West African country's politics until a week ago. That's when soldiers guarding a presidential convoy spotted him on a roadside, and shot him." The government wants to kill me," the 62-year-old farmer says with shock in his voice, as he lies in a hospital ward full of gunshot victims, most with similar stories. Now Conte, his leg wrapped from toe to thigh, says he's had enough. "If someone shot you in your foot, would you continue to support him?" he asks.
For 23 years, Guineans have mostly accepted President Lansana Conte, who seized power with a promise of reform but delivered little but poverty and corruption. Citizens have been robbed of the benefits from the country's riches, including half the world's bauxite — the raw material of aluminum — iron ore, gold and diamonds.
Guineans complained but saw stability as preferable to the bloody civil wars in neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, or the rebellions of the Ivory Coast. The president, said to be 73, has been re-elected in contests widely regarded as rigged, and he changed the constitution to eliminate term limits.
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