HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF INQUIRY READY TO LAUNCH

UNCLAS CONAKRY 000120 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPT FOR DRL SHARON COOKE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KDEM ASEC GV SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF INQUIRY READY TO LAUNCH INVESTIGATION REF: CONAKRY 0080 ¶1. (SBU) Guinea's Human Rights Commission is planning to officially launch its investigation on May 5 of the human rights abuses allegedly committed by security forces during the civil unrest in early 2007. The president of the Commission, Mounir Houssein Mohamed told Poloff on April 18 that he has finally received a budget, although he is still short about $318,000. Mohamed said that the Guinean Government and France have contributed $318,000 each while the European Union has contributed $175,000. ¶2. (SBU) Mohammed currently plans to have Commission members begin traveling into the interior of country to begin their investigations on May 5. However, he said that transportation is critical. "If the government provides us with vehicles to use, we would no longer be short the remaining $318,000 in funding," he said. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The above information was gleaned from a brief telephone conversation, and Poloff will schedule a meeting soon to discuss the Commission's activities in more depth. To date, lack of budgetary support has been the biggest obstacle for the Commission. Now that they have money, time is likely the next big challenge. The Commission is supposed to release its report by the end of 2008, but in a January meeting (reftel),Mohamed told Poloff that he would be hard pressed to gather and analyze all the necessary information within the required timeline. END COMMENT. CARTER