CONAKRY (AFP) — As Guinea marks 50 years of independence the victims of dictator Ahmed Sekou Toure have lost faith that the torturers of their loved ones will ever stand trial and can only hope they will recognise their crimes and ask forgiveness.
During the reign of Sekou Toure, Guinea's father of independence turned dictator, between 1958 and 1984 some 50,000 people were killed or disappeared, presumed dead, according to figures from human rights organisations.
"We want the torturers to ask for forgiveness because we don't believe in a trial anymore as those who committed the crimes are dying one by one," Nene Ami Diallo, daughter of one of the victims from the infamous Boiro camp, told AFP.
The name of Boiro, a former military camp on the outskirts of Conakry, has become synonymous with the worst atrocities of Toure's regime. Thousands of dissidents, real or imagined, were held there in horrific conditions, tortured and often killed.
"We have fought to see the Guinean authorities, at least those who participated in Sekou Toure's revolution, recognise their crimes," Cherif Haïdara, whose father was imprisoned for eight years and died shortly after being set free in 1978, told AFP.
"To this day none (of the torturers) were identified and even fewer people want to acknowledge the heritage of the former regime," he explained.
Another daughter of a Boiro camp victim wants to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Guinea like the one set up in South Africa to explore crimes committed during the apartheid regime.
"So that the people admit what they did and demand forgiveness and the others can accept it," Madani Tall said.
The Guinean Association of Victims and Widows of Boiro (AGVCB), which includes camp survivors and relatives of those who were killed or disappeared, also say a plea for forgiveness from the torturers would help a national reconciliation.
According to AGVCB head Fode Marega, reconciliation would come after "identification of mass graves, returning of the bodies, the setting up of memorials for those who disappeared, rehabilitation of all of the victims, an acknowledgement of all the wrongs that were committed and a plea for forgiveness from the torturers."
"National reconciliation will come only after rehabilitation and the plea for a pardon," he stressed.
The victims are shocked that the West African country prepares to celebrate its half-century Thursday without talking about the tens if thousands of people killed under Toure's regime.
"It is unforgivable that we are organising seminars and historians and experts debate about 50 years of independence for Guinea and they do not invite anybody from the victims' association," Marega said.
On Thursday, when the celebrations are in full swing, the victims and families of victims of Boiro will come together at the Nongo mass grave site in Conakry to mark one of the darkest pages in Guinean history.
Sekou Toure, a trade union leader, led the only French African colony to opt for independence from Paris instead of membership of a commonwealth proposed by Charles de Gaulle, making him a hero among African nationalists.
The angry French president cut off aid to Guinea, and Sekou Toure became increasingly dictatorial as his one-party Marxist regime failed to bring development to a country.
Although ties with France were renewed later on in his rule and he renounced Marxism the country was in economic collapse when he died in 1984. He was succeeded by Lansana Conte, the current president, who took power in a coup.
While the country has vast mineral wealth with bauxite, iron, gold and uranium deposits, most of its nine million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day.
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