Cowed Guinea opposition running out of options
* Population wary of demonstrations after Sept. 28 killings
* Opposition calls for transitional government
By Daniel Magnowski and Saliou Samb
CONAKRY, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Opponents of Guinea's ruling military junta, intimidated by the killing of more than 150 protesters at a rally on Sept. 28, are finding themselves toothless in the face of a violent and repressive regime.
Popular opposition to de facto head of state Captain Moussa Dadis Camara and his junta, the National Council for Democracy and Development, has never been stronger, but is unlikely to manifest itself as mass action amid fear any new demonstrations will be put down just as brutally.
"Since the massacre, people are scared," said Benjamin Toure, an artist who moved to Guinea from Sierra Leone in 1999 to escape the violence there. "Anything can happen. Lots of soldiers are drunk, and most of them think that to be a soldier is to make people scared of them," he said.
Opposition parties in the world's biggest bauxite exporter have consistently called on the CNDD, which staged a coup after President Lansana Conte died last December, to hold elections and give guarantees that Camara would not stand in them.
Those killed on Sept. 28 were marching to demand that Dadis -- as most Guineans call the junta leader -- make just that commitment. But the welter of political parties, trade unions and civil society groups ranged against the CNDD have learned that fighting a military junta that appears willing to kill unarmed protesters is an unequal battle.
"We don't have weapons, but we have the people behind us," Mohamed Diane, executive secretary of the Assembly of Guinean People (RPG), the country's biggest opposition party, told Reuters. "All we can do is to mobilise and to continue to exert pressure internally and externally."
International measures taken against Guinea include arms embargos and the freezing of assets of some junta members by the European Union and the African Union. France has halted cooperation with Guinean institutions and suspended funding of a highway project.
Dadis has denied responsibility for the killings, pointing the finger at rogue elements in the army.
PROTEST SONG
Most opposition hopes rest on talks which began this week in Ouagadougou, mediated by Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore and backed by the international community.
Guinea's opposition umbrella group has called for the junta to step down and be replaced by a six-month transitional government before elections -- obviating a January poll deadline set by the CNDD.
But inside Guinea there is little opposition pressure that can be brought to bear on Dadis and his presidential guard, who sport the red berets, camouflage gear and aviator shades that have become associated with the junta.
However, reports of rifts within the junta suggest the main threat to Camara could be from the men in uniform. Camara himself has said that if he steps down, someone else in the military will take his place.
Since Sept. 28, pro-democracy groups have called for several national days of absenteeism from work, but the mining operations that provide a great chunk of the nation's income have been largely unaffected, and the CNDD has shown no sign of being dislodged.
Anti-military feeling has, however, found expression in a popular song by reggae artist Elie Kamano, running: "Mister soldier, leave power, mister soldier, hand over power ÃÂÃÂ
the people have had enough, the youth have had enough, our mothers have had enough."
The junta, despite its sensitivity to criticism, has not banned the song, but Kamano has left the country since recording it. For some Guineans, singing along with a protest song is the only means of registering their dissatisfaction, given there is little appetite for more public marches against the CNDD.
"For years in Guinea, the opposition that protests, they get killed," said Camara Oumar, a 35-year old unemployed man who lives in Dixinn, a densely-populated part of the capital city. "The soldiers kill their own people."
Artist Toure, who said he had seen bloodied victims of the Sept. 28 violence, said: "If there is another one I won't go, because I fear what will happen to me." (Additional reporting by Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou; Editing by Richard Valdmanis)
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