The InterDependent

CONAKRY – The president of Guinea, military junta leader Gen. Sekouba Konate, has declared a state of emergency throughout the country after spates of violence between supporters of Cellou Dalein Diallo, those of Alpha Conde and security forces since Monday.

The West African country’s electoral commission proclaimed the longtime opposition leader Alpha Conde the winner of the Nov. 7 presidential vote, with 52.52 percent of the runoff poll edging out the former prime minister, Cellou Dalein Diallo.

Diallo has rejected the results, contending that the vote was marred by widespread fraud and has demanded the cancellation of ballots from the eastern towns of Siguiri and Kouroussa, where the Peul ethnic group, Diallo supporters, had been forcefully displaced two weeks before the vote.

Joe Penney

A supporter of the presidential election winner, Alpha Conde, in Conakry after voting results were announced.

Eyewitnesses in the Peul-majority neighborhoods of Hamdallaye, Cosa and Bambeto in the capital are reporting heavy gunfire from the military, who have been given the authority to roam the city streets armed with automatic weapons.

Diallo told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the government was targeting his supporters from the Peul ethnic group, and that if the violence continued he would call on his supporters to “defend themselves.”

Political analysts are worried that violence between Guinea's ethnic groups could spread across borders to such neighbors as Sierra Leone and Liberia, countries that are both recovering from civil wars.

The United Nations urged the country to accept the election results for the country's first democratic presidential vote since it became independent in 1958, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Guineans in a statement to “to resolve any differences through legal means.”