Country Guinea Local time Sunday 8:48 PM Prefecture Dubréka Prefecture | Region Kindia Region Population 16,030 (2008) | |
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Weather 28°C, Wind SW at 11 km/h, 82% Humidity | ||
Tondon is a town in western Guinea. It is located in Dubreka Prefecture in the Kindia Region. Population 16,030 (2008 est). It lies about 180 kilometeres from Conakry.
Contents
Map of Tondon, Guinea
History
Tondon was the administrative headquarters of the Labaya canton. The town became controversial in the 1950s when a local governor Alamamy David Sylla attempted to resist Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA) party attempts at controlling the town. In June 1954 it was reported that Sylla had rigged the elections by confiscating the votes from the people of Tondon and deliberately increasing those by the RDA opponents.
The atmosphere in the town grew tense in January 1955 when a veteran of World War II, Thierno Camara who served as the local RDA leader was arrested with eight other militants. Sylla who managed to get them arrested claimed that they had abused official functions and had squandered local taxes, affecting the income of the canton chiefs.
On February 8, 1955, Sylla visited a village six kilometres away at Bembaya to collect taxes. The villages put up a protest claiming that the village chiefs had already collected the taxes and had already sent the funds to the circle commandments. Furious that the money had bypassed him, Sylla and his men demanded that the locals pay again and attempted to bind and beat the locals. A brigade of local village women put up significant resistance and managed to overpower Sylla and confiscate his gun and badge, forcing him to return to Tondon and following him back.
The following morning, a squadron of military officers from Conakry arrived with around 40 auxiliaries to arrest the local RDA officers and rearrest Camara. Around 800 locals, including many of the women from the village of Bembaya put up a resistance to the squadron, pelting them with stones as the arrest meant they would have to repay their taxes as Sylla had demanded. During the riot the police used tear grenades to attempt to disperse the crowd and Sylla was reported to have used his sabre and lashed out at the crowd. Around 37 were injured. As the riot continued outside in the streets of Tondon Sylla invaded the home of Thierno Camara, and stabbed his 26-year-old pregnant wife M'Balia with his sabre in the stomach. M'Balia Camara had been one of the local women on the committee of the RDA. Local RDA women took the wounded M'Balia to hospital and despite attempts to treat the wound, the baby was still-born three days later on February 11, 1955. Thierno Camara who was still imprisoned was prevented from ever attending the funeral.