Camp Boiro Memorial
Human Rights Violations
in the Popular and Revolutionary Republic of Guinea
"Diète Noire"
The "diète noire" is a particularly long drawn out and painful form of execution
consisting of total deprivation of food and water until the death of the prisoner.
Following the major waves of arrests in 1970/1971 and 1976, it was reportedly
applied against prisoners who proved insufficiently "cooperative" during the
torture sessions which accompanied interrogation and who were unwilling to "confess" to
being members of an international conspiracy against the government. Most prisoners
under the "diète noire' reportedly died within 15 days after undergoing extreme
pain and distress. After intense thirst and burning sensations throughout the
body which accompanied the first few days of starvation and deprivation of water,
prisoners are said to have experienced nausea, hallucinations, and fierce pains
in the stomach and intestinal area. According to witnesses, the screams and
groans of dying prisoners could often be heard throughout the prison block at Camp
Boiro.
Shorter periods of deprivation of food and water, usually lasting between three and five days, were systematically applied against newly arriving prisoners at Camp Boiro. Following this treatment, many prisoners were so physically and mentally reduced that they were prepared to "confess" at their first interrogation. Those prisoners who resisted their interrogators or failed to provide "satisfactory confessions'' were frequently tortured and made to suffer further periods of total deprivation of food and water.