[INTERVIEW- article translation from the original Portuguese] Siphiweka Baleka, a North-American-Guinean athlete, who represents the national colors in swimming, denounced the existence of a “spider web” of corruption, discrimination and fraud in the swimming federation and at the level of the Guinea Olympic Committee -Bissau, stating that he was the target of betrayal and discrimination in the swimming federation.
“Despite the discrimination and betrayal I was subjected to and the leaders of the federation and the Olympic Committee committed a crime of perjury in international justice to penalize me, I have never regretted choosing Guinea-Bissau, because I am here to fulfill a mission of my ancestors. No matter how complicated this mission is, has risks and all the constraints of this world, I will continue to fight for the swimming federation”, said the athlete, revealing that he was the victim of crimes of fraud, betrayal, discrimination, incompetence and impunity that currently register with the swimming federation in Guinea-Bissau.
Swimmer Siphiweka Baleka is an American athlete who decided to look for his roots in Guinea-Bissau, which through DNA analysis was discovered to belong to the Balanta ethnic group.
The athlete was seen for the first time on the podium at the Men's International Swimming Championship, held in Egypt in October 2019, with the flag of Guinea-Bissau, which read BALANTA and painted his body with paintings from the Balanta ethnic group, that is, from 'Nghayé'. Baleka dominated that championship and won three gold medals in three events.
ATHLETE ACCUSES SÉRGIO MANÉ AS A GREATEST STRANGULATION TO THE MODALITY THAT THE OLYMPIC COMMITTEE REPRESENTS
Siphiweka Baleka stated that he is no longer willing to work with Duarte Ioia and Sérgio Mané, not today, not tomorrow, not ever, because they are “persona non grata”, having pointed out Sérgio Mané as a stranglehold on the sport that the Olympic Committee represents, in particular to the swimming federation.
“I have sent letters to Duarte, the minister of sports and Sérgio himself asking for mediation and reconciliation, but the latter never deigned to respond to a single letter from me. After the legalization of the swimming federation, we requested to participate in a tournament in zone II of West Africa, but Sérgio Mané blocked our attempt and called me an American citizen”, he reported.
In the letter dated April 21, 2022, addressed to the Secretary General of the African Swimming Confederation, Mohamed Diop, the Guinea-Bissau Olympic Committee said it was following with concern the attempt to destabilize the Federation by an American citizen , Siphiweka Baleka, who acquired the Bissau-Guinean nationality that he intended to represent at the Tokyo Olympics, because “he did not understand the eligibility criteria that would allow him to participate in the games”.
In the same letter, the Committee stated that it did not recognize “an entity other than the one headed by Duarte Ioia, whose composition of bodies was with the International Swimming Federation”.
On this subject, Siphiweka Baleka said that Sérgio Mané's attitude reveals how serious the discrimination he suffered from him is and the losses he had to accept because of a person who does not see him progressing in the swimming federation, remembering that he does not committed no fraud or crime to obtain Guinean nationality, but said he assumed that this struggle was not only due to the fact that he was an American citizen, but rather that he identified with the Balanta ethnic group in Guinea-Bissau.
“Sérgio Mané and Mohamed Diop know each other very well and it must have been easy to manipulate him with false information about me and when we traveled to Senegal he simply blocked our participation. If I had participated in Senegal's event with the same time as Ghana's, I would have gotten a medal. It was in the Dakar competition that Pedro Rogeri, 25 years old, was called for the first time to compete for Guinea-Bissau”, he indicated.
Siphiweka Baleka revealed that in the first event in which Pedro Rogeri participated, he was in the last three positions on the list of competitors, did not bring any medal and swam seven seconds later than him, an eternity, which reveals that he has no future.
He said he was stopped, because if he had had the opportunity to represent the country at the Olympic Games, he would have been in the eyes of the international media and would have revealed the strangulations, erotic behavior of managers and the difficulties that athletes in this sport face and this would expose Sérgio Mané.
“But that wasn’t what was at stake. My participation at my age would draw the world's attention and attract investors, but the lack of vision of some managers put me on the inside,” she lamented.
He stated that if he were recognized and if he were entrusted with the leadership of the federation, he would first work to get FINA to recognize him, because with this recognition the federation would benefit from a support program of 30 thousand dollars to scout for new talents throughout the territory. national, organize the first internal competition, mobilize funds from its contacts to finance the sport and support the complete training of 20 athletes, 10 boys and 10 girls who would compete in the next world tournament and the next Olympic games, as well as building a swimming pool quality for internal competitions.
He revealed that he had drawn up a five-year plan that was submitted to the general director of sport and accused Sérgio Mané of hijacking his vision and plans for the swimming sector, because “where do funds come from to take Pedro two more people to compete in a single event, stay in a renowned hotel for six days, including full meals, without results?”
“If it were me, it would have been different. At 50 years of age, I could enter six races and win at least two important medals. Since 1996, Sérgio Mané has always been secretary or president of the Committee. Almost thirty years later, he has had or brought tangible results to the country,” he criticized and said that statistically, the country's participation in world championships and Olympic games is critical.
“In 1996, Guinea-Bissau took three athletes to the Olympic Games, in 2000 three, 2004 three, 2008 three, 2012 four, 2016 five and in 2021 four”, he indicated, highlighting that statistics reveal that there has been no improvement in this sector and that Sérgio Mané put the country in a bad light, because “it is not fair that a person who has not had any performance for almost 30 years remains at the head of the Committee”.
“In Tokyo, the country was represented by 4 athletes plus 12 people. Where did the money come from to support these people’s expenses and vacations? Every four years for almost 30 years, Sérgio just went on vacation, for a walk. He is a member of the federation of Olympic committees that hold their general assemblies each year, which are also holidays. I doubt that the Olympic Committee does not receive money from the International Olympic Committee on behalf of each Federation created. Money that should have been channeled to each federation to execute its program. He never carried out a single activity in Guinea-Bissau. If it's a lie, submit reports. Who received the thirty thousand dollars from the swimming federation, a new federation within the committee? It’s a question that remains for whoever wants to answer them, but I’m sure that Sérgio is capable of anything, of taking the money for his personal interest,” he said.
“IN ADDITION TO BEING OF GUINEASE DESCENDANT, THE GOVERNMENT WANTED HIM TO COMPETE FOR GUINEA-BISSAU”
He revealed that the letter from the Ministry of Justice that approved the naturalization contained two reasons, firstly because he is a Guinean descendant of the Balanta ethnic group, secondly because it was in the national interest for him to represent Guinea-Bissau and he challenged the national authorities to clarify who has the legitimacy to lead the federation.
“We have a certificate from the Ministry of Justice that recognizes us as representatives of the federation, also from the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports, only the Olympic Committee has been outside of all guidelines, due to signs of corruption. The Committee filed a complaint against me, but so far there has been no decision, because the judge handling the case was being accused of corruption in another case and left the country. There is impunity and lack of justice,” he said.
Siphiweka Baleka said that she filed a criminal complaint with the International Sports Court based in Switzerland, against the president of the Guinea-Bissau Olympic Committee and that of the Swimming Federation, Sérgio Mané and Duarte Ioia respectively, for being complicit in the registration of the Guinean athlete, Pedro Rogeri, who participated, on behalf of Guinea-Bissau, in the last swimming world championship in Doha, Qatar.
He said that he has been a victim, for two years, of discrimination and attempted exclusion by the directors of the Swimming Federation and the Olympic Committee, remembering that, as a national athlete, his rights were violated and prevented from competing for Guinea-Bissau.
Siphiweka Baleka said he was surprised why, as interim president of the federation, he was not informed of Pedro Rogeri's call to represent the country in an international event without his knowledge and accused Duarte Ioia and Sérgio Mané of complicity in the appointment of this 25-year-old athlete. age.
“In a country where rules and institutions work, before nominating an athlete to represent their country, there must first be a national championship to choose the best and fastest athletes in this sport. If there was an intention to nominate him, why wasn't I contacted? What criteria were used that led to the choice of Pedro Rogeri? All of this leads me to conclude that I am being discriminated against, which is why I filed a complaint against these gentlemen”, he clarified.
In the interview, he displayed several documents, including one where the invitation to come and represent Guinea-Bissau was formulated and that he would have all the necessary support to do so and the letter from the Olympic Committee which was addressed on the same day and signed by Sérgio Mané, president of the organization.
The naturalized Guinean athlete, who represented Guinea-Bissau twice, in Egypt in a qualifying tournament for the Tokyo Olympics and in the 14th edition of the African competition tournament in Ghana, revealed that the two entities had made a commitment to help him. you to achieve your goals, Tokyo Olympics.
“It was at that time that the former Secretary of State for Sports, Dionísio do Reino Pereira, sent me a letter informing me that my naturalization process had been started so that I could compete in the Tokyo Olympic Games”, he clarified.
He informed that after all the promises he received from the national authorities and from Duarte Ioia and Sérgio Mané, he publicly expressed, in the United States of America, his intention to take up residence in Guinea-Bissau and, in two weeks, after the announcement, practically dominated the covers of the American sports press and The dropped the Sport to Drive Semis, which led a group of people and the Association of North American Retirees to announce support for his decision.
“After this announcement, I went on television in a national program seen by many people. It was then that I received several sponsorship proposals, including a ten thousand dollar contract signed with a group of American retirees”, he said, clarifying that they knew it would not be easy to get a gold medal in this competition, but they still bet on me. person and I was the subject of news in the local media, because I would be the oldest swimmer in Olympic history at fifty years of age, the first African American to represent his country of origin in the Olympic Games and above all, the first Guinean athlete to represent the country at the Olympic Games.
“There would be three of my legacies that would attract funds to Guinea-Bissau. It was precisely this that motivated many people to announce support and investments and I decided to leave my family, a wife and my two children, and my company to take up residence here in Bissau. The contract with the retiree would be to prepare a documentary of my entire preparation, from the United States of America, Guinea-Bissau and up to the Olympic Games. After the Olympic Games, the documentary would be released followed by a series of interviews and speeches around the world, to show my performance that despite being fifty years old I still have the physical conditions to compete at a high level. The documentary had been paid for and each interview would also be paid for by the retirees”, he clarified and said that he had received, under this contract, an estimated amount of six thousand dollars, which he invested in his trip and in the first weeks of his stay in Guinea-Bissau. .
According to Siphiweka Baleka, the remaining amount was blocked because he had not participated in the Tokyo Olympics, not because of incapacity and because he also concluded that at the organizational level, the country had not done anything for an athlete of his level, there are no swimming pools for his preparation, remembering that in order to participate it was necessary for the country to submit a request for Universality and it did so, for the first time, on June 17, 2021 with the signatures of Duarte Ioia and Sérgio Mané and it was submitted on June 27, 2021. same year, it was submitted before the deadline.
He said he was surprised by the decision of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), because the event in which he would participate was not a competition that gave access to qualification for the Olympic Games, which is why the document was rejected and rejected.
He maintained that in order not to miss this opportunity he had to respond in a hurry before the 27th of June, the deadline, so that he could participate on the 26th of the same month in Ghana in one of the events that would give the country a passport to the Olympic Games, because he wants Neither Duarte Ioia nor Aniceto Bernardo speak French or English.
For Siphiweka Baleka, these constraints reveal that the two have no experience in swimming nor contacts in regional, continental and international organizations, remembering that the contacts and their own intention for Guinea-Bissau began when in 2019 they won, in a personal capacity, at an event held in Egypt, he received six gold medals, displaying the flag of Guinea-Bissau, which led the newspaper O Democrat to choose him as Figure of the Week in one of its editions.
“After my participation in this event, I met people, made contacts and at the next event, a national competition, I asked to be allowed to represent Guinea-Bissau. My 2019 performance influenced the organizers. The Egyptian federation asked the Guinea-Bissau federation to send my registration form that I could participate in Egypt and that's where I met Duarte Ioia and Sérgio Mané. They gave me the email and pass to fill out the document that accredited me as a Guinean athlete. I went and competed”, he stated and stressed that after the country submitted the second registration, FINA rejected it with the argument that the deadline for depositing the Universality registration was the 20th, not the 27th of June 2021.
“On all FINA platforms there was no deadline of June 20th, only the 27th. I asked Sérgio Mané that we appeal to a court against FINA's behavior because the deadline of the 20th was not on any of that organization's platforms, but it didn't help. My whole life, family, business depended on my participation in the Tokyo Olympics and because it was also our right to complain about what FINA was doing to penalize Guinea-Bissau and me”, he revealed.
The athlete informed that after all this story, he consulted the FINA documents and discovered that he alone, without the Swimming Federation, could file a lawsuit and he did so with the help of some of his fans, because he needed a thousand dollars and in The next phase of the process would have to pay 20 thousand dollars, which were assumed by a production company that would have the right to make a documentary about the athlete about his life and his participation in Tokyo and part of this documentary would be from Guinea-Bissau, including all necessary details.
“It was a case against FINA, not the Guinea-Bissau Olympic Committee. All parties had to present evidence and at the evidence discovery session, a letter appeared from the Swimming Federation of Guinea-Bissau written in French saying that, from June 21st to July 8th, the federation's email had been violated and that it was not the federation that had control of the mail. FINA asked for information about the email violation, so far it has not received anything from Duarte or Sérgio,” he said.
According to the athlete, it was at that time that the Court announced that it would publish its decision on July 28, two days before his first competition in Tokyo, so he had to be in Japan beforehand and if the decision was favorable he could compete, but given the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic he had difficulties, but thanks to his supporters he managed to pay for his trip.
“I was accredited as a Guinean athlete, because the Guinea-Bissau Olympic Committee had included my name on the national caravan list. In Tokyo, I was not allowed to travel because my badge had been cancelled. I remained there for six days at the airport on my own, waiting for the day of judgment, which unfortunately was not in my favor. No one from Guinea-Bissau intervened to resolve my situation”, he reported.
He admitted that one of the reasons that led him to lose justice are two letters, one of nullity of all documents and another of violation of the e-mail, sent by the Committee to FINA, but he seems reticent about the legality of the decision and the clarity of the process, because “how do Sérgio Mané and Duarte Ioia explain their signatures on one of the documents that call my evidence into question, above all original signatures with stamps in use at that institution, they only know about the email violation?” .
He said he did not doubt that the fraud started in Guinea-Bissau with the complicity of the three elements, namely Duarte Ioia, Sérgio Mané and Aniceto José Bernardo, however he cleared Duarte Ioia of this matter because he did not have knowledge of technology.
He accused Sérgio Mané of having instructed Duarte to act in this way against himself and commit perjury before the courts, stating that despite his complicity in the case, Duarte Ioia humbly decided to apologize to him, because “he was embarrassed by everything that happened around me, he took responsibility for the history of Japan and helped me compete at a continental level so that I could have access to the world swimming tournament that would be in October 2021.”
“After my participation in the tournament in Ghana, Duarte Ioia made his position available on October 25, 2021 and appointed me as the interim president of the Swimming Federation until the organization's General Assembly takes place. The federation didn't even have a legal personality, it was just on paper and it seemed that the support Duarte received from the Olympic Committee was legitimate. When I took on the role on an interim basis, I informed the minister of sports and FINA that we were in a process of revitalizing the organization and renewing the social bodies”, he indicated.
He said that it was from that moment that he knew that nothing had been done internally about swimming and he committed himself to legalizing the federation in Guinea-Bissau and, consequently, FINA, but surprisingly he received a letter from Duarte Ioia saying that he had resumed the its functions, because “I was unable to fulfill my promise to organize the organization’s statutes and hold the General Assembly”.
One of the arguments presented by Duarte Ioia to make his position available to which O Democrat had access in one of the documents he consulted is that he would appoint Siphiweka Baleka as interim president, submitting his figure for approval by the competent bodies.
In reaction, the athlete revealed that he managed to draw up the statutes that were entered on January 29, 2022, as well as holding the General Assembly in March of the same year, one of his missions.
It should be noted that the sports section and the editorial team of O Democrat contacted the general secretary of the Guinea-Bissau Olympic Committee, Eugénio de Oliveira Lopes, to react to the allegations that were made, but he told us that he would need to contact the president first of the body, Sérgio Mané, before reacting.
By: Filomeno Sambú
Photo: Aguinaldo Ampa
Having received no justice from either the Republic of Guinea Bissau or World Aquatics, President Baleka filed a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (see below).
