I've read Rio Tinto's convention with the Government ... which was signed by the President, ratified by the National Assembly, and became Guinean law back in 2003! It contains clear provisions giving them the right (and the obligation) to build the infrastructure required to export the ore from Simandou, ie. the rail and the port. Early construction is due to start later this year, with full-blown construction starting in 2010. Their PR sucks, but their operation is as solid as it gets in Guinea.
Part of the confusion here is that there are two "Trans-Guinean" railways. There is the old French colonial railway from Conakry to Kankan, which is basically a narrow-gauge passenger railway that hasn't functioned for decades, and then there is the dedicated heavy-haul iron ore railway that Rio Tinto is building in the south to link Simandou to a new port (which it is also building). To get the kind of export volume required to make this level of investment (ie. >$5bn capex) viable, you need a dedicated heavy-haul line that you can squeeze maximum efficiency out of, which means no passenger service and no unpredictable third-party operators, just one long train full of ore after another, 24hrs a day, tightly integrated with the mine and the port, which means they must build/maintain/operate it all themselves. To balance the lack of public access to their iron ore railway, they are also helping to fund rehabilitation of the old Conakry-Kankan passenger railway and upgrading the local roads.
Balla Keita / Comitrag / UMNG have no rights and no credibility in Guinea. The only possible way in which they could obtain the rights they claim would be through corrupt means ... following which they would fail to deliver either the financing or the infrastructure they promised.
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