Encyclopedia of African History.
Kevin Shillington, ed. Vol. 1. New York & London. Fitzroy Dearborn,
p. 604-605
During the night of March 25, 1984, the president of Guinea, Sékou Touré, “Responsable Suprême de la Révolution” (Supreme Chief of the Revolution), died at age sixty-two of a heart attack in a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. His death provoked a harsh struggle for succession and an atmosphere of political insecurity. One week later, the Guinean army seized power by force in order to avoid civil
war. An official statement, read on Radio-Conakry during the morning of April 3,
proclaimed the creation of a Comité Militaire de Redressement National (CMRN:
Military Committee of National Recovery), and so dissolved the Parti
Démocratique
de Guinée (Democratic Party of Guinea), of which Sékou Touré had
been the political leader. It also dissolved the National Assembly and suspended
the constitution. The army's eruption onto the political scene ousted the two potential
successors of the deceased president, Lansana Béavogui, who, since 1972,
had been the prime Minister for Sékou Touré, and Ismael
Touré,
the half-brother of the ex-president. The CMRN, composed of eighteen members, set
up a new government with Colonel Lansana Conté (born in 1934 in Loumbayah-Moussayah,
Dubréka), the former chief of the land forces at its head. The statement “Guinean
People, you are free now!” was repeated endlessly on national radio.
Sékou Touré was undoubtedly the “homme africain décisif” (decisive
African man) as described by Aimé Césaire (an avant-garde poet
born in Martinique in the French Caribbean and advocate of négritude). Famous
for the “no!” he gave General Charles de Gaulle in 1958, he led the
country to national independence and opposed colonialism. However, his socialist
regime had been marked by his acutely personal and harsh form of dictatorship.
Sékou Touré left behind him a country facing a number of problems.
The national economy was undeveloped and unproductive, while corruption
was rampant.
The Guinean state was forced to rely on its centralized and omnipotent party. Favorably
disposed toward Malinké populations, the regime had encouraged ethnic rivalries
and the emergence of a corrupt bourgeoisie. Isolated from the international scene
but remaining close to Communist countries, Sékou Touré had led a
paranoid government obsessed with plot and conspiracy. (Between 1960 and 1984 Sékou
Touré fabricated thirteen plots to legitimize the elimination of his opponents.)
Human rights and individual freedom were both highly controlled, and thousands
of opponents of the regime (intellectuals, officers, and traders) were killed or
tortured in the Boiro Camp. These political acts of violence led many Guineans
to flee their country, resulting in a broad Guinean diaspora around the world.
In the aftermath of April 3, the CMRN inaugurated the second republic and initiated
a decollectivization policy. Taxes on production were suppressed and the production
cooperatives were closed. The new government fostered a liberal policy and committed
itself to the development of the private sector. In 1985 the Guinean franc replaced
the sily, the monetary unit of Sékou Touré's regime. Guinea
attempted to escape its economic isolation; agreements were signed with the International
Monetary Fund, and in 1986 the first Structural Adjustment Program was established.
At the same time, the CMRN promised to lead the country to democracy. The Boiro
Camp was closed, and a committee was commissioned to write the Loi
Fondamentale (Constitution) recognizing a multiparty system. Parties such
as the Parti
de l'Unité et
du Progrès (Party of Unity and Progress), the Rassemblement
du Peuple Guinéen (People's Assembly of Guinea), and the Union
pour la Nouvelle République (Union for the New Republic) entered the
political arena. In 1993, for the first
time in Guinean history, multi-party presidential elections were held: Lansana
Conté received
50.93 per cent of the vote and established the Third Republic.
However, these promising changes took place in an atmosphere of increasing economic
precariousness, political insecurity, and corruption. Since 1984, the economic
situation has remained fragile despite the natural richness of the country, and
the educational and juridical systems are equally insecure. Health care is generally
inaccessible, and administration is inefficient.
During the 1990s, Guinea suffered the repercussive effects of the civil wars in
Liberia and Sierra Leone, receiving a huge influx of refugees from the two countries
(500,000). The situation in the early 2000, is threatened by heightened political
tensions colored by ethnic rivalries. General-President Lansana Conté is
accused of privileging people from his own ethnic group, the Susu. In July 1985,
six months after Malinké Diarra Traoré was arbitrarily relegated
from the position of prime minister to that of state minister, he was accused of
plotting a coup. In 1996, a military mutiny failed, but only after the officers
had successfully bombarded the national palace.
After the 1998 presidential elections, Alpha Condé, the leader of the RPG
(Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen), was accused of conspiracy and thrown
in jail for more than two years. The border conflicts between Guinea and rebels
from Sierra-Leone and Liberia, who are supposedly allied with Guinean opponents
plotting against the regime, allowed the government to reinforce its politicomilitary
control over the population.
General President Lansana Conté—nicknamed “Fori” (the "'old
man")—has been in power since 1984. A referendum, which was denounced
by the opposition parties, was held on November 11, 2001, and a 98 per cent majority
was obtained in favor of the removal of the two-term limit, which would have forced
him to retire in 2003. According to the opposition, the vote was in flagrant
disregard of the constitution and essentially ensures that he will remain president
for life.
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