webGuinée/Bibliothèque


David Berliner
Guinea: 1984 to the Present

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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