Guinea History

Modern Guinea was part of the Mali empire, which espoused Islam and dominated the region between the seventh and 15th centuries. Portuguese explorers arrived in the region during the mid-15th century and over the next 300 years they, the British and the French made Guinea the center of a major slave trade.

In 1849, the French declared the Boke region a French protectorate. The division between the Guinea Republic and Guinea-Bissau dates from a Franco-Portuguese agreement of 1886, one of many concluded in West Africa to settle the competing claims of European colonialists. In 1895, the French incorporated the Boke province – the heart of the Guinea republic today – along with adjacent territory which they had taken control of, into French West Africa. The region was a single entity comprised mostly of modern-day francophone West Africa, which was governed from Dakar. When French West Africa was dissolved in 1958 prior to decolonization, Guinea was the only former French protectorate which refused to join the French Community upon independence.

After the departure of the French, political power was assumed by the Parti Democratique de Guinée (since renamed the Parti pour l’Unité et le Progrès, PUP), which became the sole legitimate political party. However, by 1983, the regime’s extreme mismanagement and repressive behavior had driven an estimated two million people into exile. In March 1984, the ruler of Guinea since independence, President Sekou Touré, died and the army immediately seized power in a bloodless coup led by Colonel Lansana Conté. The Conté government straight away set about improving badly damaged political and economic links with its West African neighbors. In 1989 Conté unveiled plans for a gradual move towards democratic government. A new constitution, known as the Third Republic, was accepted by national referendum in December 1990. The first presidential elections under the new constitution were held in December 1993 and won by Conté. At the beginning of February 1996, Conté survived an attempted coup, after which he assumed personal control of the country’s armed forces. He also appointed a Prime Minister, Laimine Sidimé, for the first time. (Sidimé was replaced by Francois Lonseny Fall in February 2004 who then fled the country and resigned in April of the same year. He is currently living in exile claiming his life would be in danger if he returned. The position has since been left vacant). Conté was elected for a third term as President in December 2003 (after first holding a referendum in 2001 that officially removed the two-term limit on presidency).

Guinea has recently become embroiled in the struggles for territory and mineral wealth that have engulfed neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone (see relevant country entries for more detail). The Guinean army has had to deal with refugees from Sierra Leone (numbering 80,000) and Liberia (70,000) who have fled to Guinea to escape fighting in the area where the borders of the three countries meet: by April 2002, the refugees numbered about 150,000 split roughly evenly between Liberians and Sierra Leoneans. Some of the fighting spilled over into Guinea, and the country has only narrowly avoided full-scale involvement. A large UN peacekeeping force brought an end to the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2002 but fighting continues in Liberia. Further afield, Guinea attracted rare international attention as a member of the United Nations Security Council which in 2002 deliberated the issue of Iraq. Despite occasionally intense pressure, the Guineans remained circumspect amid the furious argument between the pro- and anti-invasion factions of the Council.

Government
Under the terms of the Constitution of 23 December 1991, the President of the Republic, who holds executive power, is elected for five years. Under amendments made in November 2001, the term has been increased to seven years. The 114-member unicameral National Assembly, which holds legislative power, serves a five-year term.

Economy
Given its resources, Guinea should not be suffering its current impoverished condition in which the annual per capita income is US$363 (2005). The majority of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, producing cassava and rice as staples, plus fruit, palm, groundnuts and sometimes coffee as cash crops. Fisheries have undergone major growth in the last 10 years.

The main part of the industrial economy is mining. Guinea has huge reserves of bauxite (perhaps one-quarter of the world’s total) which account for more than 90% of export earnings; there are also substantial diamond deposits. Guinea also boasts massive hydroelectric power potential, some of which has been tapped.

The country’s economic progress has, however, been hampered by the absence of the necessary legal, corporate and governmental machinery, allied to corruption and maladministration. For the time being, Guinea will continue to depend on substantial foreign aid, principally from France, although it is also deriving growing benefit from burgeoning regional co-operation: Cameroon, for example, processes much Guinean bauxite ore to produce aluminum.

Guinea is a member of both the Mano River Union (with Liberia and Sierra Leone) and of the Gambia River Development Organization (with The Gambia and Senegal). The country is also a member of the West African economic community, ECOWAS.


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