INTRODUCTION
The origin of the name Guinea itself is obscure.
Some suggest that Guinea might be derived from the ancient Niger River
Basin trading center, Djenne. More likely it derives, through Portuguese
usage, from the Berber Akal-n-Iguinawen (land of the blacks). Yet
another possibility is that it comes from the word geenay, meaning
“women” among the coastal Soussou, and that somehow this name came
to be applied to a widespread area of the African Coast.
GEOGRAPHY
Climatically all of Guinea shares two alternating
seasons: a dry season (November to March) and a wet season (April to
October). Rainfall varies from region to region with as much as 170
inches per year at Conakry on the coast to less than sixty inches a year
in Upper Guinea. The rainfall in Middle Guinea ranges from 63 to 91
inches per year while some areas in the Forest Region have more than 100
inches of rain per year. Temperature ranges also vary according to the
different regions. On the coast and in the Forest Region the temperature
ranges around an average of 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The Fouta highland of
Middle Guinea may experience January daytime temperatures of 86 to 95
degrees Fahrenheit while nighttime temperatures may dip below 50 degrees
Fahrenheit. Mid-day highs of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit are not
uncommon in Upper Guinea during the dry season.
Most of Guinea is composed of savanna grasslands
and orchard shrub with soils largely composed of silicates of aluminum
hydrate, except along rivers and the tidal areas. Major food crops
include millet, maize, rice, manioc (cassava), and oil palms while some
coffee and bananas are cultivated for export.
POPULATION
Guinea’s estimated population of approximately
seven million is composed of a variety of ethnic groups. The present-day
boundaries of Guinea were determined by colonial powers with little
regard to ethnic and linguistic groups. These boundaries, therefore,
often split these groups. Within the country, though, the four major
geographic regions largely correspond to the four major ethno-linguistic
groups.
In Lower Guinea, Soussou, a Mandingo language,
has largely replaced that of Landoma, Baga, Nalou, and other West
Atlantic languages once widely spoken in coastal areas. In the Fouta
Djalon of Middle Guinea the Pulaar (Peul) language is dominant, although
minor indigenous ethnic groups like the Badyaranke, Bassari, Coniagui
and Diakhante continue to maintain some of their traditional ways.
Maninkakan, the language of the Maninka, is widely spoken in Upper
Guinea, and has long been penetrating into the forest zone where three
very different linguistic groups are still dominant. These three
linguistic areas from east to west, are the Kpelle (Guerze), Loma (Toma),
and Kissi. A number of other minor ethnic groups exist in Guinea but the
process of creating a national identity in Guinea has made considerable
headway since independence.
PRE-COLONIAL HISTORY
The pre-colonial history of Guinea still remains
rather incomplete. Though archaeological research in Guinea has not made
much progress, evidence seems to indicate that the area has been
continuously inhabited by hunting-gathering populations for at least the
past 30,000 years. It also seems probable that farming has been
practiced in the area of Guinea for at least the past 3000 years. There
is considerable evidence that iron smelting dates back 2000 years in
this part of West Africa. But until further archaeological evidence is
forthcoming, much of the early history of Guinea remains conjectural.
The pre-colonial history of Guinea becomes much
clearer from about 900 A.D. as sources in Arabic and oral traditions
become available. Travelers’ accounts in Arabic and professional
history keepers’ oral narratives offer information on the genealogies
of royal families and traditions of ethnic groups who lived in Guinea in
the past millennium. For peoples like the Coiagui, Baga, and Nalou, who
now live on the Atlantic Coast, ethnological evidence supports the view
that they lived in the area of modern Guinea even before the Christian
era. For these tribes living along the coast there was little outside
migrational pressure. Their political development was minimal as they
existed in a loose confederation of proximitous family groupings up and
down the coast. Their staple crop was rice, introduced from the Niger
River Basin in the first century A.D.
In the Forest Region hunter-gatherers from the
Atlantic Coast and Mande speaking tribes lived a nomadic existence.
Later, with the dissemination of iron smelting techniques, durable
agricultural tools permitted a sedentary lifestyle to replace their
nomadic ways. These nomads settled down to a life of subsistence farming
characterized by slash and burn agricultural techniques. Others, like
the Soussou and Maninka who probably came into the area about 900 A.D.,
and the Fulbe who arrived in large numbers in the 17th
century, are almost newcomers.
Much of Upper Guinea’s pre-colonial history is
closely tied to the three great centralized states of West Africa,
Ghana, Mali and Songhai, which dominated the lands north and east of
modern Guinea from about 1000 A.D. to the mid-16th century.
These were primarily agricultural communities, with a highly developed
social hierarchy. Trade became the catalyst which transformed and bound
these disparate villages together into the beginnings of the great
African empires.
ARRIVAL OF EUROPEANS
The coastal areas of West Africa were drawn into
the European market systems from the mid-15th century on.
Local rulers on the coast began to grow in power by recruiting members
to their groups with the promise of trade privileges. The first European
explorers to visit Guinea were the Portuguese, who sailed along the
coast in the 1400s during the reign of Prince Henry the Navigator.
Throughout the 1400s and 1500s, West African trade remained a Portuguese
monopoly, as other European powers concentrated on exploitation and
colonization of the Americas and the plundering of each other’s ships
as they returned from the “New World.” The Portuguese established
trading settlements along the West African coast, and it is known that
ivory and slaves were being exported to Portugal from the Rio Nunez
estuary of Guinea in the 1500s. During the 1600s, intense competition
between the European powers for commercial trading rights developed.
Among the first casualties were the Portuguese, soon followed by the
Dutch, as England, France and Spain fought for global dominance.
For the better part of the 1700s the French left
Guinea largely untouched, as they concentrated their commercial
activities in Senegal, due to the relatively easily navigated Senegalese
coastal waters. The trade in Guinea was left to Portuguese expatriates
and their offspring who had permanently settled along the coast. The
British-French wars and later the Napoleonic Wars caused a loss of
French influence in West Africa as they alternately lost, gained, lost
and gained again, through the Treaty of Paris in 1814, their former
holdings in West Africa and equal trading rights with British and
Portuguese interests. Though not one of the major slave trading areas of
West Africa, Guinea was affected by wars and disruptions occasioned by
this trade. By the end of the slave trade in the early 19th
century, European trade goods had replaced many types of locally
produced goods. Consequently, the French and British commercial
interests which had achieved dominance on the coast were poised to
intervene even more deeply in internal African affairs. It should not be
supposed, though, that British and ultimately French trading interests
played a very important role in the Guinean interior before the mid-19th
century.
French colonization of the area came later in the
1890s, subsequent to some trade and peace treaties signed with local
chiefs. Earlier, in 1849, the French proclaimed the coastal part of area
as “Rivières du Sud” Protectorate. Later on, in 1881, the inland
region of the Fouta was also made a French Protectorate. To conquer the
Maninka lands to the North, the French faced a fierce resistance led by
Samory Touré, a Maninka Statesman who formed an empire, by annexing
several neighboring states in the region. Samory was defeated in 1898,
and deported to Gabon where he died in 1900.
Soon after the region’s last bastions of
resistance had been defeated, French colonial administration was
officially inaugurated. At the beginning, Guinea, like all French
possessions in West Africa, was put under the authority of Senegal. In
1891, Guinea was detached from Senegal and became “French Guinea”, a
subdivision of French West Africa. Like the other colonies of French
West Africa, colonial rule in French Guinea was in practice neither
assimilation nor association. However, the French policy was officially
proclaimed as assimilation, based on the self-proclaimed cultural
superiority of the French over the indigenous people.
After the Second World War, a number of changes
were introduced in the administration of the Colony, owing to the weak
economic and political conditions France was undergoing at that time.
French-educated Guineans were finally allowed to vote under the Loi
Cadre in 1946, under which the French governor remained head of the
territorial government, but was to be assisted by the Government Council
chosen by a newly elected Territorial Assembly. Provision was also made
for an African vice president to be selected among the assemblymen.
These changes favored political and social progress in the colony, and
led to the creation of political parties, paving the way to self
determination and independence.
By the middle of the year 1958, the government of
the territory was thoroughly reorganized and largely in African hands,
and the Government Council had become the central executive authority.
It is at this point that the P.D.G. (Parti Démocratique de Guinée)
came forth as a popular party mobilizing the people for political
action.
THE FIRST REPUBLIC: INDEPENDENCE AND THE REVOLUTION
In 1958, General de Gaulle, in a draft
constitution inaugurating the Fifth Republic in France, proposed a
referendum which gave colonies the chance to choose between the French
Community or independence, by either voting “Yes” or “No”. A
majority positive vote would mean that the colony in question was
willing to accept the French proposal of a French community made up of
colonies and the colonial power, while a majority negative vote would
mean total rejection of the community and complete independence.
On September 28, 1958, among all the French
African colonies, only Guinea voted “No”, hence obtaining total
independence from France. On October 1958, the Republic was proclaimed.
The colonial assembly became the Constituent Assembly for the newly
independent republic, and Sékou Touré, the P.D.G. leader, became the
President of the republic and the head of the government. He was in
every aspect the founding father of the first Guinean Republic.
Soon after independence, external as well as
internal political factors affected Guinea’s economic and political
development. The immediate consequence of independence was the
withdrawal by the French of all technical assistance and financial aid,
and the diplomatic isolation of the new nation. This compelled the
government to turn to the former Soviet Bloc. Guinea then became a
socialist country with a single party system of government. The Marxist
principle of centralized economic planning became the cornerstone
economic policy of the government.
Over the first ten years of independence, Guinea
continued to occupy a special position among African states in its
unqualified rejection of colonial control or economic domination by more
developed nations. Taking a militant pan-Africanist stance in African
affairs, one of “positive-neutralism” in the “Cold War,” and
combining a unique articulation of African Socialism and “cultural
revolution” in internal affairs, Guinea, under the leadership of Sekou
Toure, presented an image of radical experimentation in social and
political development in Africa. Unfortunately, the rate of economic
development was rather slow, and from 1960 onward a number of attempts
were made to overthrow the government of Sekou Toure by assassination,
coup d’etat and invasion.
In April, 1960, a plot to overthrow the
government by armed force was alleged by PDG agents. The instigators of
this plot were apparently Guinean citizens who resented the
anti-capitalist thrust of the PDG regime. In November, 1961, Toure
accused the Soviet embassy of supporting a teachers’ strike, which was
crushed with considerable severity. In late 1965 leaders of a group
seeking to form an opposition party were arrested and charged with
plotting to bring about the downfall of the Toure government. In
February, 1969, the army was purged along with other dissidents in the
Party, and in June, 1969, an apparent assassination attempt on Toure,
blamed on an exile opposition group, was almost successful. In November,
1970, a seaborne invasion of the capital, Conakry, launched by
Portuguese troops and Guinean exiles proved abortive. Another purge of
the Guinean political and administrative elite followed. In July, 1971,
the army’s officer corps was similarly purged and in April, 1973, a
number of cabinet ministers were accused by President Toure of plotting
to overthrow his government. Such purges and accusations became
increasingly commonplace in the last years of the Toure’s
administration.
On April 3, 1984, just one week after the sudden
death of Sekou Toure, the Military Committee for National Recovery (CMRN)
took control of the government. This military council immediately
abolished the constitution and the sole political party and its mass
youth and women’s organizations, and announced the establishment of
the Second Republic. In lieu of a constitution, the government was based
on ordinances, decrees, and decisions issued by the president, Lansana
Conte, and various ministers. One of the first acts of the new
government was to release all prisoners and declare observance of human
rights as one of its primary objectives. The CMRN declared its intention
to liberalize the economy, promote private enterprise and encourage
foreign investment.
Another of the first acts of the CMRN was to send
a delegation to Paris. This move was in sharp contrast to the rejection
of French assistance upon independence in 1958. For nearly three
decades, Guinea had been cut off from French assistance in retaliation
for Guinea’s vote for independence in 1958. The delegation sent to
France in 1984 paved the way for a flood of French assistance and
foreign investment in Guinea.
The policy of the new government since Toure’s
death has been one of decentralization, whereby the people of Guinea are
encouraged to develop rural areas without centralized government
control. Guineans produce for themselves rather than for the state, as
had been the case under Toure’s leadership, and small enterprise
development is encouraged. The Peace Corps was invited to reenter Guinea
in 1985 and since that time has been concentrating on teaching English
and math, development of primary health care systems, community
development, and natural resource management.
In December, 1990, a national referendum
overwhelmingly approved a new constitution for Guinea, which entered
into force at the end of 1991. This constitution establishes an elected
presidency and national assembly and permits the formation of political
parties. Early stages in the implementation of the Constitution began
even before the official entry into force. In June, 1991, mayors and
city councils were elected in Conakry and in smaller cities throughout
the country. The elections were described as generally free and fair by
outside observers. However, elections in some smaller cities, notably
N’Zerekore and Kissidougou in the Forest administrative region, were
marred by ethnic violence. Many of the electoral lists contesting these
local elections were ethnically based, as are many of the nascent
political parties.
In December of 1993, Presidential elections were
held. Lansana Conte defeated seven other candidates, winning just over
50% of the vote. Legislative elections were then held in 1995. Though
some outside observers and opposition parties felt the process to be
flawed, Guinea did not experience widespread civil unrest. Recent
events, notably the military mutiny in February of 1996 in which
disgruntled members of the army shelled the Palais des Nations and
briefly arrested President Conte, demonstrate Guinea’s ongoing
struggle to establish and maintain stable democratic institutions. With
abundant natural resources, an energetic population and a stable,
democratically elected government, Guinea’s future looks promising.
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