History of Guinea

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The history of Guinea is the history of the modern West African Republic of Guinea and the French colony "Territory of Guinea" from which the modern state has developed. In a broader sense, this also includes the history of the peoples and empires that were on the territory of the present-day state in pre-colonial times. Since the territory of today's Guinea is the result of colonial demarcation, which has neither taken into account natural borders nor the demarcation of previously existing ethnic, cultural or linguistic units, statements about pre-colonial empires "in Guinea" always only refer to parts of today's national territory.

The present state of Guinea in West Africa

Guinea in pre-colonial times

Presumed expansion of the Mali Empire in the 13th century

Guinea was largely off the major trade routes that crossed large parts of West Africa before the arrival of the Europeans. The Trans-Saharan routes ended north and west of Guinea, the Atlantic coast was not used for commercial purposes. Most of the residents lived in smaller political units ("chiefdoms"). In the 12th century originated in the highlands of Fouta Djallon the realm of Sosso (or Susu). At the beginning of the 13th century, the Sosso took advantage of the opportunity presented by the decline of the powerful Ghanaian Empire . For centuries, this empire ruled large parts of what is now Mali , Mauritania and Senegal . The Sosso now extended their territory to the outskirts of Ghana and briefly conquered the capital Koumbi Saleh .

Presumed expansion of the Songhai Empire in the 15th century

In 1235 the ruler of the Mali Empire defeated the king of the Sosso in the battle of Kirina, with which the northeastern part of Guinea was subdued by Mali for 200 years.

The successor to the Mali Empire was the Songhai Empire , which probably also included large parts of Guinea. Both empires, however, had their center outside of Guinea.

The Sosso were later driven out of Fouta Djallon by nomadic , Islamic Fulbe people who - unlike the Fulbe in other parts of West Africa - settled permanently in Fouta Djallon. In 1735 the Fulbe founded an imamate , an Islamic state under the leadership of an imam . This empire had a written constitution and existed until it was destroyed by the French in 1896.

Contacts with the Europeans until 1850

As early as the middle of the 15th century, the first Portuguese trading and discovery ships sailed off the coast of what would later become Guinea. However, they preferred to trade with the inhabitants of the Gambia estuary further north . Among other things, António Fernandes should be mentioned here , who contributed a lot to the exploration of the coast of Guinea from 1445-1446. In the 16th century, Europeans first used a group of islands off Conakry , later Guinea's capital, as a trading base. The Portuguese called them "Ilhas dos Idolos", that is, "Islands of Idols (images of gods)", which is where their current name " Iles de Los " comes from. Until the middle of the 19th century, however, there were no attempts by European powers to establish themselves permanently on the Guinean coast.

The advance of the French and the resistance Samory Tourés

The Almami Samory Touré

From around 1850 the French began to colonize what is now Guinea. They tried to conquer the small free strip of coast that was located between northern Portuguese and southern British dominion and from there to penetrate inland. This early colonization of the coastal area happened in the name of the anti-slavery movement. French naval officers signed treaties with local rulers, which usually combined the renunciation of the slave trade with the obligation to trade gold, wax, ivory and animal skins preferentially with the French. Since the 1880s, however, they met fierce resistance inland from an Islamic leader by the name of Almamy Samory Touré , who would later become one of Guinea's national heroes. In 1882 he inflicted a military defeat on the French for the first time. Samory Touré had established a large Islamic empire as part of the Islamic renewal movement that had seized the entire "Sudan" (ie the area between the present-day states Senegal and Sudan) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The eastern part of today's Guinea belonged to this empire, as did southern Mali , the northern Ivory Coast and parts of Burkina Faso . This empire existed from approx. 1875 to 1893. Until 1891 there was a friendship treaty between the French and Samori Touré, while the French at the same time consistently expanded their area of ​​influence by military and contractual means. From 1891 there was open war between the French and Samori Touré, who were constantly pushing eastwards, in 1894 he had to rebuild his empire approx. 600 km further east ("Second Reich Samori Tourés"). So there was definitely no more power in Guinea that could oppose the French colonial rulers. In 1881 the French had signed a "protection treaty" with the Fulda area Fouta Djallon. In 1896 the French conquered the kingdom of Fouta Djallon, killed the "Almami", the ruler of the country, and replaced him with a puppet ruler, who was forbidden to have friendly relations with Samory Touré.

Colonial times

French colonial period from 1885 to 1939

Claims of European states to coastal regions of West Africa, around 1885: Parts of Guinea (Rivières du Sud or Kapitaï and Koba) were disputed between France and Germany

In 1885 Conakry became the seat of the first French governor in Guinea, who was also responsible for the Ivory Coast and Dahomey until 1893 . Germany gave up the claims asserted by Friedrich Colin to the regions of Kapitaï and Koba north of Conakry on December 24, 1885 in favor of France. After the Berlin Congo Conference, the two colonial powers France and Portugal established the exact boundary between their property in a treaty dated May 15, 1886. In 1897 they introduced a poll tax, which from then on generated most of the colony's tax revenues. The French colonial rule had no concept that could be compared to the British " indirect rule ", i.e. no rule that was based primarily on existing traditional structures. They exercised a direct form of rule. Where traditional leaders were useful, they remained in office; where not, they were deposed. In Fouta Djallon there were revolts in 1900, 1905 and 1911, each of which ended with the appointment of new "Almamy" by the French and further curtailment of their power. Instead of the traditional rulers, the French in Guinea formed an alliance with the influential Islamic brotherhood of the Tijaniyya . They supported this brotherhood against competing brotherhoods and the Tijaniyya gave their blessing to French colonial rule.

Map of French West Africa from 1936 with "Guinee Francaise"

In Guinea, as in their other African colonies, the French assumed that the land belonged to them as it were by right of conquest. In 1904 they declared all “free”, that is, undeveloped, unused etc. land to be state property, although the definition of “free” land z. B. was extremely difficult in areas with traditional shifting cultivation. They also succeeded in bringing a noteworthy number of French settlers into the country in Guinea. Often these settlers' farms were soon abandoned.

The most hated part of French colonial rule in Africa was forced labor (the "prestation"). According to French colonial law, every man between 18 and 60 was obliged to make his labor available a certain number of days per year, e.g. B. for projects such as the construction of a railway line from Conakry to the inland, which began in 1900. The conditions in which this forced labor was performed were often very poor. The food was often inadequate and the accommodation poor. As a result, diseases were rampant and the death rate was above average. A large part of this forced labor was done by the officially liberated slaves in 1894. Only in 1946 was forced labor abolished in the colonies.

At the same time, the French pursued the concept of assimilation in their colonies . That is, they tried to make the (French) educated class of the country citizens of France in the cultural sense. In fact, black Guineans had the option of broad acceptance and equality with white French, provided they renounced their African roots and adopted French culture. However, even in comparison with its other African colonies, France invested little in the country's school system; even African colonial administrators were predominantly recruited in the other French colonies in West Africa.

A first step towards representing the local population in the colonial administration was taken in 1925, although this was hardly associated with any concrete influence. The governor of Guinea was provided with a board of directors for which the French settlers (the "colons") and a small group of locals could each elect two representatives. In the 20s and 30s there were repeated strikes by workers and employees, through which dock workers, railway workers, employees of the post office and trading companies achieved certain improvements in their social situation. There was no comparable progress for the rural majority.

French colonial period from 1939 to 1958

The occupation of the French "motherland" by German troops in 1939 represented a turning point for French West Africa . The French colonies had to choose between the Vichy regime collaborating with the Germans and Charles de Gaulle's government in exile in London , ie " Free France ". In contrast to French Equatorial Africa, the colonial rulers of French West Africa - and thus French Guinea - opted for Vichy France. The Vichy supporters in Guinea forced forced labor and, in accordance with the racist laws of Nazi Germany, introduced elements of racial segregation for the first time in Guinea. "White-only signs" appeared in hotels and cafes and African customers were served separately in shops. The defeat of Germany and thus Vichy France also meant a defeat of this racist line of French colonial policy.

In the new French constitution of 1946, the inhabitants of French West Africa were declared "citizens of France" - until then the term for Africans was "subjects" - forced labor was abolished, and French West Africa was given its own "representative assembly" and was allowed to do so Send representatives to the French National Assembly. However, only a small minority of Africans were allowed to vote and French West Africa only had 13 out of 622 seats in the National Assembly. The women's suffrage became law: According to the Loi Lamine Guèye from 1946 had all citizens to vote in the French Parliament and in local elections, a right to vote. The right to stand as a candidate was not specifically mentioned in the law, but it was not excluded either. In the elections to the Paris parliament, there was no two-tier suffrage in French West Africa , which included Guinea, as in other French colonies, but there was for all local elections. In 1956, still under French administration, the loi-cadre Defferre was introduced, which guaranteed universal suffrage.

Most of the western educated inhabitants of French West Africa , despite these developments, strived for assimilation up until the 1950s, for recognition as French citizens with equal rights, than for the independence of their home countries. This was true until Ahmed Sékou Touré appeared in public in the late 1950s.

The way to independence

In 1958 Charles de Gaulle became Prime Minister of France with extensive emergency powers, which he used for a referendum on a new constitution. The colonies had the choice between closer and permanent ties to France and immediate independence with the loss of any support from France.

The strongest party in French West Africa in the 1950s was the RDA ( Rassemblement Démocratique Africain ), to which most of the later leaders of Francophone Africa belonged. The leader of the RDA in Guinea was Sekou Touré, a successful union leader and great-grandson of the aforementioned Samory Touré. Most prominent African leaders feared the Balkanization of West Africa and economic collapse from the seamless loss of French support in the event of immediate independence . Sekou Touré was one of the few in favor of immediate independence. His saying that Guinea preferred "freedom in freedom to wealth in slavery" became famous. In a referendum, 1.13 million Guineans voted against the model of close ties to France - with 56,000 votes in favor. On October 2, 1958, Guinea, led by Sekou Touré, was the only one of the French colonies surveyed to declare its independence from France. The women's suffrage was confirmed at independence.

The independent Republic of Guinea

The reign of Sekou Touré 1958–1984

President Ahmed Sékou Touré on a visit to Washington DC, June 1982
Memorial in Conakry to mark the victory over Portuguese-backed invaders in 1970

Guinea had to pay dearly for the rejection of the new constitution: France withdrew 4,000 civilian employees - doctors, teachers, judges and technicians - from Guinea within a month. They left cut phone lines, unmedicated hospitals, and office equipment thrown into the Conakry lagoon. France broke off all trade with Guinea. In the first few years, Sekou Touré sought support from the Soviet Union, which helped him in particular with the expansion of bauxite extraction and processing. In 1961 he broke off these relations because he suspected the Soviet Union was involved in a conspiracy against himself.

The independence of Guinea had a similar meaning for Francophone Africa as the independence of Ghana in the previous year for English-speaking Africa. With the leader of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah , Sekou Touré shared the socialist and pan-African ideas, i. H. the belief that only a united Africa could find its fair place in the world. In 1958, the two states formed the short-lived Union of African States , which Mali joined in 1961.

Sekou Touré successfully fought tribalism in his country and consistently promoted African culture. In contrast to many other African countries, corruption and personal enrichment of the president were not a problem in Guinea. Sekou Touré was strongly influenced by the Puritan Islam of his ancestor Samory Touré. Soon, however, other dark sides of his rule showed. He converted Guinea into a one-party dictatorship, introduced a labor obligation for unemployed young men that was little different from French forced labor, and took merciless action against his opponents. He set up camps for political opponents who were reminiscent of the Soviet gulag . About one million, according to other estimates even two million people fled the country under his rule. As a result, Guinea lost many educated people who were actively involved in the development of the country, which continued to have an impact decades later.

In 1970 armed opponents of the regime invaded Guinea from the neighboring Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea as part of the Operação Mar Verde , who had been equipped and otherwise supported by the Portuguese. The Portuguese were not concerned about human rights in Guinea, but wanted to eliminate Sékou Touré, a supporter of the militant liberation movement PAIGC, in their colony. The Guinean army was only able to defeat the attackers after several days of heavy fighting.

On March 26, 1984, Sekou Touré died after heart surgery in the United States.

Guinea under Lansana Conté

Lansana Conté

Sekou Touré was replaced by Prime Minister Louis Lansana Béavogui , whose rule lasted only a few days. Just one week after Sekou Touré's death, on April 3, 1984, a military junta led by Lansana Conté and Diarra Traoré came to power without bloodshed. Conté was declared President, Traoré Prime Minister. Conté condemned his predecessor's human rights violations, released 250 political prisoners and persuaded around 200,000 people to return to Guinea. He turned away from socialism, but without taking any steps towards democracy. The country's economic situation did not improve either.

In 1992 he announced the return to a civilian regime and in 1993 a presidential election was held, which Conté won. Parliamentary elections followed in 1995, won by the "Party for Unity and Progress", the Contés party. In 2000, Guinea was drawn into the turmoil of civil war in its neighboring countries, when rebels from Liberia and Sierra Leone crossed its borders and there was a risk that Guinea too would sink into civil war. Conté accused neighboring states of coveting Guinea's natural resources, which the neighboring states denied. Conté kept the reins in hand: in 2001, opposition leader Alpha Condé was jailed for endangering state security, albeit released eight months later. In the same year Conté organized and won a referendum to extend the presidency. In 2003 his third term began on the basis of elections boycotted by the opposition. In the same year, Guinea, together with its neighboring countries, decided on a plan to combat the rebels invading from Liberia and Sierra Leone. In January 2005, Conté survived an assassination attempt during one of his rare public appearances.

Resistance to Conté

At the beginning of 2007 his opponents saw him as an exhausted dictator whose resignation was inevitable. The opposition to Conté was formed around the traditionally extremely strong trade unions in Guinea. The two most important trade unions in the country represent 75% of the formal workforce and have a very high degree of organization, especially in the public sector. The largest union is the Confederation of Workers of Guinea ( CNTG ) under the leadership of General Secretary Rabiatou Serah Diallo . In February 2007, the four big trade unions called for a largely followed general strike , which within a few days turned into a popular uprising and forced Conté to an agreement that included the appointment of a neutral prime minister and immediate price cuts for staple foods. Lansana Kouyaté was appointed the new Prime Minister on February 26th .

Failed states according to the "Failed States Index 2006" by Foreign Policy , including Guinea

In an open letter on July 3, 2007, the four unions drew a devastating balance of developments since then. The initial price cuts had been reversed, and Kouyaté had made political nominations without consulting the extra-parliamentary opposition, without considering unencumbered candidates. The general strike, which was officially suspended, was to be continued at the end of the rainy season. In an investigation into the unrest for the European University Center for Peace Studies in 2007, Adama Sow came to the conclusion that the unions, together with NGOs, managed to exert political pressure on the government in Guinea in order to get the government ready to negotiate . In May 2008, Kouyaté was deposed. In the same month there were unrest in parts of the army, which were justified with outstanding pay. In mid-June 2008 the police went on strike, after which the military temporarily regulated traffic in Conakry. There were also arrests of police officers by the army, and there was talk of dead police officers in the media. A few days later, teachers and doctors also went on strike. On June 20, 2008, President Conté presented the list of the new cabinet. Ahmed Tidiane Souaré became prime minister . The 34 ministers and two general secretaries included representatives of the opposition for the first time.

Coup and dismissal of Moussa Dadis Camara

Lansana Conté died on December 23, 2008 after a long illness. According to the constitution, President Elhadj Aboubacar Somparé should have assumed the office of President for a transitional period of 60 days until new elections. But just one day after Conte's death, an army commander named Moussa Dadis Camara announced on state radio that the government and other institutions of the republic had been dissolved for a group of military personnel under the name of the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) Activities of the unions would be stopped and the constitution would be suspended. A “consultative council” consisting of civilians and members of the army will soon be set up. "The institutions of the republic have distinguished themselves for their inability to participate in crisis management," he said, adding that there is "deep hopelessness" in Guinea's people . It is now urgently necessary to rehabilitate the country's economy and fight corruption. Guinea's constitution originally stipulated that parliamentary president Aboubacar Somparé should take over the office of the late president and organize parliamentary elections within 60 days.

On September 28, 2009, the Guinean army massacred 157 people dead against demonstrators protesting against Camara's authoritarian government. On December 3rd, Camara was seriously injured in an assassination attempt and was flown to Morocco for medical treatment. Camara has been in Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso since mid-January 2010 .

Jean-Marie Doré assumed office and Alpha Condés term of office

After weeks of tug-of-war and negotiations mediated by the West African Economic Community ECOWAS in Burkina Faso , it was established that the military junta CNDD no longer exercises power in Guinea. During the talks about the political future in Guinea, the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré , was recommended to act as mediator tougher. On January 19, 2010, Jean-Marie Doré , spokesman for the Forces Vives opposition alliance made up of trade unions and political parties as Prime Minister, and Rabiatou Serah Diallo , General Secretary of the Guinean trade union Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs de Guinée , became two well-known representatives of Guinean civil society as vice-premier the highest state offices determined.

On June 27, 2010, the first round of presidential elections took place, in which the military were not allowed to participate as candidates. These are the first free elections in Guinea since independence in 1958. A total of 24 candidates ran for the office of president. Due to complaints against the election results and organizational problems, the runoff election between the former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo and the long-time opposition leader Alpha Condé had to be postponed several times. When the planned runoff election was postponed on October 24, 2010 without specifying a new date, there were serious riots in several cities in the country with fatalities between the Fulbe and Malinke , the two ethnic groups to which the runoff candidates belong. The still ruling military then imposed a ban on gatherings. In the runoff elections on November 7, 2010, Condé emerged victorious.

In 2020, a constitutional amendment was passed in a referendum that removes the ten-year limitation on President Condé's tenure and allows for two more six-year terms.

swell

  1. ↑ Guinea . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 7, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 916.
  2. ^ Franz Ansperger: Politics in Black Africa: The modern political movements in Africa with French characteristics. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH Wiesbaden, 1961, p. 73.
  3. ↑ June Hannam, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Katherine Holden: International Encyclopedia of Women's Suffrage. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-57607-064-6 , p. 9.
  4. ↑ - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. Retrieved October 2, 2018 .
  5. ^ Benjamin Moscovici: Poor, rich Guinea. Deutschlandfunk, July 6, 2019 (radio feature about the political situation)
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Blunt: Civil war fears in Guinea. In: BBC News online . October 23, 2000, accessed December 28, 2018 .
  7. ^ Guinea head blames neighbors. In: BBC News online . January 6, 2001, accessed December 28, 2018 .
  8. ↑ guinea-forum.org ( Memento from December 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ taz article July 20, 2007 "Guinea's unions put government on"
  10. ↑ Adama Sow: Chances and Risks of NGOs - The trade unions in Guinea during the unrest 2007 ( Memento of June 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) - EPU Research Papers: Issue 03/07, Stadtschlaining 2007, pp. 15-22
  11. ^ "Guinée: le Premier ministre Lansana Kouyaté limogé par le président Conté" , AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), May 20, 2008.
  12. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090209035949/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJXnUlo_-rfpFhT3UlcxFrih-zgw afp
  13. ^ Taz article "Power Vacuum after the President's Death" of December 24, 2009
  14. ↑ Guinea's head of state Conté has died ( memento of December 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7796902.stm
  15. ↑ cf. AFP : Military coup in Guinea following the death of President Conté on google.com, 23 December 2008
  16. ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/politik/afrika/artikel/1/juntachef-bei-attentat-schwer-verletzt/ taz
  17. ↑ http://allafrica.com/stories/201002081436.html
  18. ↑ Wikileaks : Cablegate , GUINEA TALKS - 9th ICG-G IN OUAGADOUGOU ( Memento December 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (ID: 09OUAGADOUGOU1159), cable December 15, 2009, published December 9, 2010, accessed December 19 .
  19. ↑ "freest elections in the history" , Wiener Zeitung 26 June 2010 (accessed on 5 November 2013).
  20. ↑ BBC News : Guinea's presidential elections 'postponed' , September 15, 2010.
  21. ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/politik/afrika/artikel/1/gewaltausbruch-nach-absage/ taz
  22. ↑ taz article Prohibition of assembly and appeals for calm , October 27, 2010.
  23. ↑ Guinea: Clear majority in favor of changing the constitution. deutschlandfunk.de from March 28, 2020, accessed on March 28, 2020

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : History of Guinea  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files