Short History Of Guinea and Culture
Travel tips for your trip to Guinea Hotel Maps Famous Places in Guinea helps you to make your trip to Guinea in the holiday a Splendid One
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 decolonisation, 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 behaviour 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 neighbours. 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 neighbouring 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.
