Page 131 - Empires of Medieval West Africa

E m p i r E s o f m E d i E v a l w E s t a f r i c a

These citizens of Guinea
hold election posters
in 2003 supporting the
longtime president,
Lansana Conté.

agriculture. Establishing himself as a dictator, Touré ruthlessly
suppressed anyone who disagreed with his policies.
Thousands of Guinean citizens were killed or imprisoned, and it
is estimated that about 2 million people out of a population of 5.5 mil-
lion fled the country. Farmers could not get reasonable prices for their
crops because the government set all the prices for food. These prices
did not reflect the time and money the farmers had invested in pro-
ducing the food. As a result, farmers could not make a profit. So they
began to grow only enough to feed their families. People who lived near
national borders supplemented their incomes by smuggling. Before
independence, Guinea had been a food exporter. But by the 1980s it was
importing about one-third of its food.
In the 1970s, Touré realized that his socialist economic approach
had failed. He restored relations with France and other Western coun-
tries. But this did not make life any better for ordinary citizens. In 1982
Amnesty International, the international human rights organization,
publicized the political arrests, torture, and killings that occurred under
Touré’s government, but the rest of the world paid little attention. When
Touré died in 1984, Guinea’s army stepped in and formed a new govern-
ment under the leadership of Colonel Lansana Conté (ca. 1934–2008).
When the army took over, Guinea’s economy had been devastated
by 26 years of dictatorship. The basic support services of the country
were in terrible shape. Even in the capital, public utilities such as run-
ning water and electricity were irregular or non-existent. The roads

130