Guinea, also Guinea-Conakry, is a country in West Africa. It borders Senegal to the north, Mali to the north and northeast, Ivory Coast to the east, Liberia to the south, Sierra Leone to the southwest, and Guinea to the northwest. Bissau. From the west it is washed by the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Guinea is Conakry.
The origin of the toponym "Guinea" has not been definitively established. According to E. M. Pospelov, the hypothesis is likely that the toponym is a distortion of the Berbers. ⵉⴳⵓⴰⵡⴻⵏ iguawen ("dumb"), since the Berber tribes called their southern neighbors that did not understand the Berber language. On European maps from the 14th century, the name appears in the forms Ganua, Ginya, and from the 15th century - Guinea. Translated from the language of the local Susu people, the word "Guiné" means "woman."
More than
half of the country's territory is occupied by low mountains and
plateaus. The Atlantic coast is strongly indented by river estuaries and
is occupied by an alluvial-marine lowland 30-50 km wide. Further, the
Futa-Dzhallon plateau rises in ledges, divided into separate massifs up
to 1538 m high (Mount Tamge). Behind it, in the east of the country,
there is an elevated stratal plain, south of which rises the North
Guinea Upland, turning into socle plateaus (≈800 m) and blocky highlands
(Mount Nimba is the highest point of the country with a height of 1752
m).
It is divided into four natural regions - Maritime Guinea,
Central Guinea, Mountain Guinea and Forest Guinea.
Guinea's most
important minerals are bauxite, in terms of which the country ranks
first in the world. Gold, diamonds, ores of ferrous and non-ferrous
metals, zircon, rutile, and monazite are also mined.
The climate is subequatorial with a pronounced alternation of dry and wet seasons. Humid summer lasts from 3-5 months in the northeast to 7-10 months in the south of the country. The air temperature on the coast (≈27 °C) is higher than in the interior (≈24 °C) of the country, except during periods of drought, when the Harmattan wind blowing from the Sahara raises the air temperature to 38 °C.
The dense and high-water river network of Guinea is represented by
rivers flowing from the plateau to the eastern plain and flowing into
the Niger there, and by rivers flowing from these same plateaus directly
into the Atlantic Ocean. Rivers are navigable only in small, mainly
estuarine areas.
Forests occupy about 60% of the country's
territory, but most of them are represented by secondary sparse
deciduous trees. Indigenous moist evergreen forests have survived only
on the windward slopes of the North Guinean Uplands. Along the river
valleys, gallery forests are fragmentary. Mangroves grow in places along
the coast.
The once diverse fauna of the forests has been
preserved mainly in protected areas (hippos, genets, civets, forest
duikers). Elephants, leopards and chimpanzees are almost completely
exterminated.
Population - 12,395,924 (2017).
Annual increase - 2.6%
(fertility - 5.2 births per woman, infant mortality - 63 per 1000
births).
The average life expectancy is 56 years for men, 59
years for women.
Infection with the immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
- 1.6% (estimated in 2007, there are no reliable data for subsequent
years).
Ethnic composition: Fulbe 32%, Mandinka 30%, Susu 20%,
others 10%.
The main religion is Sunni Islam, 86.7% of the
population, 8.9% Christians. Most of them are Catholics, there are also
communities of the Assemblies of God, Evangelicals, Plymouth Brethren.
Aboriginal beliefs - 4%.
Literacy - 42% of men, 18% of women
(2003 estimate).
Urban population - 34% (in 2009).
The ancient history of Guinea has not been
studied. In the 5th century BC e. the shores of Guinea, most likely,
were captured by the Phoenician navigator Hanno.
In the
Middle Ages, some parts of present-day Guinea were part of the
Empire of Ghana (VIII-IX centuries) and Mali (XIII-XV centuries). At
that time, the territory of Guinea was inhabited by various tribes,
the most numerous of which were Mandinka, Dialonke, Susu.
In
the 16th century, nomadic pastoralists, the Fulbe, settled on the
Futa-Jallon plateau. In the 1720s, the Islamized top of the Fulbe
started a war against the Dyalonke, as well as against the pagan
Fulbe. This war ended mostly in the late 1770s. As a result, the
early feudal state of the Fulbe, the Futa-Jallon imamate, was
created.
In the XIX century, the penetration of the French
into Guinea began. They tried to organize trade relations with the
locals, but often this ended in the destruction of European
merchants. Since 1865, France began to build forts and fortified
posts on the Pepper Coast (in southern Guinea) to protect merchants.
With the leaders of local tribes, the French tried to conclude
non-aggression pacts.
In 1897, France entered into an agreement with the ruler of
Futa-Jallon on a protectorate. In 1898-1904. approximately in the
territory of modern Guinea there was a French colony of the Rivière
du Sud.
Since 1904, French Guinea has been part of the
federation of French West Africa.
The colonization of Guinea
by the French was slow. Only after the end of the First World War
there began the creation of plantations of bananas, pineapples,
coffee. However, the plantation economy has not received much
development. Industry also developed slowly in Guinea - only on the
eve of the Second World War did the first mining enterprises and
small workshops of the manufacturing industry appear there.
In a referendum in 1958, the Guinean
people voted for independence, which was declared on 2 October.
Guinea was proclaimed a republic.
Ahmed Sekou Toure became
the president of the republic, who established a one-party system in
the country, backed up by a powerful repressive apparatus to
suppress the “exploiting classes”, which did not have a specific
definition, but which included alleged opponents of the regime. In
the field of foreign policy, he adhered to a moderately pro-Soviet
course, and in the field of domestic policy he was an adherent of
"scientific socialism with African characteristics." The result of
this strategy was the total socialization of property; at some
stages, even the number of merchants in the bazaars was regulated by
order. By the beginning of the 1980s, about a million residents of
the country had emigrated abroad. In 1978-1984 it was called the
People's Revolutionary Republic of Guinea.
After the death of
Ahmed Sekou Toure in 1984, a group of military men seized power,
creating the Military Committee of National Revival, headed by
Colonel Lansana Conte, who eliminated the main competitors in the
struggle for power over the next three years. Under President Comte,
foreign policy was reoriented towards greater cooperation with
France, the USA, Great Britain; the country began to enjoy modest
support from international financial institutions.
In the
late 1980s, the process of democratization of political life began;
nominally free presidential and parliamentary elections have been
held regularly since the beginning of the next decade. Nevertheless,
Conte won the presidential elections three times (in 1993, 1998,
2003), and his Party of Unity and Progress won the parliamentary
elections, and each round was accompanied by powerful opposition
protests, to which local power ministries traditionally react very
harshly.
The continuing deterioration of the economic
situation in the country led to mass demonstrations in 2007
demanding the resignation of the government and the adoption of
urgent measures to bring the country out of the crisis. As a result
of negotiations between the authorities and the trade union
movement, the post of prime minister was handed over to a compromise
candidate with a mandate until the next elections scheduled for
mid-2008.
On December 22, 2008, President Conte died suddenly
and, according to the constitution, his duties were transferred to
the chairman of the National Assembly, Abubakar Sompare, who was to
elect a new president of the republic within 60 days. However, on
December 23, 2008, a few hours after Conte's death, a group of
military men who declared themselves the National Council for
Democracy and Development, NCDD (French: Conseil national pour la
démocratie et le développement, CNDD), carried out a coup d'état. On
December 24, 2008, the duties of the President of the Republic were
transferred to Captain Mousse Dadi Kamara by agreement between the
government of Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Suare and the military,
who created the National Council for Democracy and Development.
The leader of the junta scheduled the election of a new
president for January 2010. At the same time, at first he refused to
participate in the struggle for the presidency, but then changed his
mind, which caused indignation of the opposition. On September 28,
2009, thousands of people rallied in the capital of Guinea, Conakry,
to disperse which army units were thrown. As a result, more than 150
participants died, about 1,000 demonstrators were injured.
In
December 2009, Moussa Dadi Camara was assassinated, during which he
was shot in the head and sent abroad for treatment. As a result,
control of the ruling junta passed to General Sekuba Konate, who
later called on the opposition to form a government of national
unity and scheduled presidential elections for June 2010. Since
December 21, 2010 President Alpha Condé.
On September 28,
2013, parliamentary elections were held, the results of which were
not recognized by the opposition.
On October 12, 2016, as a
result of negotiations between the President of the Republic,
representatives of the opposition and civil society, as well as with
the participation of international observers, a political agreement
was reached, consisting of 12 parts, the implementation of which was
supposed to ensure the normalization of relations between political
blocs and in civil society. The agreement was to help prepare for
open and independent parliamentary and presidential elections in
2020.
On September 5, 2021, a military coup took place in the
capital of the state, carried out by the forces of an elite military
unit of the government special forces group (GPS). The head of the
unit, Colonel Mamady Dumbua, announced the arrest of the country's
president, Alpha Conde, the dissolution of the government and
parliament, and the closure of borders.
It has diplomatic
relations with the Russian Federation (established with the USSR on
October 4, 1958). In 2018, an agreement on military cooperation was
signed between the countries.