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Guinea Army - History

Before Guinean independence maintenance of public order and internal security was the responsibility of the French governor of Guinea in Conakry, who was directly subordinate to the governor general of French West Africa in Dakar, Senegal. Police units consisted mainly of locally recruited African personnel, supervised by French cadres and serving under overall French command. They were organized, equipped, and trained by the French, along lines similar to those of comparable units in other French colonies of West Africa. Qualified Guineans in many instances became noncommissioned officers and, in exceptional cases, held commissions. Trained in French procedures, many of them by the end of World War II were serving with French police units in other territories of French West Africa.

Similarly, before Guinean sovereignty territorial defense was the responsibility of Metropolitan France, which deployed units of its army on a regional basis throughout its African territories for this purpose. During the colonial period roughly 50,000 Guinean soldiers served in French army units composed entirely of Africans. A large number of these soldiers served in Europe and Indochina during World War II; others saw action in Algeria and other parts of Africa.

When Guinea rejected membership in the proposed French Community in 1958 and chose complete independence instead, General Charles de Gaulle reacted to the rebuff by cutting all political, economic, and military ties with the new republic. In rapid order the French dismantled their military installations, removing all movable equipment and supplies as well as all French military technicians. The usual military assistance provided other former French colonies was denied Guinea. In addition France began immediately to repatriate Guinean soldiers then serving in its army. Of the approximately 22,000 Guineans in French uniform in 1958, about 10,000 of those serving outside Guinea chose to remain in the French army. The remaining 12,000 were demobilized and returned home.

The new government of President Toure recognized that returning veterans, imbued with French traditions inspired by long association with the army of France, might represent a latent political force of disruptive potential to PDG aims. The party leadership recalled that Guinean veterans of French military service before World War II, particularly the Peul of the Fouta Djallon area, had tended to find themselves at odds with the people in their home communities. They had been critical of the local administi ation and were themselves criticized as having become outsiders who favored European ways. Many of them had used the knowledge acquired during their French military service to exploit their compatriots. Faced with the inability to provide jobs for a huge group of returning veterans in 1959, PDG leaders were apprehensive about the possibility of trouble from the ex-soldiers, some of whom were expected to enlist in the new Guinean army for the purpose of inciting insurrection and bringing back French rule.

The problems of creating, training, and equipping a national military establishment from scratch, together with similar requirements for a police system, were not easily resolved. Numerous solutions were tried, and continuing reforms and frequent changes in the responsibilities of each element ensued. Growing reliance on a paramilitary militia as a primary instrument of national defense has resulted, according to President Toure’s statements, from recognition that Guinea cannot afford to recruit, train, equip, and maintain the large standing army he feels it needs. Outside observers generally agree, however, that this move has been conditioned primarily by the real or imagined threats to security that have preoccupied the government. After discovery of its involvement in the so-called Labe plot of 1969, the army was regarded by the governing party as a hotbed of subversion. Subsequently steps already under way were speeded up to reduce the army’s ability to mount a coup d'etat, and the militia became a counterforce against a possible military threat.

The solution adopted by the new government was in essence a resolution of the dual problems of building a national army while at the same time neutralizing a large, potentially dangerous group of Guineans trained in the art of military warfare by the former colonial power. After a process of careful screening to determine political reliability, some were chosen to join with members of the former territorial Gendarmerie to form the People’s Army of Guinea (L’Armee Populaire de Guinee). By the end of January 1959 the new army had achieved a personnel strength of approximately 2,000 officers and men. The remaining veterans of French service were urged to join the PDG and to take an active part in the new republic’s national development programs. All were included in party efforts to instill a sense of zeal for the country’s new revolutionary mission.

Among the measures taken to assure the loyalty of the ex-servicemen who were not taken into the Guinean army was the formation early in February 1959 of the National Veterans Association; almost all veterans became members. According to an American observer who did research in Guinea in 1959 and again during the 1960s, the veterans were given roles in local affairs, responsibilities in human investment projects, and assignments in administrative and party activities. Although on occasion President Toure had directed the people to increase their vigilance over the activities of the ex-servicemen and resolutely to oppose any threat by them or their supporters, by 1963 most veterans had returned to their villages, quietly resuming their former lives.

In 1975 the Guinean military establishment consisted of an army of about 5,000 officers and men, an air force with a personnel strength of approximately 300, and a naval element of about 200 officers and men. The army was organized into four infantry battalions, one armored battalion, and one engineer battalion. Information was not available regarding the organizational structure of the air force and the navy.

At its inception in 1958 the army was assigned a threefold mission: ensuring domestic order, guarding life and property, and defending the nation’s sovereignty. It was, in effect, a reserve force held in readiness to support the Gendarmerie, the Surete Nationale, and the Garde Republicaine in emergencies. In addition the army was increasingly called upon to participate in the human investment program by aiding in the construction of new roads, bridges, and buildings; in the creation of new plantations; and in the cultivation of crops, particularly on state farms. Military units were also expected to respond as emergency relief missions to areas stricken by fire, floods, or other disasters.

In the years since independence, however, the army’s mission underwent a noticeable shift in emphasis. Particularly since the Labe affair in 1969, publicity about army units and their leaders was focused on their contribution to the economic development programs, rather than on their traditional military function. Emphasis on army personnel as “militants in uniform” and on their obligation of loyalty to the government and service to the nation underscore the primacy of their civic action mission. With the shift in defense responsibilities to the militia, some observers reported that sections of the army had been deprived of arms and that the emphasis on civic action tasks had undoubtedly been made at the expense of military training and, consequently, combat effectiveness.

According to the published documents of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 1974, the army’s armored battalion could draw upon a modest inventory of Soviet medium tanks manufactured in the late 1940s and Soviet armored personnel carriers of comparable vintage. Other heavy arms consisted of field artillery guns ranging in caliber from 85-mm to 122-mm. Much of the more complicated equipment was of questionable or inoperable condition because of age and a lack of spare parts. According to some reports, however, a considerable amount of newer Soviet equipment was received after the 1970 invasion in order to lessen the possibility of a second attack and to improve Soviet-Guinean relations. This equipment was believed to be in good order, but much of it may have been distributed to the militia rather than to the army.

In the early 1970s the country was organized into four military zones, each corresponding to one of the four geographic regions. One of the four infantry battalions was assigned to each of the military zones. The zone headquarters was also battalion headquarters, serving as the supervisory element for units of company and platoon size that were assigned to each of the country’s twenty-nine administrative regions. Thus the only concentrations of troops in the vicinity of the national capital appeared to be the armored battalion and elements of the engineer battalion.

Apart from its tacit role of defending territorial integrity, which in reality was an ancillary mission, the army was expected to play a larger part in civic action and as an economic production unit. In 1967 the army’s command structure included a directorate of economic action, which was divided into a number of departments that were responsible for the different elements of the civic action mission. Army battalions at field level were organized into services corresponding to these supervisory departments.

Within the Agricultural Production Service certain battalions were responsible for growing crops on communal land and for livestock raising. The Industrial Service was assigned to operate the military factory in Conakry built by West Germany in the 1960s, where army personnel manufactured uniforms and shoes and repaired vehicles. The Transport Service was responsible for shipment of the crops and manufactured items produced by the Agricultural Production Service and the Industrial Service. The Engineering Service, which consisted of the army engineering battalion, engaged in the construction of buildings and roads and in the maintenance of streets in Conakry and other large towns. Engineering companies were assigned to Conakry, Kankan, and Boke. In all of its production activities, the army was expected not only to achieve self-sufficiency but also to make a profit for government expenditure in the national development program.

The army as a purely military force apparently had lost favor in the eyes of the president and the PDG leadership after a number of high-ranking military officials were accused of complicity in attempted coups d’etat. Consequently there were indications that the governing regime has regarded the army with a measure of distrust. Since 1967 most of the army’s activities had been directed to civic-action projects rather than to traditional military training exercises. The expansion of the militia as a paramilitary force reflected President Toure’s concern over latent threats to his government, and he had introduced an element of counterbalance against the military and police services. To assure loyalty to the governing power, all three elements of the security establishment had been politicized and were completely subordinate to the party-state apparatus.