Guinea - Ethnic Conflict
The years before independence were marked by intense rivalry among political groups that were, until the founding of the Guinean branch of the African Democratic Rally (Rassemblement Démocratique Africain -— RDA) in 1947, primarily formed on the basis of ethnic and regional affiliation. Since independence the government sought by all official means to minimize the political and social implications of ethnic differences, making it difficult to assess their present-day importance.
President Ahmed Sékou Touré reiterated that there are no longer Peul, Malinké, Soussou, and other ethnic distinctions in the country but Guineans who differ only in their revolutionary fervor. Whatever ethnic tensions survived in the 1970s had their roots in ancient histories of conquest, subjugation, harassment, and exploitation of one group by another. In the 1970s not all Coniagui, Bassari, and Badyaranké had forgotten that their ancestors were routed from their territory by the Peul during the nineteenth century and were forced to pay tribute to Peul rulers. Soussou, Dialonké, and others also remembered that their ancestors were enslaved or displaced by the Peul.
During colonial times the administration strengthened its position by exploiting ethnic tensions, such as the opposition between Peul masters and Dialonké serfs, competition between Nalou and Landouma chiefs, and other latent rivalries. It increased the power of traditional chiefs, thus emphasizing ethnic divisions. The administration's economic measures, however, eventually led to a breakdown of barriers between ethnic groups.
The exploitation of mineral resources and the establishment of banana plantations in Lower Guinea, which began in the middle 1930s, attracted people of different regions who then lived and worked in close proximity. After World War II Peul from the Fouta Djallon began going to Upper Guinea to work among the Malinké as stockraisers, butchers, and tailors or south to Lower Guinea where they earned their living as small-scale vendors, as domestic workers, and in other occupations.
In the course of modernization a bourgeoisie that was open to contacts evolved. Teachers, doctors, employees of the administration and private enterprises, and members of the army had common interests that often proved stronger than ethnic ties. The ideology of the ruling Democratic Party of Guinea (Parti Démocratique de Guinée—PDG), which preached equality of all races, appealed first to the intellectuals among this group.
It was particularly successful in Lower Guinea, where the cash economy had taken root and where traditional society was less structured than in the Fouta Djallon or Upper Guinea. Malinké cultivators, however, did begin to enter the party in 1954. In the following years the Kissi, Toma, Guerzé, Mano, and Kono in the Forest Region flocked to the PDG when it began to fight the chiefs who had been discredited as tools created by the colonial regime and who had enriched themselves at the expense of the people. The feudal, seminomadic society of the Fouta Djallon, which had remained largely in the subsistence economy, held out longest against the PDG. But in the elections for the Territorial Assembly in March 1957, the PDG, without appealing to local ethnic loyalties, won fifty-seven of sixty seats.
After independence, integration of ethnic groups became the avowed aim of the regime. Members of all ethnic groups were promised an equal chance in the political, economic, and social arena by President Touré. All the features of the Guinean constitution - one party, one legislative chamber whose members are elected on a single national slate, one executive head, one criminal and civil law code, one flag, and one anthem — were designed to foster national rather than ethnocentric feelings, as were public speeches and slogans, education in public schools and youth organizations, and the practice of rotating public officials. Administrators, party officials, teachers, and members of the army and militia were frequently posted outside their native area, a policy that encouraged interethnic marriages.
More than 80 percent of all Guineans, however, are rural inhabitants, and their isolation defied attempts at ethnic fraternization. Economic stagnation had driven the majority back into the subsistence economy, restricting their social ties to those within their local community. For the poor cultivator, membership within the family and the larger kin group remained the major guarantee against economic disaster. Outside Conakry interethnic marriages amount to less than 1 percent of the total, according to unofficial estimates. Within Conakry interethnic marriages usually involved educated partners and, particularly, government officials. A study conducted in 1967 showed that Malinké officials sometimes took Peul wives but that it was rare to find a Peul man marrying a Malinké or Soussou woman.
In the administrative regions of Boké and Kindia, quarrels between herders and cultivators correspond to ethnic divisions between the Peul and the Soussou. In the Forest Region growers of export crops feel exploited by enterprising Malinké, who after World War II began buying up their coffee, palm products, and cola nuts. Kissi, Toma, and Guerzé who experience economic difficulties blame them on the Malinké merchant, on the Malinké immigrant who often cultivates his crops with more success, or on the Malinké administrator or party official.
Despite government and party injunctions against nepotism, even people in salaried employment depend on a relative to find ajob or to get a share in the distribution of imported goods. Urban dwellers, especially the unskilled and semieducated, tend to have friends mainly among those of the same ethnic group or even from the same village. In Conakry the sections called Dixinn-Ecole and Hafia are inhabited mostly by Peul; Dixirin-Port is inhabited mainly by Soussou. Malinké, Soussou, and Peul live in different parts of the town of Mamou. Kindia, which is in Soussou territory, has a special Peul section; and Kissidougou, in Kissi country, has a special Malinké section.
Ethnic differences are buttressed by disparate self-conceptions. The Peul are said to see themselves as more aristocratic than others, the Soussou as better educated, the Malinké as possessing a special flair for business and being therefore richer, and the peoples of the Forest Region as working harder than others.
Another factor that militates to some degree against the building of Guinean nationalism is the attachment that exists with people across the country's borders. There are Coniagui and Bassari in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, Kouranko and Kissi in Sierra Leone, and Guerzé and Toma in Liberia. The Peul of the Fouta Djallon have ties with Peul in Senegal and Mali. Malinké have commercial and family ties in Senegal, Mali, and the Ivory Coast.
Continuous official accusations of racism and regionalism attest to their persistence. In 1965 a decree was issued that deals harshly with persons convicted of using ethnic connections in procuring a post or of favoring members of one's own ethnic group over those of another. The penalty may be ten years in prison.
The government tried to deal with the ethnic problem by proportioning government jobs and appointments to the tribunals of conciliation within each party committee on the basis of ethnic affiliation and by giving recognition and support to different cultures. Schoolbooks emphasize the traditional values and qualities of all Guinean peoples. The twice-a-year national dance competition between performers from all parts of Guinea is designed to keep alive the special cultural heritage of each participating group.
Ethnic and local loyalties, however, were more a restraint than an impediment to the creation of national unity. The principal contest was not so much between one ethnic group and another as it is between the local community and the central government. In other words, it is between those who have vested political, economic, or emotional interests in a traditional order that emphasized, among other values, ethnic loyalty and those who are committed—in tune with party ideology—to building a modern national state. The competition between local groups and the government is, however, an unequal one. The chief weakness of the local communities is that they no longer have the traditional structure and machinery to keep alive the historic cultural and emotional ties among their members.
Since 1957, when Guineans effectively began to govern themselves, the national leaders have directed a many-sided assault on the traditional social system, aiming at a complete metamorphosis of human relations. New laws were passed regulating marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The party took over some of the functions of land distribution that had formerly been performed by lineage elders. Generally an attempt was made to lift the individual out of a world in which family and kin group define his place in society into one in which education, skills, and national citizenship take precedence.
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