751T.00/11–1654
The Consul General at Dakar (Ferguson) to the Department of State
No. 95
Ref:
Subject:
- Government Attempts to Relieve the Uneasy Situation in French Guinea.
The Consulate General has reported briefly from time to time during the past few months the restive situation prevailing in French Guinea. Guinea, virtually alone of the eight territories of French West Africa has been a source of uneasiness to the French authorities and events in the past two weeks have shown that the latter have embarked on a policy of attacking this problem forcefully if a bit obliquely.
In its Despatch No. 90 of November 5, 1954, the Consulate General reported that trip to Conakry of the Minister of Overseas France, M. Buron, and the plain words he felt obliged to say to the Territorial Assembly concerning recent political disturbances in Guinea. M. Buron was accompanied on his trip by the High Commissioner of French West Africa, M. Cornut-Gentille who remained on in the Territory for about a week or ten days following the departure of the Minister. The latter, however, is returning to Conakry on November 27 ostensibly to participate in the centennial of an historic event of some sort but probably to continue the present program of high level concentration on Guinea.
While the outward signs of trouble in Guinea have been largely political arising out of the questionable election of Barry Diawadou to the National Assembly last June, the Government feels, or purports to feel, that the economic situation in the Territory is the basic cause of the unrest prevailing there and is attacking the problem almost entirely along economic lines, although at the same time lecturing the Guineans on political maturity and the responsibilities of representative government. Whether the basic causes of the trouble in Guinea are economic or not, the primitive condition of society in that Territory is such that economic improvement cannot help but assuage political unrest.
The principal economic difficulties in Guinea recently have been the almost complete disruption of road traffic by unusually heavy rains cutting off the producer in the Fouta Djallon area and in Upper [Page 259] Guinea from their coastal markets and, secondly, unemployment in the capital of Conakry. It is in these two fields that the Administration is making its major assault at the present time. As a first step in alleviating the transport situation, the Government has assigned a road specialist from Dakar to Conakry and has allotted the Territory a special sum of 28,250,000 CFA francs for immediate repairs and improvements. Furthermore a new railway station has been opened at Macenta whence producers who normally truck their products to market can take advantage of rail connections. Furthermore the 40% rail rebates put in effect last month for the interior territories of Sudan and Niger are being extended to Guinea.
To relieve unemployment in Conakry and other urban centers a public works program of unspecified magnitude has been decided upon which will include a new athletic stadium, a new wharf in the port of Conakry etcetera. It is hoped by these programs to give work to at least 2,000 persons in Conakry alone. One difficulty probably should be mentioned in this connection, namely, the almost total lack of skilled or semi-skilled labor in Guinea. As reported once previously by the Consulate General, even automobile drivers have to be brought down from Senegal and the native Guinean to date has, with few exceptions, shown himself capable of only manual or menial labor.4 Possibly as an antidote to this situation the Government is urgently studying the possibility of granting Guinea an extraordinary allotment for training equipment.
Not only did the High Commissioner remain in Guinea for some time after the departure of the Minister of Overseas France, but he summoned down from Dakar most of the Directors General and Directors of the principal economic agencies of the Government. It is very questionable whether these gentlemen were actually needed but it made a good show and it seems entirely reasonable to suppose that the Guineans were impressed by this mark of attention. Furthermore, the High Commissioner has announced that he will return for another stay towards the end of the month.
There is some feeling in informed quarters in Dakar, that the situation in Guinea has been exaggerated and that the Governor of the Territory, M. Parisot has been given to needless alarm over both the political and economic situations. While M. Parisot is, from all reports, a very competent administrator, it may be true that he is given to unnecessary moments of panic as seen by his blatantly obvious last minute efforts to defeat the fellow-traveling Sekou Touré in the elections referred to earlier. Recent riots coupled with the troublesome transportation and unemployment questions may have caused M. Parisot to view the situation more seriously than it actually merited. In any event, [Page 260] his concern was soon reflected in high circles bringing on the present intense effort on the part of the Ministry of Overseas France and the Government General in Dakar. It appears from Dakar, although this may well be an exaggeration, that M. Cornut-Gentille while in Conakry virtually took over the running of the territorial Government and it is clear that the conduct of affairs in Guinea will henceforth be given a much greater amount of personal supervision both by the High Commissioner and by the Ministry of Overseas France in the future.
While the Consulate General agrees that the economic situation in Guinea is troublesome and that economic remedies in a primitive society can often quiet political complaints, we are inclined to the belief that the current uneasiness in Guinea has more of political nature to it than the Government is willing to admit. In the opinion of the Consulate General, the political unrest arises not so much out of the rigged elections as much as it does out of the lack of any indigenous political leader. Even the more politically mature territories of French West Africa such as Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Dahomey confine their political life largely to following one or two well-known political figures and the need for such a person appears even more acute in a more primitive area. Guinea had such a leader in Yacine Diallo but his premature death last spring left a void that has so far not been filled. Barry Diawadou, the deputy elected to replace Diallo is a nonentity and Sekou Touré, while popular with the city masses, has no following at all in the underdeveloped rural areas of the Fouta Djallon and Upper Guinea. Possibly now that Mr. Diawadou’s mandate as a deputy has finally been validated by the National Assembly,5 he can begin to make a name for himself in Paris and eventually achieve something approaching the following of Mr. Diallo back in Guinea. He has a long way to go, however, and at the moment Guineans really have no leader they can look to. Until they do, Guinea may well continue in a state of some uneasiness although the Government’s economic measures may serve to bury this feeling for a while.
In conclusion, one must be impressed by the concentration the Government is applying to Guinea even though the permanent value of its present measures may not be all that the Government expects. There is a definite air of bread and circuses about the entire program—in addition to the economic measures mentioned above considerable attention is being paid, as indicated by the stadium project, to organized athletics which the Africans dearly love. No definitive estimate on the success of the program can be made at present and we shall have to wait and see.
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed; it discussed recent political stirrings in Guinea and Senegal. (751T.00/10–2954)↩
- Not printed; despatches 1 and 18 of July 1 and 28, 1954 and despatch 26 of Aug. 4, 1954 discussed the election of June 27. (751T.00/7–154, 751T.00/7–2854, and 751T.00/8–454)↩
- Despatch 8 from Dakar, July 15, 1954, not printed; it reported on the Consul’s travels in French West Africa. (751T.00/7–1554)↩
- The final vote was not until Jan. 21, 1955. Diawadou had joined the Social Republicans whose votes Mendès-France required to remain in power.↩