Word: guineas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...military takeover in Guinea...
Radio Conakry was still broadcasting funeral dirges and flowery eulogies last week for President Ahmed Sekou Toure, who had been buried only a few days earlier, when an anonymous spokesman broke in with a bulletin. Guinea's armed forces had seized power in a bloodless coup, the announcer declared. The goal, he went on, was to replace Toure's 26 years of "bloody and ruthless" rule with "true democracy." Word of the coup brought many rejoicing Guineans out into the streets...
...struggles preceding independence, Toure allied himself with the movement for African nationalism. He was instrumental in abolishing Guinea's tribal chieftaincies, which he considered corrupt, and in establishing more than 4,000 elected village councils. When the nation's first election was held in 1958, he was swept into office. "revolutionary socialism" to industrialize the economy, and he turned to the Soviet Union for assistance. But Guinea remained beset by chronic underproduction, inflation and black-marketeering. In the mid-'70s, Toure made a bow toward the West...
...last week. He died on the operating table after undergoing 5½ hours of surgery for a heart condition. Reactions to his death understandably differed. Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe called Toure a "true patriot" and a "loss to the entire African continent." Elsewhere, in the nearby Ivory Coast, Guinea's jubilant exiles downed champagne...
DIED. Ahmed Sékou Touré, 62, President of Guinea; during emergency heart surgery; in Cleveland (see WORLD...