2024-03-27 22:30:03
On March 26, 1984, to everyone’s surprise, the Prime Minister, Dr. Lansana Béavoguiin a voice broken by shock, announced on the airwaves of the Voice of the Revolution, the sudden death of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, President Ahmed Sékou Touré in a Cleveland Clinic in the United States of America.
On March 30 of the same year, Guineans, in the presence of many great African and world leaders of the time, paid tribute and accompanied one of the most prestigious and influential leaders in contemporary history to his final resting place. On April 3, 1984, the Guinean army, in all its components grouped together in a Military Committee for National Recovery, seized power and caused great excitement with scenes of indescribable jubilation, the polar opposite of the mourning mobilization observed a few days earlier during a funeral worthy of a Great Statesman. 40 years later, what remains of the image of the first Guinean President?
On April 3, 1984, when the Guinean army took power, two elements weighed heavily in favor of the great popularity of the CMRN, the downfall of the PDG regime and negatively affected the image of the late President Ahmed. rescue Touré, who died on March 26, 1984 and who had just benefited from a funeral worthy of the great men of the century: the repression of real or supposed plots against the Party-State and the accusation of personal enrichment brought against the father of Guinean independence , his political companions and members of his family. For a man, who always wanted to give himself the image of a leader totally detached from money and material goods, this charge was particularly damning, enough to deconstruct an entire work. In short, it was the real political death of President Ahmed Sékou Touré after his physical disappearance.
An overwhelming majority of Guineans and the international community have adhered to these accusations reiterated for many years by the new Masters of Conakry and relayed throughout the world during international summits or during official visits by CMRN dignitaries to foreign countries. For many years, the Guinean and the foreigner had the feeling that the patriotic and even pan-Africanist declarations of President Ahmed Sékou Touré were only simple speeches without conviction, and that the truth or reality was that THE MAN of September 28, 1958 reigned with an iron fist, eliminated his real or invented adversaries only to use the country’s resources to their fullest extent, enrich his family and that he himself owned bank accounts and real estate in many countries of the world.
Today, 40 years after his death and well before, Guineans, who have a sense of observation and discernment, seem to have understood and have a completely different reading of President Ahmed. rescue Toure. To date, in fact, no element, no clue – small as it may be – has made it possible to provide the beginnings of proof, has come to support this caricature of the soldiers of April 3, 1984 accusing President Ahmed Sékou Touré of illicit enrichment. On the contrary, even a few members of the CMRN had the honesty to admit it later, the numerous investigations carried out in Guinea and elsewhere, since the aftermath of April 3, 1984, have revealed no trace of personal enrichment nor of President Ahmed rescueTouré nor his family. He had no bank account or real estate abroad. Relationships, yes numerous and very solid, but personal property, no trace until now.
It is also important to note, at a time when the CNRD regime is talking about the recovery of real estate, President Ahmed Sékou Touré has never allowed a dignitary of his regime to even dream of appropriating heritage whether built or not of the State whose sovereign character was sacred.
Another symbol of integrity, Guineans, who experienced this era, remember that the children of President Ahmed rescueTouré, like those of ordinary Guineans, only attended Guinean schools sometimes within the country from primary to university, none of them benefited from a state scholarship for abroad . While thousands of young Guineans from modest and unknown families have benefited from training in illustrious universities and higher education schools through scholarships that many African, Asian, European and American countries offered to Guinea, sometimes directly to President Ahmed Sékou Touré in a personal capacity.
In terms of Governance, more than 60 years after the country’s accession to independence, President Ahmed rescue Touré and his regime are, for Guineans, the actors in the founding of the Guinean State and architects of the major public infrastructures existing to this day: Palais du peuple, Palais des Nations, Cité des Nations, Stade du 28 Septembre in disuse and the now abandoned regional prefectural stadiums, the Hospitals national and regional, the Gamal Abdel Nasser University (the only one worthy of the name to date), the faculties in each region or prefecture of the country, the industrial units. Compulsory schooling even in the most remote villages. If school was compulsory, employment was guaranteed to all graduates of technical and university establishments. All State services present throughout the country: Justice, Police, Gendarmerie, Public Works, PTT etc. Security guaranteed everywhere on the national territory. The moralization of public life, the sacred nature of public resources and property was not a slogan, the embezzlement of a cent of public funds was considered a crime and punished as such.
Other times, other morals. Companies and companies like FRIGUIA, CBG, OBK, SOGUIFAB, ENTA, SOGUILUBE, THE SANOYAH TEXTILE FACTORY, THE MACENTA SAWMILL, THE MACENTA TEA FACTORY, THE MAMOU C0NSERVERIE, THE JUICE FACTORY OF MAFERINYA FRUIT, THE MACENTA TEA FACTORY, THE KOBA SUGAR FACTORY, THE AIR GUINÉE AIRLINE, THE DABOLA AND KASSA OIL MILL and many others were also eloquent proof of the attachment and interest of the Supreme Responsible for the economy and the well-being of the populations of the country to the service of which he dedicated his life. Everything was unfortunately sold off. No trace today of these industrial units victims of sell-offs, looting, cannibalism, the race for personal enrichment on the back of the country engaged by vereux executives and predators called businessmen who benefited from the trust of the CEO’s regime’s losers.
Ridicule does not kill, it is indeed the accusers of President Ahmed Sékou Toure who rushed on the few public goods and heritage acquired under his regime, through systems of shenanigans which deserve to be elucidated one day, in order to put back into place what has been cramped.
And yet with the new liberal option of the CMRN, these industrial units could be saved. Especially since those in the interior of the country also had the advantage of keeping young people in their locality.
It was President Ahmed Sékou Touré who created the Guinean Army, Gendarmerie and Police.
With a real sports policy, sports and cultural competitions (inter-districts, inter-sectionsinter-regions or inter-schools) were regularly organized throughout the national territory.
On the international scene, the stature and posture of President Ahmed Sékou Touré have imposed the influence and respect of Guinea in the world. The President of the National Assembly of Senegal, Moustapha Niasse, whom I had the opportunity to interview at length in Lomé and Dakar, in 2005, thanked President Ahmed Sékou Touré for allowing him to pray at the tomb of Our Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) in Mecca. Habib Chatty, former Secretary General of the Islamic League testified in a JA publication on the “absolute respect” and the great influence that President Ahmed Sékou Touré had within the Islamic UMMA and Arab countries. According to this African weekly, placed in the camp of his fierce and irreducible adversaries, President Ahmed Sékou Touré, shortly before his death and in less than a year, obtained from the Arab countries what all the countries of South Africa combined have not had for 10 years. Where did these funds go?
On the other hand, thanks to a tour in the 1970s in the Gulf countries, a Guinean delegation led by the Prime Minister, Dr. Lansana Béavogui raised millions of dollars but also received from the hands of the King of Saudi Arabia a personal donation in the form of a check offered to President Ahmed Sékou Touré. On the day of the public report on the fallout from this fundraising mission at the People’s Palace broadcast live by National Radio, President Ahmed Sékou Touré ordered that the millions of dollars collected as well as the 10 million dollars offered by the Saudi Monarch be paid in full into the Public Treasury Accounts. They were used in the construction of numerous industrial units built in his time and which are without traces today.
The man was totally disinterested in the personal enjoyment of Power.
Unfortunately, both locally and on the international scene, none of his successors has yet been able to do better for the international greatness of Guinea. At least this is the observation of Guineans who observe or experience the evolution of their country. In summary, President Ahmed rescue Touré, for the Guineans who knew him, was a man integrated into the life of his country which he traveled throughout the year infinitely much more than all his successors.
The election of his late daughter Mrs. Aminata Touré to the Town Hall of Kaloum also results from the image that the populations of this Commune ultimately retain of President Ahmed Sékou Touré who himself was Mayor of the peninsula in the 1950s.
Regarding the crucial issue of human rights, of those who unfortunately lost their lives during the 26 years of the first Republic, the regret, and it is deep, is that the soldiers of the CMRN who overthrew the regime of President Ahmed Sékou Touré never initiated investigations into the arrests, imprisonments and killings recorded during the reign which they themselves incriminated in the declaration of seizure of power and which they continued to index.
No more than the following regimes were willing or able to initiate the debate on this thorny situation in order to identify responsibilities and ensure these different personalities a burial of which they were deprived by the first Republic. However, even though time has proven that President Ahmed rescue Touré never enriched himself on the head of one of his former companions who died under his reign, it would have been infinitely better for the Supreme Responsible to adopt a posture of tolerance towards those who were accused, rightly or wrongly, of conspiracy or treason, especially since human life has a sacred character.
True or false, conspiracies can never justify murderous repressions. I join at this level, my brothers and friends in particular my teacher Almamy Oumar Traore who do not have my judgment on the first Guinean President, probably rightly so.
But, this point, which his successors have slowly and inexorably allowed to be buried with the death of almost all the actors and witnesses of the facts, constitutes the stain on the record of a President who deeply loved Guinea and defended with all his strength its interests, an African leader who, better than anyone, asserted himself in the struggle for the total liberation, unity and emancipation of the Continent. He made his country, Guinea, the base of the liberation movements of not only African countries but other continents under colonial domination.
And as recognized by one of his most ardent adversaries-critics, the first Senegalese President, the late Léopold RealizeSenghor, “President Ahmed Sékou Touré was a Guinean and African patriot”.
On this March 26, 2024, coinciding in the middle of the Holy month of Ramadan, MAY ALLAH, OUR CREATOR, accept the Prayers and Douas for the eternal rest in his Paradise of President Ahmed Sékou Touré, his companions of independence, his collaborators, those who disappeared under his regime and all our deceased loved ones. Amen
Abdoulaye Conde