Toure's Troubles

When Sekou Toure of Guinea in 1958 visited his brother African leader, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, he ran his fingers over the furniture in Nkrumah's Christiansborg Castle in awe, saying, "The British left everything, even the ashtrays!" Things had been different when Toure demanded and got independence for Guinea, making it the only African state to secede from De Gaulle's French Community. Petulantly, the departing French took everything--the telephones and electric-light sockets, typewriters, chairs, tables, even the government records--leaving Guinea (pop. 2,800,000) to start building a nation from scratch.

When the West was slow with offers of aid, Leftist Toure simply turned to Communist countries. Last week Guinea's warehouses bulged with surplus East German cement, with 200 new Praga and Skoda cars just in from Czechoslovakia, and with the secret cargoes of Russian and Czech transport planes unloaded under guard. Communist money was building a huge new printing plant for Guinea, to be followed by a powerful radio station. Communist Czechs operate Conakry's airport and harbor, and a Communist Pole is Toure's adviser on public works. Even the Red Chinese were in town--to "advise on rice production." At week's end Toure gave formal recognition to East Germany; making Guinea the first non-Communist nation to do so.

Toure's own earlier Marxist learnings gave the Communists a head start, and they have held the advantage by offering what seemed easy terms to Guinean officials who were not familiar with the tricks of Soviet price rigging (many banana merchants later discovered they could have got a better deal in Western Europe).

The only recent sale of U.S. goods was a puny shipment of police motorcycles of the kind Toure saw and admired in Los Angeles during his U.S. tour last year. For private Western businessmen, the outlook is dark indeed. Government cooperatives are taking over foreign trade, and Toure's Comptoir Guineen du Commerce Exterieur, the state-owned trading agency, is so deep in debt that prohibitive taxes are being levied on oil companies to rake up new funds. In fact, Toure's treasury is so strapped for cash that it has not even been able to keep its commitments to its Communist barter partners, has vainly sought loans from private French banks.

Last week Toure, in desperation, chose the path of many impoverished young nations. Assured of a $35 million credit from Russia, he cut Guinea's ties with the French franc, announced Guinea henceforth would have its own currency which, by terms of his own decree, has no value in foreign trade. Dismayed, Shell, Texaco and Socony Mobil were mulling over whether it was worth it to stay. At the big Fria Alumina Works (48.5% owned by the U.S.'s Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp.), 300 European workers went on strike, halting production, seeking some guarantee that their paychecks would really be worth enough any more.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.