Introduction
Resource dependence … makes countries more susceptible to civil war … The greater a country's poverty, the more likely it is to face a civil war. (Ross 2003a, 2003b, 5, 6)
Guinea possesses deposits of bauxite, gold, diamond and iron ore that make it among the resource-rich countries in Africa. There is also potential for other minerals, such as uranium, zinc, cobalt, platinum, nickel, silver and high-quality granite (World Bank 1990a, 10, 1990b). In addition, it is estimated that Guinea's long-term production capacity of gold could vary between 10 and 15 tonnes per year (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 426). Furthermore, the Simandou Mountain range, which stretches for 70 miles in Guinea's southeast highlands, possesses one of the largest deposits of high-grade iron ore in the world that remain unmined (Keefe 2013; Tinti 2013). Ironically, many reports of Guinea's economic potential are contrasted with the poverty and misery of most Guineans. According to the Human Development Index, from 1992 to 1994 the country occupied the last place in the report's list (UNDP 1992, 1993, 1994). In 1996, Guinea ranked 160th out of 174 countries and by 2009 the country ranked 170th out of 177 countries included in the report (UNDP 1996, 2009). In 2013, Guinea remained in the bottom 10 least developed nations, ranking 178 out of 186 countries (UNDP 2013). A recent study concludes that even in Guinea's capital, Conakry, ‘running water is an exception and electricity is available for only a few, unpredictable hours per day’ (Tinti 2013). Thus, there is a general agreement that in the last few decades ‘Guinea has remained at the bottom twenty of the least developed countries in the World’ (Soumah 2007, 183).
Notwithstanding the abundance of these resources in Guinea and the extreme poverty of its population, the country has not experienced large-scale armed conflicts often associated with this combination in West African states. Successive Guinean regimes have managed to protect the central structures of the state from destabilising events usually associated with civil wars and/or armed conflict in West African nations. This raises the question as to why armed conflict has not been a feature in Guinea given the presence of this violence risk variable. There is also the question of whether, and to what extent, Guinea's and its international partners’ strategies towards these resources were an impetus for political order rather than unrest, as much of the existing literature has suggested, as outlined below. Using qualitative data from fieldwork in Guinea,1 this article examines why the Guinean state has remained resilient to armed conflicts often induced by the combination of extreme poverty and abundant natural resources in West African nations.
Natural resources and armed conflicts in West Africa
State-centric versus rebel-centric approaches
A body of recent quantitative research on the causes of civil war identifies the availability of abundant natural resources, combined with extreme poverty, as significant triggers of civil war and/or armed conflicts (Collier and Hoeffler 1998, 2004; Collier 2000; Fearon and Laitin 2003; Ross 2003a, 2003b; Sambanis 2004; Zartman 1995). In particular, these studies conclude that, since the early 1990s, a number of countries in West Africa succumbed to civil war and/or armed conflicts owing to the combination of poverty, and abundance of natural resources.2 However, the literature is in strong disagreement as to why this combination often leads to the outbreak of violent civil conflicts. The debate has been focused on arguments based on two theoretical approaches: one state centric and the other rebel centric.
The state-centric approach to the linkage between abundant natural resources and armed conflicts highlights the ways in which these resources lead to state weakness to govern, resulting in violent contest for territorial or state control (Le Billon 2001, 56). A number of scholars suggest that the availability of these resources tends to weaken the state where it relies on revenue derived from primary commodity exports of these resources and neglects investment in other sectors of the economy (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Humphreys 2005; Ross 1999, 2003a, 2003b, 5, 6). The state-centric literature proposes that rulers of states whose revenues are mostly derived from the export of primary commodities ‘have less need for a socially intrusive and elaborate bureaucratic system to raise revenues’ (Fearon and Laitin 2003, 81), resulting in ‘a state … that is divorced from the domestic economy’ (Humphreys 2005, 513). This weakened incentive to create effective bureaucratic institutions that generate tax revenue from citizens often leads to a low level of state–society linkages and a weakened cohesion among social groups. These weaknesses leave the state vulnerable to armed rebellion and ‘less capable of mustering support against a threat’ (Ibid. 522) to its security.
In contrast, the rebel-centric approach focuses the debate on the opportunities these resources provide rebel groups to start large-scale armed conflicts and sustain them. Recent research concludes that an abundance of natural resources provides both motivation and opportunity for armed rebellion (Collier and Hoeffler 1998, 2004; Collier 2000). These studies suggest that the availability of these resources correlates with the onset of civil war and/or armed conflict through the rent-seeking incentives they provide for armed rebellion and the financing opportunities they create for rebel groups. Studies have found that the prospect of private gain derived from the control over these resources has been a strong motivating factor for the onset of many recent armed rebellions in the African continent (Grossman 1999; Gates 2002). Similarly, studies of recent civil wars have found strong links between access to these resources and rebel groups’ capacity ‘to equip and finance an army and … to survive against a government army’ (Collier and Hoeffler 2007, 720, see also Collier 2000) particularly in West Africa (Gberie 2005, 180–196).
This shows that the two approaches start from the same premises – that the combination of natural resources and extreme poverty played a key role in triggering recent civil wars in West Africa – but they reach different conclusions as to the reasons behind such findings. Both approaches found that a number of natural resource-rich countries that had experienced civil war in the region since the 1990s also had declining income in their pre-war years (Hiskett 1987; Isichei 1987; Sambanis 2004). This finding led scholars to suggest that there was a correlation between lower GDP and the onset of large-scale violent civil conflicts (Sambanis 2004). Rebel-centric scholars take this correlation to mean that poverty in mineral-rich nations creates opportunities for financing and recruitment among disgruntled unemployed youth, thereby exacerbating the risk of armed rebellion (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004, 569).
In contrast, state-centric analysts interpret lower GDP as indicative of a state's weakness to defend itself against armed rebellion, thereby supporting the state-centric approach. Furthermore, the two approaches agree that civil war is more likely in populous countries with vast natural resources. While some analysts claim this is because large populations are more likely to include aggrieved groups, thus reflecting the rebel-centric approach, others attribute it to states having difficulties controlling large populations, thus supporting the state-centric approach.
Taken together, both approaches are the result of quantitative analysis which gained prominence in the 1990s and is still a dominant analytical framework for recent West African civil wars and armed conflicts. There is no denial that this type of analysis contributed greatly to our understanding of the linkage between abundant natural resources and recent armed conflicts in West African nations. However, the models failed to explain why some countries in the region did not descend into civil war and/or armed conflicts despite the combination of abundant natural resources and extreme poverty. Using qualitative data, the study will address this apparent gap by identifying factors that could mitigate the outbreak of large-scale violent civil conflicts induced by such a combination. Therefore, Guinea's experience presents a rich case study for examination of mitigating factors against armed conflicts in such contexts. The country managed to avoid descending into civil war and or/armed conflicts despite the combined abundant natural resources and extreme poverty and despite being surrounded by a number of West African nations suffering from interconnected civil wars in the 1990s and 2000s. The following section discusses the dichotomy of poverty and wealth in Guinea and its security threats to the country.
The duality of poverty and wealth in Guinea
The depth of poverty [and] the dilapidation of the infrastructure … makes the country look like it has just emerged from a civil war. (International Crisis Group 2007, 5)
With little industry, scarce electricity and few navigable roads, Guinea often ranks among the poorest countries in the world, as outlined above. Following independence in 1958, the Guinean state ‘survived economically by permitting large foreign mining firms to set up enclaves for the export of bauxite [and other minerals] with a large government ownership stake’ (Smith Jr. 2006, 417). Immediately after independence, a joint venture at the Sangarédi mining enclaves with Harvey Aluminum (US) was established. This investment later became the Compagnie de Bauxites de Guinée, which subsequently evolved into one of the largest single bauxite mining operations in the world, jointly managed by ALCOA and ALCAN in recent years (Ibid. 417). The other important bauxite companies that are actively engaged in mining bauxite in Guinea include the Office des Bauxites de Kindia and the Société d’Économie Mixite Friguia.3 Similarly, commercial mining of diamonds began in Guinea in the mid 1930s and flourished during the colonial period. However, after independence the new country adopted socialist economic policies and ‘all industries, including diamond mining, were nationalised’ (Gberie 2001, 6). This shift towards the Eastern Bloc increasingly isolated Guinea's economy, which was heavily dependent on French and other Western nations’ investments. Although Guinea tried to remedy this economic isolation by seeking friends from the Eastern Bloc, political differences between Guinea and the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s further worsened the economic situation in the country. As a result, there was a significant slump in the production of diamonds, and in 1973 ‘formal diamond mining operations were closed down’ (Ibid. 7). Although informal mining of diamonds continued between the mid 1970s and early 1980s, ‘a large proportion of Guinean diamonds were smuggled to Sierra Leone or to Liberia, as both these places paid for [them] in dollars, much valued in an increasingly economically isolated Guinea’ (Gberie 2001, 6; see also Koskoff 1981, 88–89).
However, the death of President Sékou Touré in 1984 prompted a military coup led by Colonel Lansana Conté, who took power in April the same year. Under Conté, state control of the economy was relaxed and private investments were encouraged. The new government aimed, in particular, at encouraging investments in the mining sector. For this purpose, the government introduced a code of investment which emphasised investment in ‘mining and [its] related industries’ (Yansané 1990, 1236), giving preferential treatment to ‘businesses that develop natural resources and local raw materials’ (Gberie 2001, 7). In addition, the government banned ‘private diamond mining’, which was strongly linked with members of the Touré regime, and ordered the ‘removal of diamond traders, their families, and workers from the mining area’ (Yansané 1990, 1237).
The mining sector benefited significantly from these economic reforms. By 1999, there were over ‘14 companies holding exploratory licenses in the diamond mining’ (Gberie 2001, 7–8) sector. Among these companies were the Canadian company Trivalence Mining Corporation. This company invested in new technologies that allowed ‘hands-free’ sorting of diamonds. In 1999, the company upgraded its three plants by introducing a machine which automatically shines the diamonds as they pass through the machine and ‘shoots them into a locked steel box using a jet of compressed air’ (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005, 584). The introduction of these technologies in the diamond mining sector increased the number of carats recovered and the country's exporting capacity (Ibid. 584, footnote 42). Reports indicate that in 2000, production of diamonds at Trivalence's AREDOR mine increased by 63% over 1999 (Ibid. 585, footnote 45), and national diamond production in 2004 rose to 739,891 carats from 666,000 carats in 2003 (Bermúdez-Lugo 2004, 21.3).
As for the bauxite sector, the new code of investment in the mining sector introduced by the Guinean government in the mid 1980s led to a renewed joint venture between a consortium of foreign mining companies and the government of Guinea, whereby the country's ownership of 49% partnership in the mining sector was strengthened. Furthermore, in 2007 uranium was discovered in the forest region, as well as possible offshore oil reserves. These discoveries led to a renewed interest on the part of international corporations in Guinea, resulting in the organisation of ‘several mining conventions’ (Engeler 2008, 94) in 2008.
These mining enclaves often give the government around 49% shares of the investment, therefore providing the state with ‘steady foreign exchange reserves, but few jobs and no spin-off for wider creation of wealth’ (Smith Jr. 2006, 417). For instance, Guinea's ‘average per capita income fell from US$560 in 1997 to US$410 in 2001’ (Melly 2003, 5) and it is estimated that in 1997 the mining sector was employing only around 10,000 people (Soumah 2007, 179). In short, the above shows that Guinea possesses large amounts of diamonds, bauxite, iron ore and other minerals, but Guineans also remain among the poorest people on earth. Yet, this dichotomy of wealth and poverty has not led to large-scale violent civil conflicts in the country, contrasting with existing literature. The remainder of this paper identifies possible mitigating factors that could explain this puzzle.
Mineral resources and political stability in Guinea
According to some studies, diamonds have proven to be an extremely portable, high-value medium of exchange, therefore offering a prominent target for armed groups in West African nations (Gberie 2001, 13; 2005, 180–196). Contrary to diamonds, bauxite and iron ore have not been directly linked with the outbreak of armed conflict in West Africa. Unlike diamonds, bauxite and iron ore are not easily smuggled across borders, and require heavy investment – often in partnership with the state. Nevertheless, revenue from these minerals provides significant wealth to the state. This wealth, according to existing literature, constitutes strong incentives for armed struggle for the control of state apparatus in conflict-prone nations (Cederman and Girardin 2007, 175; Cederman 1997, 72–108; Wimmer 2002, 85–113). Accordingly, the abundance of these minerals in Guinea constituted a threat to the country's stability in a region where armed conflicts have often been linked with the struggle for access to resources through the control of state apparatus.4 Instead, this paper proposes that the availability of these resources enabled various Guinean regimes to maintain a foreign economic policy compatible with internal stability, resist austerity measures imposed by international financial institutions and adopt selective redistribution mechanisms favourable to domestic stability. These measures were largely accepted by Guineans and the country's international partners, thus mitigating the security threats posed by Guinea's mineral resources.
Foreign economic policy compatible with internal stability
Since the 1950s, Guinea's large reserve of bauxite and its enormous potential as a supplier of this commodity continued shaping its foreign relations in a manner that strengthened internal stability. As discussed below, successive Guinean regimes have been able to draw external support for regime stability owing to Guinea's vast reserves of mineral resources (interview, academics, Conakry, September 2011). President Nixon's support of Touré’s regime in the aftermath of the Portuguese-led military invasion of Guinea in November 19705 has been attributed to Washington's interest in Guinea's mining sector. According to Cann (1997, 78), ‘the United States had a growing commercial investment in Guinea's bauxite mines, and thus President Richard M. Nixon in a confidential letter to Sékou Touré deplored the incident’ and ‘authorized $4.7 million as a contribution to the rebuilding of Conakry’ (Ibid. 79). The Soviet Union reacted to this Guino-American rapprochement by establishing a naval and air presence in Conakry, including the deployment of sophisticated Soviet arms, including the ‘Soviet Bear-D long-range reconnaissance aircraft’ (Ibid. 78). This Soviet military presence in Guinea became known as the ‘West African patrol’ and it made regular visits to the ports in the region. Thus, unlike conflicts elsewhere during the Cold War, where ‘the United States and the Soviet Union were major sources of [supports] for insurgencies and states fighting insurgencies’ (Straus 2012, 196), in Guinea both superpowers supported President Touré’s regime stability.
This unlikely behaviour from these rival superpowers has been linked to the strategic importance of bauxite for the manufacture of military and civilian aircraft during the Cold War era (MacDonald 2009, 56). Despite the officially proclaimed socialist orientation of Guinea, ‘the Sékou Touré regime left much of the production and distribution of its chief exports (bauxite and alumina) in foreign capitalist hands’ and ‘continued to do most of its trading with Western nations’ in the mining sector (Gardinier 1988, 724). As such, President Touré ‘appealed both to the Soviet Union and the United States for military aid, playing the superpowers against each other’ (Cann 1997, 78), thereby using the superpower rivalry to strengthen Guinea's security forces.
This endorsement from great powers might have deterred domestic and regional destabilising forces, therefore strengthening regime stability in Guinea (interview, military personnel, Conakry, October 2011). Similarly, studies indicate that Touré was able to finance many of his security forces from revenue from the mining industry (International Crisis Group 2010, 3). For example, there were ‘arms for bauxite deals’ between Touré and the Soviet Bloc, which ‘allowed him to amass modern weapons and equipment’ (Ibid.) for his newly formed post-independent armed forces. Reports indicate that despite bad economic conditions, President Touré used revenue from natural resources to spend lavishly on his security apparatus such as the national militia (Bah 2013).
Upon assuming power in 1984, President Conté was able to channel repayment of the Soviet Union's estimated US$400 million debt from past purchases of arms and industrial equipment by using ‘bauxite exports from the Kindia mine operated by the Soviet technicians’ (Schissel 1986, 24). Similarly, following the military takeover in 2008, led by Captain Mussa Dadis Camara, most members of the international community condemned the coup d'état and imposed diplomatic, military and economic sanctions on Camara's government until he ceded power to an elected civilian body. Amid this mounting pressure on the military junta to return the country to civilian rule, Camara's government was able to secure a lucrative deal with China International Fund (CIF) in 2009 ‘worth an estimated $7 billion’, which ‘would grant the company near-exclusive control over Guinea's mineral, oil and gas resources’ (Gelfand 2009). In the following year, CIF ‘confirmed plans to fund a US$2.7bn infrastructure project to develop a mining facility’ (Burgis 2010) held by ‘the small British mining company Bellzone to dig for iron’ (Holslag 2011, 373). These deals strengthened the financial capacity of the regime and were used to demonstrate the capacity of the military regime to attract foreign finance in the face of fading domestic support alongside rising African and international isolation (Alden 2009).
Resistance to austerity measures imposed by international institutions
Another measure taken by various Guinean governments to strengthen domestic stability was the resistance to implementing structural adjustment programmes imposed by international institutions. By the late 1970s, Guinea's state-managed economy was in serious crisis, prompting Touré’s socialist regime to enter into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for the possibility of a loan as part of a structural adjustment programme, but significant progress was not made before Touré’s death in 1984. This lack of progress was attributed to Touré’s refusal to abandon ‘his goal of a planned domestic economy’ (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 431).
In contrast, upon assuming power following the 1984 bloodless military coup, Conté accepted the terms of the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programme. According to Graybeal and Picard (1991, 286), the regime ‘committed itself … verbally and in writing, to the centre-piece’ of the programme, ‘namely, to cut dramatically the size of the Guinean public sector’. In particular, the programme required the government to cut the number of state employees to about 50,000 from the estimated 140,000 (Ibid. 287). These reforms were met with stiff resistance from within the military and the bureaucracy, who ‘questioned the need for massive layoffs’ (Yansané 1990, 1237) because they would be the main losers (interview, academics, Conakry, September 2011). Nevertheless, the government announced a 34,000 reduction in the number of civil servants by the end of 1987 as part of a gradual implementation of the programme. The reaction to this announcement ‘created fears of a political back lash’ and it became clear that implementing these reforms would ‘provoke civil unrest and political instability’ (Graybeal and Picard 1991, 289) ‘with hazardous political repercussions for the Conté regime’ (Ibid. 290).
The likelihood of an outbreak of armed conflicts induced by a significant cut in the number of state employees and the removal of government subsidies could not be underestimated in Guinea at a time when the country had just emerged from 26 years under a socialist regime. Reports indicate that the Conté administration inherited a system whereby ‘most of the beneficiaries of the old system’ (Yansané 1990, 1239) were living in the urban areas. This included civil servants, employees of state enterprises and many other Guineans who had been living in towns and cities.6 This segment of the Guinean society was ‘dependent on the public sector’ to the extent that the threat of IMF-backed austerity measures to the interests of ‘this urban class and its potential allies [was] obvious’ (Graybeal and Picard 1991, 291).
There was a real risk that ‘disgruntled civil servants could create a political backlash which could be exploited by anti-Conté forces’ (Schissel 1986, 25). The tendency of disgruntled civil servants turning to armed rebellion in West Africa warranted President Conté’s reluctance to antagonise them in Guinea.7 The Liberian civil war in 1989 and that of Sierra Leone in 1991 were both led by disgruntled civil servants.8 Thus, the main preoccupation of the government was making sure that economic reforms did not ‘engender excessive discontent in the urban areas … which could be used to destabilise the government’ (Ibid. 23).
Faced with this situation, the regime adopted the dual strategy of delaying and/or diluting reforms. The strategy was meant to appease both the civil servants and Guinea's international partners. Thus, despite the regime's repeated renewal of ‘its commitment to cut back the size of the civil service’, a World Bank official concluded that ‘the Government talks a good game … but continues to avoid the implementation of reforms’ (Graybeal and Picard 1991, 289). This delaying tactic reassured state employees that the government was not seriously committed to carrying out the reforms (fieldwork discussion, Conakry, September–November 2011). The component of the programme known as the Programme Libre de Commerce, which required the liberalisation of the import of foodstuffs, ‘was dissolved in mid-February 1986 on government order’ (Yansané 1990, 1239). Instead, the state maintained ‘control over vital imports’ (Schissel 1986, 23) by establishing a joint venture with a number of French trading houses ‘for the import of vital foodstuffs’ (Ibid. 24). Likewise, in January 1986 the government cancelled the unpopular ‘price increases for sugar, condensed milk and cooking oil products’ (Yansané 1990, 1239) introduced earlier to reflect the impact of the devaluation on the cost of imported goods. Similarly, implementation of the programme was diluted towards partial reforms of the banking system and the replacement of the sily9 by the Guinean franc, thereby sending a signal to Guinea's international partners that at some point in the future the country would be fully integrated into the CFA franc zone backed by France (Africa report 1986, 42; Graybeal and Picard 1991, 286).
Seemingly, this dual strategy worked at the initial stage of the programme. As early as 1985, Guinea became ‘the second largest recipient of soft loans from France's Fonds d'Aide et de Coopération (FAC) with $88.6 million’ (Schissel 1986, 24). Likewise, the United States’ aid to Guinea increased ‘up to $8 million annually, not including food imports and technical assistance worth another $11 million’ (Everett 1985, 22). In early 1986, the IMF granted President Conté’s government a loan of US$36 million as the first instalment of a US$150 million package deal (Africa report 1986, 41). Likewise, the government secured a US$42.6 million loan from the World Bank to support the programme, and the Paris Club agreed to reschedule US$200 million of Guinea's foreign debt (Schissel 1986, 24). However, in the long term, there is general agreement among observers that the outcome of the programme did not meet expectations, to say the least (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 425; Graybeal and Picard 1991). The reasons for this shortcoming have been attributed to ‘domestic policy inadequacies’ (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 425), which means that ‘Guinean officials were stalling [the implementations of the reforms] for political reasons’ (Graybeal and Picard 1991, 289). This raises the question as to why the Guinean regime was able to resist the attempts by international financial institutions to impose deep cuts in the size of the public sector and the removal of subsidies. Some analysts explain Guinea's allergy to outside interference as ‘a mixture of defiant nationalism, left over from the Sékou Touré years’ (International Crisis Group 2005, 13) and the incompetence of the Conté regime. While the role of this mixture in shaping Guinea's attitude toward the donors cannot be denied, this behaviour cannot be entirely divorced from the country's vast natural resources. The following section explains how revenue from the mining industry and the redistribution mechanism adopted by various Guinean regimes explain this resistance and its resulting political stability.
Mineral revenue and selective redistribution
Guinea's trump card is its resource base. (Everett 1985, 24)
The availability and the use of mineral resources as ‘economic sanctuary’ against genuine economic and political reforms has been a feature in Guinea since independence. According to some analysts, Guinean regimes survived years of aid being suspended without caving in to demands for political and economic reforms ‘because Guinea is a resource-rich, wealthy nation enjoying heavy investment from foreign mining firms’ (BBC 2009). This view is echoed by Snyder and Bhavnani (2005, 584), who found that revenue from various mineral resources generates ‘a large and steady source of revenue’ for those who control state apparatus in Guinea. From independence in 1958 until 1984, mining contributed ‘an estimated 25% of [Guinea's] GDP, 95% of exports, and 79% of tax revenue’ (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 427, quoted in World Bank 1990a, 1990b, 32). The importance of the mining sector to the country's economic health continued during President Conté’s rule between 1984 and 2008. Of all revenues in 1986, mineral activities yielded 81.6% (Yansané 1990, 1240) and in 1989 Guinea's mining sector accounted for ‘90% of all exports’ (Topouzis 1989, 40).
Although the annual output of diamonds in Guinea varies from year to year, it is estimated that production is usually around 250,000 carats per year. Between 1995 and 1999, the stated value of Guinean exports of diamonds to Belgium alone was US$113.5 million (Gberie 2001, 8). However, one writer has suggested that the real value of Belgian imports of diamonds from Guinea during this period was over US$400 million (Ibid.). Likewise, diamond sales rose to more than US$15 million in 2000, which was an 89% increase over sales in 1999 (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005, 585, footnote 44). Besides, it is reported that by 2001, there were ‘eight formal buying offices in Guinea, each paying a fee of $50,000 per annum to the government’ (Gberie 2001, 8). Similarly, the National Bureau of Expertise, the agency which evaluates Guinea's diamonds and issues certificates of origin, collected a 3% tax increase on diamond exports in 2004 (Bermúdez-Lugo 2004, 21.3).
As for the bauxite sector, it is estimated that one-third of the world's highest-grade bauxite deposits are located within Guinea's borders. Some studies estimate that between 45 and 62% of Guinea's bauxite is of high alumina content (Campbell and Clapp 1995, 426). Between 1986 and 1992, ‘Tax revenues from the main bauxite mining company – Compagnie des Bauxites de Guineé (CBG) – accounted for an average 62% of total tax revenues’ (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005, 584, footnote 43). In 1989, the country's revenue from bauxite and aluminium accounted for 87% of total tax revenues (Topouzis 1989, 40). Overall, the bauxite sector has been the major source of tax revenue and foreign exchange for Guinea, ‘accounting for a steady 60–70% of export earnings’ (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005, 584). In short, bauxite and other minerals constitute the most important sector of the Guinean economy, providing a stable flow of income to successive Guinean governments, while most Guineans were kept in dire economic circumstances.
This dichotomy of wealth, poverty and political stability in Guinea owes much to the existence of a centralised rent-seeking and selective redistribution system. Through this system, resources have often been channelled to a small circle of elites who prospered from revenues of bauxite, diamonds and other minerals (interview, academics, Conakry, September 2011). During President Conté’s rule, the system consisted of two main groups, the primary patronage group and the secondary patronage group. Studies show that ‘the primary patronage group in the country [were] not more than 120 people’ and that the ‘secondary patronage networks may incorporate as many as 3500 middle-level administrators, military officers and private-sector businessmen’ (Picarda and Moudoud 2010, 59). This clientelist redistribution of mineral and state rents targeted mainly mid- and high-ranking military officers, the presidential entourage, mid-level state administrators and some privileged sections of the population. In the military, cohesion was often maintained by rewarding high-ranking officers with business opportunities and/or lucrative contracts and ‘through the military clientele system these benefits trickle[d] down to both [lower-ranking] officers and ordinary soldiers in a way that ensures their loyalty to their superiors and to the political elites’ (Bah 2013, 12). Studies show that the system allowed the higher echelons of the military ‘to get rich’ and that ‘the military and the security forces in general [were] better protected than the civilian population’ from the falling standard of living (International Crisis Group 2007, 2). Available sources indicate that President Conté’s most ‘effective conflict resolution mechanisms’ (Bah 2013, 12) in the army were quick promotion. The President often settled ‘problems or tensions within the armed forces’ by ordering the immediate ‘promotions of all serving personnel’ (International Crisis Group 2010, 8). Although this unregulated promotion resulted in disproportionate number of officers compared with the numbers of common soldiers, its accompanying benefits ensured the officers’ loyalty to the regime.
The presidential entourage was another component of the selective distribution system – a small group of individuals often described as ‘those close to the President [Conté]’ (International Crisis Group 2005, 12) ‘who monopolised much of the import and export business’ (Ibid. 13). This group was constituted of powerful ministers, businessmen, military officers and their client networks. A recent study describes the privileges and favours guaranteed to this group as ‘monumental’ (Ibid. 12) in their scale. For instance, it is estimated that ‘for years, the lucky holder of a post in Guinea's presidential guard could expect a plush villa and a share in rackets worth up to $50,000 a month’ (Samb 2011). Similarly, businessmen closely associated with the presidency were often able to access ‘personalised favours and deals that gave’ them ‘a stranglehold on the economy’ (International Crisis Group 2005, 13). These favours included access to non-competitive state contracts and tax exemptions (interview, businessman, Conakry, September 2011).
The attempt to dissolve the Société guinéenne d'exportation des produits agricoles et miniers (SOGEPAM) as part of an economic reform project introduced by former Prime Minister François Lonsény Fall highlights the extent to which this group benefited from being ‘close to the President’. When Lonsény Fall was appointed as Prime Minister in 2004, Guinea was in a dire economic situation. By 2003, most Guinea's international donors, including the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank, had suspended their programmes, owing to the country defaulting on its payments (International Crisis Group 2005, 13). Fall was appointed as Prime Minister in March 2004 ‘to restore sufficient order to get the [donors’] money flowing again’ (Ibid. 12). Reports indicate that at the heart of Prime Minister Fall's economic reform project was a plan to dissolve SOGEPAM for non-performance reasons. However, the company was mostly benefiting those businessmen close to the president and their associates (interview, businessman, Conakry, September 2011). As such, the group persuaded President Conté to issue a direct order ‘not to touch SOGEPAM’ (International Crisis Group 2005, 12). In an interview in 2006, President Conté admitted that the mining sector was the most corrupt area of the Guinean economy, where the politico-military-business elites enrich themselves at the expense of the larger population (Michel 2006). Lack of transparency appears to have contributed immensely to the large-scale corruption in the mining sector. Contracts between the government and investors were often secret, therefore it was difficult to know the details of contracts and to hold officials accountable (interview, academics, Conakry, September 2011).
This politico-business nexus strengthened both Conté’s semi-military regime and the business elites vis-à-vis domestic and external destabilising forces. Thus, through the passage of time, the maintenance of this politico-business elites relationship became of mutual concern to both entities. As such, when Guinea became a victim of a series of coordinated armed attacks from rebels backed by Liberia and Sierra Leone between 2000 and 2001, ‘the Guinean business class created a war fund’ (Gbaydee Doe 2003, 154) to support the government against the rebel attack. This was in sharp contrast with what happened in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where businessmen and politicians saw ‘their respective wars’ as opportunities to negotiate ‘profitable deals with rebels’ (Ibid.), thereby exacerbating the conflicts.
The behaviour of the Guinean business class towards the threat to political stability in the country can be attributed to the high level of Guinean ownership of private investment in the vital national industry and the import and export sectors compared with her Mano River Union10 neighbours of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Studies show that before the outbreak of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, foreign nationals owned around 90% of ‘private investment in the extractive industry and trading of imported goods’ while Guineans owned 70% of investment in these sectors during the same period (Gbaydee Doe 2003, 159–160). The concentration of these businesses in the hands of Guineans has largely been attributed to the capacity of the Guinean business class to utilise the economic liberalisation in place since 1984, when Guinea emerged from its socialist economy during Sékou Touré’s era. Studies show that the economic liberalisation in the mid 1980s produced a business class which consisted of ‘outside’ Guinean businessmen who had fled Touré’s socialist regime and ‘inside’ Guinean traders who had never left the country (Bah, Keita, and Lootvoet 1989; Lambert 1991). These two groups created ‘shared out zones of influence among themselves’ (Lambert 1991, 487) and eliminated foreign businessmen from distribution within the country. The ‘outside’ Guinean businessmen were involved only insofar as they were ‘partners with “inside” traders, who control not only distribution but also re-exportation toward neighbouring’ (Ibid.) countries. This high level of domestic control of economic activities in Guinea has been ‘a major source of stability given that the decision … to endorse violent confrontation can be largely contingent on how much one has to lose or gain in doing so’ (Gbaydee Doe 2003, 160). Accordingly, the business class in Guinea has consistently been ‘reluctant to push conflict to the brink, recognising they have the most to lose’ (Smith Jr. 2013, 3). In short, despite remaining one of the least developed countries on the planet, mineral revenues have spared the Guinean economy from total collapse and allowed for a degree of public services to be maintained through a selective redistribution mechanism that enabled successive Guinean regimes to keep most Guineans in extreme poverty, yet avoid large-scale violent resistance.
Conclusion
The combination of abundant mineral resources and extreme poverty presented a threat to Guinea's stability in a region where large-scale armed conflict has often been associated with such contexts. Yet, measures taken by various Guinean regimes and the positive response to it from Guineans and the country's international partners have mitigated such security threats. In particular, the selective redistribution mechanism adopted by the various Guinean regimes has played a major role in maintaining political stability in the country since independence. However, the death of President Conté in 2008 and the subsequent democratic election of President Alpha Condé to the presidency in 2010, after a brief military takeover by Captain Mussa Dadis Camara, have brought major social and political changes in Guinea. Yet, as demonstrated in this paper, the economic conditions of most Guineans remain unchanged. More importantly, since the reintroduction of political pluralism in 2010, ethnic conflict has begun to play out in Guinea's mining sector. In August 2012, a protest against the Brazilian mining giant Vale quickly turned violent. The residents of the town of Zogota near N'zérékoré ‘vandalized the company's facilities to protest [against] its recruitment of outside workers at the expense of the local Guerzes and Tomas ethnic groups’ (Bybee 2013), leading to ‘at least five dead, killed by soldiers who fired real bullets’ (CONFLICTBASE 2012). Given this situation, it is unlikely that the economic policies of previous Guinean regimes towards the country's mineral resources can be sustained by President Condé’s government. Events since 2008 suggest that political stability is less likely to be sustained unless Guineans get a greater share of the country's natural resources than they used to under previous regimes.