St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1961-03-10

A handsome, young, sine
Toure, is at the bottom Of 1t all.
He may be shrewdly playing one
side off against the other. On the
other hand, he may be desperately
trying to extricate himself from
an economic jam by making deal
wherever he can. But whatever he
is trying to do, neither side is will
ing to write him off-not now at
least.
Neither side can hope to win
more than psychological advant-
age. Guinea is poor country about
the size of Arizona with a highly
illiterate, Muslin population of
little more than 100000.
It has such an unsound economy
that one wonders why France was
so rude and ungracious when
Toure declared I'VE prefer poverty
with liberty to riches and slavery"
Under the colonial administra-
ton France had to pump huge
sums into Guinea to keep it 60
ing, yet before turning it over to
Toure's government, it resorted to
such petty devices of spite as rip
ping out the telephones and carry
ing off the typewriters.
Angered Guineans in retaliation,
knocked over all the statues
France had erected in Conakry to
it's glorious heroes. But with an eye
on economy the Guineans retained
the marble base of one on which
the imposing bronze likeness of a
French military hero had stood,
and changed the wording to trib-
ute to those who had fallen in the
fight against colonialism.
In spite of bitter resentment,
France can rejoice that it has
left an indehble mark upon the
country and its people. Ironically
the little nations unifying lang
uage is French and the best hotel
in it's capital city, Conakry, which
is more French than African, still
bears the name Hotel de France.
A couple of strokes with a paint
brush could have easily made it
shallow till for extravagances as
some African leaders do. For ex-
ample, the celebration last Octob-
err the second anniversary of indie
pendence was as modest as a Sum-
day school play, and though as a
Moslem he can have at least four
wives, Toure has only one.
Yet he is as ambitious as
Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah whom
he resembles in many respects and
with whom he maintains cordial
relations, and as his astute, one
time mentor, Felix Houphouet-
Boigny, president of the Ivory
Coast, who has nothing for him
but contempt.
Gaulle's chief advisor on all mat
Hotel de Guinea or Hotel de Toure.
The latter is highly improbable
because Toure, in spite Of his
complete political mastery, is not
given to self adulation. There is
not an avenue, a building or even
an alley bearing his name.
Like a frugal housewife saving
pennies to buy a mink coat, he
has gone about conserving the
crumbs left him by the French
confident that Guinea will one day
be economically sound and that he
will be a force to be rekoned with
in African affairs.
He does not dig deep into the
Guinea, he plunged fun time into
the labor movement, organizing
the Independent African Workers
Union (UGTAN). This did three
things for Toure in addition to
sharpening his natural talents for
Grating and organizing.
It enabled him to travel extern
sively; it brought him in contact
with Communism and most i'm
portant of all it attracted to him
a very influential French African
from the Ivory Coast, Boigny, who
stood high in the political coun-
ellis of the French government and
who was reputed to be Charles De
The key to tbs enigmatic per-
sonality may be his background.