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Soon every commodity from tap water to beer-bottle caps was in short supply. Once-docile Guineans reacted by staging an angry series of food riots this year. Though Toure prides himself on his emancipation of womenfolk—he has also insisted that traditionally bare-breasted banana porters cover up—it was Guinea's vociferous market mam mies, miffed at perennial shortages and soaring prices, who finally forced the President to make his first drastic eco nomic reforms by threatening to march on Conakry. Fearful that he might be overthrown, Toure last October hastily dismantled dozens of state monopolies and allowed private retailers to buy up their stocks.
In repeated broadcasts, he confessed that his nationalization of the economy had been a colossal flop. Said he: "The private trader has a greater sense of responsibility than civil servants, who get paid at the end of each month and only once in a while think of the nation or their own responsibility." But Western businessmen are wondering whether Touré's apparent conversion to free enterprise is sincere—and .whether it comes too late to do much good.