Guinea document photos online

When Guinea became the only French colony to vote "No" to de Gaulle in 1958 — with Sekou Toure declaring "we prefer freedom in poverty to riches in slavery" — Paris did not just pull out its engineers and tear up paperwork. It launched Operation Persil, a covert plan in which French intelligence printed mountains of counterfeit Guinean francs to wreck the young nation's new money. The forgeries were so well made they actually survived Guinea's humid climate better than the real banknotes, which were printed in Czechoslovakia. The scheme collapsed only after a weapons shipment tied to it was seized in 1960, but it left a lasting scar on Guinea's currency.

• Passport power As ranked by the Henley Passport Index, the Guinean passport sits around 80th globally, opening roughly 52 destinations visa-free or with visa on arrival.
• The famous "No" In the September 1958 referendum Guinea was the only French colony to reject de Gaulle's community and choose total independence, becoming the first French-speaking state in sub-Saharan Africa to do so on 2 October 1958.
• Currency sabotage After independence France ran Operation Persil, secretly forging Guinean franc banknotes to trigger hyperinflation — and the fakes reportedly held up better in the tropics than the genuine notes printed in Czechoslovakia.
• Money The Guinean franc has no working subdivision — the old centimes were wiped out by inflation — so prices are quoted in whole francs, with notes running from 1,000 up to 20,000 GNF.
• Currency twists From 1971 to 1985 the country abandoned the franc entirely for a socialist currency called the syli, then brought the franc back and chopped three zeros off it in a 1986 redenomination.
• Bauxite giant Guinea holds roughly a quarter to half of the planet's known bauxite reserves — the ore aluminium is made from — making this small nation a quiet heavyweight in the global metals trade.
• Water tower The Fouta Djallon highlands in central Guinea feed the Niger, Senegal and Gambia rivers, earning the country the nickname "the water tower of West Africa" for a region of nearly 300 million people.
• World heritage Mount Nimba, a UNESCO World Heritage site straddling Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia, rises to 1,752 metres and shelters dozens of springs plus rare species found almost nowhere else.