 Benin - national flag
Benin National Flag, The flag dates from 1960 and contains the Pan-African
colors, which in Benin's case are also given the importance of green for hope,
yellow for the country's wealth and red for ancestral bravery. During the 1975
Marxist regime, the flag was completely green with a red star on the upper left,
but with the fall of the one-party regime in 1990, the old flag was
reintroduced.
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What does the flag of Benin look like? Follow this link, then you will see
the image in PNG format and flag meaning description about this country.
Benin - history
Benin history, In approximately In 1625, the fon people established the kingdom of
Abomey in present-day Benin, and it subsequently came to form the nucleus of the
kingdom of Dahomey, which in 1720 reached the coastline of present-day
Benin. Abomey was subject to the much larger Yoruba kingdom of Oyo in
present-day Nigeria. However, the expansion of the Dahome Empire led to constant
conflicts with Yoruba as Dahomey acquired slaves from there. The slave trade was
during the 1700's. became a central source of income for the Dahome kingdom,
which had contacts with the European slave traders who had built forts on the
coast, which would later become known as the Slave Coast.
Despite protests and opposition from local kings, in 1892 France made Dahomey
a protectorate. In 1894, Dahomey changed its status to a colony and the
following year it was incorporated into French West Africa. Dahomey bordered on
the German Togoland and British Nigeria and therefore had strategic rather than
economic significance for France. Thus, economically, the area gained little out
of colonial rule, but a few phonics gained positions within the colony
administration.
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Dahomey gained independence on 1.8.1960. Hubert Maga became the country's
first president, but was toppled by a coup in October 1963. Colonel Christophe
Soglo became the new head of state until the January 1964 election, when
Sorou-Mighan Apithy (1913-89) was elected president. In November 1965, however,
Soglo forced Apithy to resign as a result of unrest in the north. After just two
years in power, Soglo was overthrown and a number of weak military regimes tried
in vain to solve the country's regional problems. In October 1972 Major Mathieu
Kérékou took power and created a radical Marxist military council.
In 1975, Dahomey changed its name to the People's Republic of Benin and
officially became a one-party state. Relations with France deteriorated and
military cooperation ceased. French mercenaries' failed attempt to overthrow
Kérékou in 1977 only made matters worse. Only with François
Mitterrand's election victory in France in 1981 did things improve. Economic
problems, including Due to Nigeria's closure of the border in 1984, Kérékou
forced to approach the West. Coup attempts, strikes, and student unrest in the
late 1980's led him to write off Marxist ideology and plan economics and
introduce multi-party rule. In the 1991 election, Prime Minister Nicéphore
Soglo wonover Kérékou, and in June 1992, after hard negotiations, Soglo
succeeded in forming a coalition with 34 members of the National
Assembly. However, the coalition split in the fall of 1993. Political events in
Benin in the mid-1990's were characterized as a "civil coup" and a pattern of
transition from one-party socialism to democracy.
Ahmed Kérékou returned to the post of presidential victory over Nicéphore
Soglo in 1996. Soglo's party, the Renaissance du Bénin, became the country's
absolute largest in the 1999 National Assembly elections. However, the course of
the election triggered strong criticism from the opposition, including from
Nicéphore Soglo, who withdrew from the second round of elections. However, with
the 2006 election of Thomas Boni Yayi as new president, the process of
democratization that Benin has undergone successfully and with great
international recognition was reaffirmed. Boni Yayi was re-elected in 2011.
A border dispute with neighboring Niger over islands in the Niger River was
brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2000. In
addition, there have been minor border disputes with Burkina Faso in the
north. In 2005, Benin received thousands of refugees from the politically
troubled Togo to the west.
Benin has experienced relatively high economic growth in recent years, and
the country also benefits from the G8 countries' debt reduction decision in
2005. However, Benin remains one of the world's poorest countries.
In mid-2007, much of Africa, including Benin, was hit by heavy floods due to
rain, and a large number of villages in the southern part of the country were
washed away. Again in 2010, the country was hit by floods.
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