After seizing power in 1972 Major Mathieu Kérékou declared Dahomey a Marxist-Leninist state and sought financial support from communist governments in Eastern Europe and Asia. To distance the modern state from its colonial past, the country became the People's Republic of Benin in 1975. However, Benin dropped the socialist ideology in 1989 following pressure from creditors and domestic unrest related to economic hardship.
In recent years Benin has strengthened ties with France, the former colonial power, as well as the United States and the main international lending institutions. Benin has also adopted a mediating role in the political crises in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, and Togo and provided a contribution to the United Nations force in Haiti, all of which were indications of the country's growing confidence in the international community.
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or relations:
“So the gentle poet’s name
To foreign parts is blown by fame;
Seek him in his native town,
He is hidden and unknown.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)