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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Ivory Coast stampedes into chaos |
| 2003-02-09 |
| At the army recruitment centre in Abidjan, the scenes were extraordinary. Thousands of young men, many naked, swarmed in a vast, walled compound. Occasionally the tension became too much and they stampeded, raising clouds of red dust. Then uniformed soldiers swung in, driving them back with heavy rope belts used as whips. Every now and then a young volunteer would stumble off, wounded and dazed. In their midst a tall paramilitary gendarme, dressed in red T-shirt and blue beret, had a look of distress on his face. What authority was left seemed to reside with him. This gendarme might be the only person left in the Ivory Coast with any clue as to what his job is. This was recruitment day - a call for volunteers to join the fight against the rebels who since September have split Ivory Coast in two. But for this gendarme, it was a sign his country was plunging over the brink. The officer removed his thick leather belt and cracked it, forcing back a hundred or so men away from a row of tables where naked volunteers lined up for a crude fitness test. These guys aren't going to be soldiers, they're going to be a mob with guns. The men were among 20,000 or so responding to a government call in Ivory Coast's main city for recruits to put down the rebellion in the north and west. Many were disaffected, jobless and allied to a 'patriotic' youth movement led by firebrand loyalist Charles Blé Goudé. His movement is based primarily on political and ethnic affiliation to President Laurent Gbagbo, a southern Christian swept to power in a popular revolt after contentious elections in 2000. Latest in a long string of stiffs. The recruitment drive threatened an escalation of the conflict that has displaced nearly a million people and killed 5,000. As rebel numbers in the north and west swell along regional lines, there are potentially catastrophic consequences for one of the world's poorest regions. Since the death in 1993 of its autocratic independence leader, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, a combination of Machiavellian plots by its politicians and economic crisis after world cocoa and coffee prices collapsed has led Ivory Coast to the brink. Economy collapses. Politicans screw around. Sound familiar? Sensitive to the country's ethnic and religious mix, Houphouët kept a careful balance, or dispensed largesse to aggrieved groups. Successive heads of state - all from rival factions of the Christian-dominated south - have been less careful. During the Nineties their main Muslim rival, Alassane Ouattara, was gaining in popularity. A series of voting and identity laws directed against his supporters and based on a concept known as 'Ivoirite' were introduced. This defined Ivorian nationals according to their ethnicity, casting millions of second and third generation West African immigrants into stateless limbo. By association, Muslims from the north, who share ethnicity with immigrants from neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, were made foreigners in their own land. Ouattara has been barred from standing for election because he once used a passport from Burkina Faso and could not prove his Ivorian ancestry. I'm beginning to understand why the people up north are fighting. It isn't jihad; they've been screwed over. 'Ivoirite' set the stage for civil war, unleashing a wave of xenophobia in the Christian south at a time when tensions over jobs and land were rising. At the same time it focused the sense of grievance and disenfranchisment felt by Muslims, northerners and immigrants. This came to a head last September when soldiers from the mainly Muslim north attempted a coup. They failed but took the north, and precipitated another allied rebellion in the west. The African Development Bank, Ivory Coast's largest foreign employer, yesterday announced the first evacuations of staff from the country. The bank has long been seen as a bellwether of foreign firms in Ivory Coast. Its departure shows that big business doubts the once-stable country can pull out of a four-month-old civil war. Two weeks ago in Paris, Gbagbo, the rebels and political parties signed a power-sharing agreement, including a commitment by the government to unravel exclusionist policies. But rebel claims they were given the Interior and Defence Ministries, effectively putting them in charge of the army and gendarmes, provoked outrage. The side that didn't get Interior and Defense was bound to scream. On cue Blé Goudé's patriotic youth went on the rampage in Abidjan, looting French business and attacking foreigners while security forces stood by. The Burkina Faso embassy was burnt, the French embassy mobbed. French families trying to evacuate from the airport were jeered and told never to return in an attack that took on the flavour of a second bid for independence. I'm trying to figure out what the French had to do with this, other than general principles, of course. Gbagbo was ominously silent about the power-sharing agreement for two weeks, until a televised address late on Friday. 'We are tired of war. Let us try this new remedy,' he said. Gbagbo is under huge international pressure to accept the deal. But his speech contained many caveats, and he is a past master of saying one thing and doing another. Sounds like a politican. He has to take the army with him - and that may be difficult enough. Sounds like the army has enough problems. He also has to convince the rebels. But his most immediate problem is the streets - populated by Christian youth brought up on 'Ivoirite'. They put Gbagbo in power, they may yet bring him down. It depends to some extent on the leadership provided on the streets by Blé Goudé, whose attitude is unambiguous. 'I don't believe there can be a peaceful solution because I am sure the rebels don't want a peaceful solution. When they came on 19 September they came to kill and to take power.' They failed then, he said, but he believes they're prepared to renew civil war. They sure sound like it. Tell you what, Gbagbo and Goude, why not talk your way out of this? The rebels have the best land and they're on a roll. Best make a deal. His enemies respond that, like many before him, Blé Goudé is riding a tiger he cannot control. Yep. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 " Joining the army gets them clothing and food." And a gun. Don't forget the gun, it's important. Sure it may be a Lee-Enfield, or something similar, but it beats the hell out of sharp sticks and stones. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-02-09 21:44:26 |
| #4 The Ivory Coast's South is populated by genuine anti-jihadis, who understand that Bush's Saudi allies in Burkina Faso, infiltrated jihadis into the Ivory Coast with an intent of Islamizing the country. However, Bush's State Department is supporting France's Islamo-centrist status quo "peace." Islamo-fascists are on the war path everywhere, under the protective blanket of the U.S. President's "islam is peace" fiction. They saw this guy coming. This is how the Wahabis look at relations with the U.S.: King Fahd: PIMP President Bush: WHORE |
| Posted by: Anon 2003-02-09 14:02:16 |
| #3 Don, no doubt there is a religious aspect, and some of the Muslims have certainly been infected with the jihad virus. But it seems that the "Ivorite" political philosophy has boomeranged on the south. After all, if you treat some of your citizens as non-citizens long enough, they'll eventually get the idea that they have no vested interest in the current political structure. After that it's a short step to civil war. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2003-02-09 12:51:15 |
| #2 Joining the army gets them clothing and food. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-02-09 12:13:18 |
| #1 Your comments are generally defensible, but you fail to grasp that this is in large part a religious war. The southerners were not attacking the north, but the reverse...this situation is repeated all over west and central Africa. And of course, the southerners--who are the majority--objected to giving the northerners control of the army! Most commentary on Africa attempts to play down the religious strife. Most Americans, getting their news from the normal sources, would not know of the religious aspect of this. Yours, Don Baker |
| Posted by: donald baker 2003-02-09 09:39:23 |