IVORY COAST CRISIS ? A BACKGROUNDER
Dr. Gary K. Busch
America?s Second Front ? In Africa
Nov. 11 - France has attacked the Ivory Coast once
more and, again, is seeking UN blessing for its
aggression and barbarism. Under the rubric of
?peacekeeping? the French have been supporting the
rebels, known as the ?New Forces?. These rebels take
defensive positions which abut French
peacekeeper?s lines and fire over their heads at the
FANCI (Ivory Coast Army) soldiers. The French
continue to protect these rebels, arm them, feed them,
transport them and offer them tactical
communication facilities. The notion of ?peacekeeping?
is a total farce and a travesty.
The French are determined to oust the
democratically-elected President of the Ivory Coast,
Laurent
Gbagbo. After years of struggle against a country
ruled by ?Black Frenchmen? with a French advisor in
every civil service post, the FPI (Gbagbo?s party)
managed a democratic victory at the polls. Since
then, the French have been trying to oust Gbagbo and
put in another Black Frenchmen whom they
shelter in Paris awaiting the great day.
The current debacle has its roots in the post-election
period in September 2002, when Gbagbo was
on a state visit to Rome. The military dictator Guei
was recently defeated in the ballot box and the new
Ivoirien government was busy untying the stranglehold
of French corporations over the nation?s
economy. The team of the President and his two
Ministers represented a powerful force for change in
the Ivory Coast and had substantial support from the
Ivory Coast population. Change and reform in
the Ivory Coast meant a struggle to relax the control
by the French over banking, insurance, transport,
cocoa trading and energy policies. The Gbagbo
government had demonstrated, during its short term
in power, a spirit of nationalism which had mobilised
the population. It was also threatening the
French hold over the Ivory Coast economy by inviting
in companies from other countries to tender for
Government projects.
On the Wednesday, in September 2002, when the
rebellion began, there were about 650 rebels
holed up in Bouake. These were Guei appointees who had
been purged from the Army. They had
little equipment and ammunition, as they had expected
a conflict of no more than five days. President
Gbagbo was in Rome, meeting the Pope and the rebels
felt sure that the coup could take place
quickly with the President out of the country.
As the coup began in the second largest town, Bouake,
the loyalist troops (FANCI) under Lida
Kouassi responded. They were able to surround the
rebels, trapping them in the city, and killing
about 320 of them. They were positioned for a final
onslaught on the remaining 300 rebels but were
suddenly stopped by the French commander of the body
of French troops stationed in the Ivory Coast.
He demanded a delay of 48 hours to evacuate the French
nationals and some US personnel in the
town. The FANCI demanded to be allowed to attack
Bouake to put down the rebels but the French
insisted on the delay. As soon as there was a delay,
the French dropped parachutists into Bouake
who took up positions alongside the rebels. This made
it impossible for the FANCI to attack without
killing a lot of Frenchmen at the same time. U.S.
Special Forces from Ghana went in and out in twelve
hours rescuing some American students trapped there.
During those 48 hours the French military command
chartered three Antonov-12 aircraft which were
picked up in Franceville in Gabon. These
Ukrainian-registered aircraft were filled with
military
supplies stocked by the French in Central Africa. Two
of the planes started their journey in Durban
where Ukrainian equipment and military personnel were
loaded on board. The chartered planes flew
to Nimba County, Liberia (on the Ivory Coast border)
and then on to the rebel areas in Ivory Coast
(Bouake and Korhogo) where they were handed to the
rebels. Bus loads of troops were transported
from Burkina Faso to Korhogo dressed in civilian
clothes where they were equipped with the military
supplies brought in by the French from Central Africa
and the Ukraine.
All of a sudden there were 2,500 fully armed soldiers
on the rebel side as mercenaries from Liberia
and Sierra Leone were also brought in by the same
planes as well. They were equipped with
Kalashnikovs and other bloc equipment which was never
part of the Ivory Coast arsenal. France
supplied sophisticated communications equipment as
well. Once the rebels were rearmed and
equipped, the French gradually withdrew, leaving
operational control to the Eastern European
mercenaries who directed the rebels in co-ordination
with the French headquarters at
Yamoussoukro. The French continued to subvert the
loyalist army at every turn and attempted to
purge the army of its key officers.
One of the reasons for the French unhappiness with
Gbagbo was that he refused to carry on with the
traditional French corruption of the Ivory Coast. At
the time of the coup, the country was virtually out of
fuel. The director of the S.I.R (Société Ivoirienne de
Raffinage) had emptied the reserves of the country?
s energy coffers. He fled to France with the money
where he was offered sanctuary and immunity for
his theft from the French. There was no fuel and no
money to buy fuel. The representative of Total-Elf
visited Gbagbo's office with the French ambassador and
said that they had two ships standing by off
the Ivory Coast ports which they could offer to
Gbagbo. All they wanted in return was the country?s
only
oil refinery which they would purchase for one
symbolic franc. The French would operate the refinery
as it wished, using the high-priced oil Total would
supply. They brought a bag full of money for
Gbagbo. He ordered them out of his office and told
them not to forget the bag of money they had left. A
similar exchange took place with the cocoa
entrepreneurs.
The same was true for the Companie Eléctricité
Ivoirienne , the national power company. The contract
with the CIE was due for renewal in early 2004 and the
French (SAUR) demanded the right to
continue to operate the national electricity grid in
the way in which they had been operating previously.
The Ivory Coast government consumed about 170 billion
CFA francs (about 260 ? million) a year. The
French would supply overpriced gas to the to the ABB
Azito gas power plant as their rent on the power
station and grid but would charge everyone else fees
for power. These fees were not to be taxed as
revenue to the operators but remitted directly to
them. There was no value added to the national
economy, no amortisation of the debt incurred in
building the stations and the grid and with no control
over the prices. Gbagbo and his ministers said that
this was unreasonable and promised that when
the current contract ran out it would be open for
international tender. The French were fuming.
The French (Bouygues) had agreed with President Bedie
in 1999 to build a new bridge in Abidjan.
The price agreed was 120 billion CFA francs (183?
million) or 200 billion if it were to be a bridge with
an upper and lower level. When Gbagbo took office he
was appalled at this gross overspend and
cancelled the contract. When Gbagbo was in China the
Chinese said they could do it for 60 billion (for
an upper and lower bridge) and they were given the
contract in May 2002. The French were furious but
could only continue to plot against Gbagbo. There were
many such conflicts. The French knew their
game was up and decided to do something about it. The
decided that, whatever the cost, they would
remove Gbagbo from office or make the country
ungovernable (except with French help).
France has had decades of experience in undermining
African governments and ushering in the
massacre of thousands of Africans. During and after
the genocide unleashed in Rwanda during April
1994, France was shown to have played a similar role
in this horrendous crime, which caused the
deaths of at least 800,000 people. Belgium, France and
the United Nations knew in advance that
preparations were being made to exterminate the Tutsi
minority in Rwanda, and did nothing to
prevent it. The French government, which kept the
Hutu-led government in power, protected the killers
and supplied them with weapons while the massacres
were in progress. "Operation Amaryllis," the
French code name for the evacuation of European
civilians in Rwanda in 1994, also organized the
removal to France of Hutu "extremists" centrally
involved in the genocide. At the same time the French
military refused to evacuate Tutsi employees of the
French embassy in Kigali, who faced
extermination. A second evacuation, "Operation
Turquoise," was mounted later, as the RPF offensive
was on the brink of taking power, to bring Rwandan
government and military leaders to safety in
France while French officers managed the managed the
"transition" to RPF rule. The French armed
the Hutu militias for a period of ten days after the
genocide began and intervened to protect the Hutu
military when it was endangered.
France?s allies in the Ivory Coast were among the most
bloodthirsty of Africa?s irregular
soldiers/killers. Most of these rebels were not
Ivorian at all. They were the wandering mercenaries of
the Liberian and Sierra Leone wars who had attached
themselves to the military coup leader, Robert
Guei whom Gbagbo defeated in a free election. There
were three rebel groups which appeared in the
Ivory Coast: The Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI)
- which was the first to take up arms against
the government; The Movement for Justice and Peace
(MJP); and The Ivorian Popular Movement of
the Great West (MPIGO). Of these the MPCI had a
political base within the Ivory Coast formed from
Guei supporters and the large immigrant communities of
Burkinabes, Malians and Guineans who
had come to Ivory Coast as economic migrants (they
were better known by their initials Mouvement
Pour Les Cons Ivres ? because they showed up in
battles drunk and drugged).. The other two groups
were ad hoc groups of Liberians, defeated Sierra
Leonean rebels and Guinean dissidents offered
shelter and support by Charles Taylor of Liberia. The
familiar faces from the Liberian civil war were
seen in the television clips of the rebels. Moskito
Bockarie from Sierra Leone was familiar face
among the rebels. Ukrainian pilots and mercenaries
from these wars and the wars in the Congos
and Angola appear regularly. A substantial proportion
of the rebels spoke English with each other
rather than French.
After a period of sustained fighting a temporary
cease-fire was agreed. In this the rebels were in
control of a large portion of the West and North of
the country. This didn?t mean peace for the poor
Ivorians living in rebel-controlled areas. On the 15th
of February 2003 the UN Humanitarian Envoy for
the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, Carolyn McAskie reported
that ?Western Cote d'Ivoire, extending roughly
from the coastal town of Tabou to the mountain towns
of Man, Danane and Touba, remains highly
insecure because of continued fighting between armed
elements and the national army. The
presence of Liberian militias running rampant and
drugged kids committing every kind of atrocity
possible has rendered the area a ?no-go? zone. She
went on, including the North, "The complete
interruption of all administrative functions,
including banking, in rebel-held areas since September
2002 is causing a crippling lack of cash flow,
especially in the north, and the continued paralysis
of
health services.? There are almost one million
internal refugees inside the Ivory Coast.
In that climate of civil disorder, the French invited
all the warring parties, to a peace-making session
in France, from 15 to 23 January 2003 at
Linas-Marcoussis, in France. Attending the meeting
were
representatives of the legitimate Ivory Coast
Government as well as the rebel factions and the other
major Ivory Coast political parties who were not in
the government. At that meeting the political
opponents of the Gbagbo Government and the rebel
military forces agreed to create a government of
reconciliation which would include them. The term of
the current elected government does not end
until 2005 and the French and the rebels decided that
during the period until the end of the
presidential term, the opposition would play a crucial
part in the running of the government. They
demanded the posts of Minister of Defence and Minister
of the Interior. This was never to be.
However, a ?neutral? Prime Minister Seydou Diallo, was
put in to supervise the harmony.
After a long period of delay, the ministers from the
New Forces took their place in the Cabinet. Their
ranks were diminished by the fallout of the end to the
war in Liberia where Charles Taylor was driven
from office. Many of the Liberians fight in the Ivory
Coast went home and left a power vacuum among
the rebels. These started fighting among themselves
and several leaders were murdered. There
was, as is, a minor civil war going on among the
rebels and each blames the French for not
protecting them. These rebels are being attacked by
other rebels; not the FANCI. In February 2004,
Chief Adams Coulibaly was killed by his own side and
Chief Adams was killed the day later.
In May 2004, the UN found mass graves in the northern
town of Korhogo. Later there were gun battles
between rival rebel factions which left 22 people dead
Korhogo and the central town of Bouake.
These fire fights began with a late-night attack on
June 20 by "heavily-armed elements" on a convoy
travelling from Burkina Faso to Korhogo carrying rebel
leader Guillaume Soro. The violence in June
followed what forces loyal to rebel leader Guillaume
Soro described as an assassination attempt, for
which they blamed his Paris-based rival Ibrahim
Coulibaly, known as IB. Internecine warfare spread
across the rebel-held areas.
On 29 February 2004 the UN Security Council agreed to
send a peacekeeping force of more than
6,000 troops to Cote d'Ivoire to supervise the
disarmament of rebel forces and to prepare for the
presidential elections due in October 2005. The
council voted unanimously in favour of creating the
new peacekeeping force after the United States dropped
its earlier opposition to the proposal. The
UN Operation in Cote d?Ivoire (UNOCI) formally came
into existence on April 4 for an initial period of
12 months. It replaced the existing UN mission in Cote
d?Ivoire, known by its French acronym MINUCI,
which included a handful of military liaison officers.
France made clear that its 4,000 troops in Cote
d?Ivoire would not become part of the UN
peacekeeping force, numbering itself 6,000 UN troops.
The French soldiers kept the peace and
everything else they could find. Twelve French
soldiers on peacekeeping duties in Ivory Coast were
arrested in connection with a bank theft there in
September 2004. The troops had been assigned to
protect a branch of the Central Bank of West African
States (BCEAO) and were charged with stealing
$120,000 (100,000 euros). This is not a unique case of
the French stealing
Throughout 2004 the rebels refused to carry out their
agreed disarmament. They were engaged in an
internal struggle and a continuous struggle against
the FANCI. They continued to refuse to allow
normalcy (schools, hospitals, public services) to be
restored across the country. On November 4,
2004, the Ivory Coast government launched air strikes
against rebel positions in the northern part of
the country, around the self-proclaimed rebel capital
town of Bouake. The air strikes forced the UN to
suspend its humanitarian operations, and marked the
first hostilities since the signing of a ceasefire
in May 2003.
On November 6, 2004, aircraft from the Ivoirian
Government struck a French military base where the
rebels had been given shelter, resulting in the deaths
of nine French troops and the wounding of an
additional 31. In retaliation, the French military
destroyed two Sukhoi-25 aircraft, in addition to five
helicopters and an Ivorian army weapons cache,
effectively destroying the Ivory Coast Air Force. The
order to retaliate was reported to have come directly
from French President Jacques Chirac. The U.N.
Security Council, meanwhile, held an emergency session
to discuss the situation in the country and
called for an end to all military operations by Ivory
Coast forces.
In the meantime, pro-Gbagbo militants began setting
fire to a number of French schools in the
capital, Abidjan, and looting French property. In
response to escalating tensions, the French military
dispatched three Mirage jet aircraft to another French
military base in Libreville in nearby Gabon, to be
put on standby. The French Ministry of Defence, on the
following day, announced that it was
dispatching as well an additional 600 troops as
reinforcements; 300 of which were dispatched from
Libreville, while the remaining 300, along with a
squadron of gendarmes, were sent from France.
The destruction of the Ivoirian Air Force was a
serious blow, as this was the Government?s main
advantage over the rebels; the control of the skies.
The French have destroyed this. This will allow the
rebels to continue and allow the French to continue to
manipulate the Ivory Coast at its pleasure.
However, there are thousands of French nationals in
the Ivory Coast and it is likely that there will be
retaliation by the irate Ivoirians against them.
This came up for debate in the United Nations. An
emergency UN Security Council meeting in New
York condemned the bombing raid as a violation of the
May 2003 cease-fire and gave the 10,000-
strong peacekeeping force permission to use "all
necessary means" to stop the fighting. It didn?t
recognise that the troops who should be suppressed are
the French troops. As the Ivory Coast
spokesman, Desire Tagro, ?The Security Council ought
to be taking action against France; we are
going to inform the entire world ... that France has
come to attack us."
It is crucial that the friends of the Ivory Coast
stand up to support the elected Gbagbo government and
reject the French moves to take over the effective
control of the country. Particularly, it is not in the
interests of the U.S. to allow French-induced anarchy
to return the Ivory Coast to French power. The
French have been working with Gabon to destabilise
Equatorial Guinea on the Corisco Island
business; France has been aiding Blaise Campaore in
Burkina over his efforts to keep U.S. forces
from opening a base there against the terrorists;
France has been supporting the Government of the
Sudan in resisting international pressure over Darfur.
Along with Spain the French are seeking an
activist European Union role in the Bight of Benin
which is inimical to U.S. interests, in Equatorial
Guinea, Sao Tome, Gabon and Cameroon.
It is not in U.S. long-term or short-term interests to
allow the French to get away with this coup-de-
theatre putsch in Abidjan. The African friends of
elected democracy will suffer from such an example.
The U.S. must stand by the Ivory Coast at its time of
need and allow democracy and enlightened self-
interest to prevail.
Dr. Gary K. Busch
Dr. Gary K. Busch: An American; Professor Webster
University in London, formerly Professor
University of Hawai, Chairman of Transport Logistics,
Editor of Ocnus.Net. Contributor to the Wall
Street Journal, Spectator and to Russian press.
Consultant to governments and international
corporations. Advisor to Russian transport and
industry (1992-95).
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