Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire: History, interests and parallels

One thing interesting about Côte d’Ivoire is that two of their heads of states, the first head of state and the present one, have a trade union background but their leadership of the country has not helped strengthen trade unions or the labour movement’s influence. Houphouet-Boigny was involved in organising the African Agricultural Union in 1944 and the union was active in the founding of his party, Parti Democratique de Côte d’Ivoire. Boigny was also a leading member of the predecessor Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA) which was in an alliance with the French Communist Party during the colonial period. The present head, Laurent Gbagbo, was detained during the Houphouet-Boigny regime for his activities in National Trade Union of Research and Higher Education. In between the two the only elected leader was Houphouet-Boigny’s chosen successor, Henri Konan Bedie, so he could be looked at as an extension of Houphouet-Boigny’s politics. It was during his period of trade union activities that he formed the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). His party was seen to be friendly with the social democrats of the Socialist Party of France. The play of the politics of Côte d’Ivoire since independence and the crisis which is going on now is so distant from any weight being given the labour movement in decision-making and participation or the direction of affairs. The dominant force in the politics of the country has been France – the colonial power. The French first came to present day Côte d’Ivoire in 1637 and formalised their control around 1842.

Despite this, as early as 1959, Houphouet-Boigny expelled his deputy, Jean-Baptiste Mockey for leading a group of people within Boigny’s own party and government to openly oppose the government’s Francophile policies. He was accused of plotting to kill Boigny through the use of voodoo. In 1963, there were more than 100 secret trials in which Mockey and others like Ernest Boka, head of the Supreme Court, were implicated. Houphouet-Boigny had a poor relationship with governments in West Africa who were not the favourites of the West. Houphouet is alleged to have supported rebels and plotters against the regimes of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Sekou Toure in Guinea and Patrice Lumumba in the present-day DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). He is also associated with the coup against the pro-Soviet Matthieu Kerekou in Benin in January 1977. He supported Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA when the ruling government in Angola was pro-Soviet and UNITA was the favourite of the USA in Angola. It is believed that he worked closely with Blaise Compaore in the overthrow of Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso. He influenced French backing for Charles Taylor’s rebel forces in Liberia. Laurent Gbagbo also said in July 2008 that he received support from Blaise Compaore, present president of Burkina Faso, during the period that he organised against Houphouet-Boigny. Blaise Compaore is widely seen as the person who intervened on behalf of the French and other Western interests to bring to an end the radical anti-imperialist politics led by Thomas Sankara as the head of state of Burkina Faso. This means that no matter the labels the politics of Côte d’Ivoire was heavily influenced by pro-French interests and forces close to them.

It was only in 1990, when the anti-incumbent[1] movement pressures in Africa after the collapse of the Berlin Wall took off that there was the first ever election in Côte d’Ivoire where somebody contested against Felix Houphouet-Boigny since independence in August 1960, and this was Laurent Gbagbo. Whilst friends of the West fraudulently present Ghana under Nkrumah as a tyranny, the presidential election in Ghana on 27 April 1960 had two candidates, who were Kwame Nkrumah and J.B. Danquah – Côte d’Ivoire, which was praised, had nobody contesting Houphouet-Boigny. In 1969, the Students and Pupils Movement of Côte d’Ivoire (MEECI) was founded and its founding congress was held in the PDCI, the ruling party’s offices from 3–5 April 1969. This provoked riots from the Ivorian student body in opposition to this body, which was seen as a puppet organisation of the one-party state, to stifle student representation and voices. Boigny interpreted these student riots as an action masterminded by foreign pro-communist forces and a group of students were arrested by the government. The World Confederation of Labour (WCL) continued to make complaints about the harassment of trade unionists and the obstruction of the free operation and functioning of trade unions in Côte d’Ivoire under the regime of Houphouet-Boigny. There are two umbrella trade union bodies which are Dignite and the General Union of Workers of Côte d’Ivoire (UGTCI), with the latter seen as being favoured by the regime. From 1978, unfavourable cocoa prices contributed to a worsening economic situation. Student demonstrations took place in 1982 for which some lecturers, including Laurent Gbagbo, were seen as the instigators. The end of the Cold War in 1989 opened up the space for less support of the West for its puppet regimes so anti-incumbent movement renewed trade union militancy as well as student militancy. Even the army mutinied in 1990 and 1992. Houphouet-Boigny died in 1993.

With the suppression of democratic functioning bodies representing social groups and classes as well as a virtual monopoly of pro-France politics, there was no culture of mass organisation and mass intervention based on ideological differences, and in this situation what you have are anti-incumbent movements or ethnic group supported or driven differences. The first visible struggle was the one for the succession to Boigny’s throne. The struggle emerged between Alassane Ouattara, the prime minister, and Henri Konan Bedie, the president of the National Assembly. Bedie’s regime introduced the policy of differentiating between full Ivorians and non-Ivorians. In 1995, the word Ivoirité emerged to refer to ‘full’ Ivorians. Although this started to refer to those who had both parents from Côte d’Ivoire it degenerated to be seen as the population from the south and east of the country. Ouattara, whose parents come from the north, was now alleged to be a Burkinabe (a national of Burkina Faso). People from the north were affected in this xenophobic policy as a large number of migrants from Mali and Burkina Faso had come to live in the north as workers on the cash-crop farms. For those of us in places like Britain where we campaign against immigrants being declared to be illegal we will be shocked that Africans in an African country will face this type of discrimination when it comes to citizenship, which is an idea totally hostile to the principles of Pan-Africanism. In October 1995, there was an election which Ouattara was excluded from contesting on the grounds a review of the electoral code which is seen by some as targeted at him. The anti-incumbent movement was also poorly organised and Bedie won the elections with 96 per cent of the vote. Apart from Ivoirité discriminating on ethno-regional, it is also class discriminatory that the rural agricultural working class – which has contributed to the cocoa farms which have brought hard currency – are disregarded and not considered as citizens. The government also banned the student organisation called the Student Federation of Côte d’Ivoire (FESCI) which was formed in 1990. With allegations of corruption and repression, the Bedie regime was overthrown through a coup d’état on 24 December 1999, which brought General Robert Guei to power as the military ruler of Côte d’Ivoire. Henri Konan Bedie fled into exile after the coup d’état.

The military regime of Robert Guei continued with the Ivoirité climate and also exclusion of those who were seen as corrupt politicians of the past. The Guei junta organised elections in 2000 which were surrounded by violence in which about 200 were killed. A Supreme Court decision excluded 14 of the 19 people who wanted to contest the presidential elections. The disqualified included Ouattara and Bedie. Guei attempted to declare himself the winner of the elections but popular street protests and the lack of the support of the military forced him out of power, with Gabgbo who was shown to be leading in the votes being installed as president. Ouattara’s supporters continued to demand for a new and inclusive election. The atmosphere of impunity brought forth by Ivoirité was institutionalised de facto. A forum for reconciliation was set up in 2001 which included Robert Guei, but he withdrew from the forum in September 2002. A number of members of the Ivorian Armed Forces of northern origin mutinied on 19 September 2002, declaring that they were dissatisfied with the lack of representation through the discriminatory Ivoirité. Robert Guei, his wife and some members of his family were killed during the mutiny. There is the strong suspicion that the rebellion had been supported by Burkina Faso. As the rebellion spread the new forces came to control 60 per cent of the Ivorian landmass. It is alleged that Gbagbo has also brought in mercenaries from Belarus and former combatants of the Liberian war. The country then got divided into two, with the north under the control of the rebels whilst the Gbagbo government controlled the south. The French brokered a peace agreement in 24 January 2003 and sent troops to protect a buffer zone between the government-controlled territory and the rebel-controlled territory. In July 2004, the UN, the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) organised a summit in Accra, Ghana, to prevent a renewal of hostilities and reinvigorate the French-brokered peace.

As the dominant character of the post-Cold war movement was pro-incumbent and anti-incumbent movements, the change was around whether power had shifted to Gbagbo and the FESCI forces allied to him. This can be seen from the visibility of former FESCI leaders like Charles Ble Goude of the Young Patriots (Congres Panafricain des Jeunes Patriotes – COJEP), Moussa Zeguen Toure of the Patriotic Group for Peace (Groupe Patriotique pour la Paix – GPP) and Guillame Soro of the Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire (Mouvement Patriotique de la Côte d’Ivoire – MPCI) who have been split by Ivoirité. Whilst Soro is the leader of the rebel movement his former colleagues, who are pro-Gbagbo, are at the head of pro-Gbagbo militias. The formal FESCI structure in existence has become an extension of the Gbagbo government’s forces. There have been allegations of abuses by FESCI activists and the inability of the police to take any action against them. Human Rights Watch investigations found out that FESCI activists ransacked the headquarters of the two leading human rights organisations, the Ivorian League for Human Rights (Ligue Ivorienne des Droits de l’Homme – LIDHO) and Actions for the Protection of Human Rights (Actions pour la Protection des Droits de l’Homme – APDH). They were targeted for supporting striking university lecturers. Horrific crimes are alleged to have been committed by all parties in the conflict including death squads, mass executions, torture and rape as have been found by Human Rights watch, Amnesty International and the UN investigations. In November 2004, the Gbagbo government bombed the rebel-controlled city of Bouake, killing civilians and French soldiers, leading to reaction from French soldiers as well. In April 2005, there was another peace agreement among the forces in the conflict mediated by the then president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, in Pretoria. On 29 July 2005, the parties reaffirmed their support for the Pretoria agreement. Arrangements were reached about how to organise the elections in 2005 when Gbagbo’s controversial tenure of office as president would end. The instability in the country resulted in the elections being postponed several times until the recent elections in 2010. A government of national unity was set up, co-opting the rebels in 2007 and with the electoral code amended in 2008 to prepare for elections.

The elections were finally held on 31 October 2010, but no candidate won outright so a run-off was organised between the two leading candidates, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara on 28 November 2010. In the imperfect conditions in Côte d’Ivoire today elections results will definitely reflect the ratio of control of the forces of violence – the National Army and the rebel group of New Forces. The Electoral Commission’s results declared that Alassane Ouattara received 2,483,164 votes (54.1 per cent) and that Laurent Gbagbo had 2,107,055 votes (45.9 per cent). The Constitutional Court declared that after addressing the issues of voting irregularities the votes left to have been properly cast are 2,054,537 votes (51.45 per cent) for Laurent Gbagbo and 1,938,672 votes (48.55 per cent) for Alassane Ouattara. The Ouattara group raises the disproportionate cancellation of votes from the north where they control as fraud by the Gbagbo-controlled Constitution Court. The UN, African Union and ECOWAS have endorsed the Electoral Commission’s results as demanding that Gbagbo should hand over. ECOWAS has also threatened of using force to remove Gbagbo if he doesn’t step down and hand over to Alassane Ouattara. The threat of use of force is a very ill-advised as it will appear as an invasion and could rather worsen the situation. It is worth noting that both forces are protected by the forces of violence. The Gbagbo government is protected by the Armed Forces which have been loyal to it during the crisis and the Alassane Ouattara group controls the north through the rebels of the New Forces whilst he is protected by the UN peacekeepers in Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire. On 26 December 2010, Alassane Ouattara called for a national strike of workers until Gbagbo hands over, but this was ignored by most workers in Abidjan, the capital, and work at the main ports, Abidjan and San Pedro, went on normally, with just some shopkeepers in Bouake, capital of the rebel-held north, closing their shops (but even there banks and public transport functioned normally without disruption). Both Gbagbo and Ouattara have had themselves sworn in and set up governments, with Gbagbo controlling the government media while the rebels are depending on a pirate radio broadcast.

Various forces have taken sides on who has won the elections. Some start from the position that the Ivorian government should be respected, and not respecting the Gbagbo government is a disregard for the sovereignty of Côte d’Ivoire, but that ignores the fact that the situation in Côte d’Ivoire is a crisis and not a normal situation since the elections of 2000. Some have even tried to give the impression that Alassane Ouattara is a neoliberal representative of external forces. To this Horace Campbell answered in an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman that if the Gbagbo regime is such a pro-people government how come that they made an agreement with Trafigura and March Rich to dump toxic waste in Côte d’Ivoire. Every effort needs to be made to resolve the matter peacefully. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has also appealed to its two affiliates in Côte d’Ivoire to make efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. A delegation of ECOWAS made up of the presidents of Sierra Leone, Cape Verde and Benin together with African Union representatives in the person of the prime minister of Kenya have been to Côte d’Ivoire to meet the two groups and Ouattara’s ambassador to the UN said on the Hard Talk programme on 11 January 2011 that talks are going on behind the scenes.

For a permanent solution, it must be seen clearly that this problem is not just about Côte d’Ivoire but another manifestation of the crisis of post-colonial Africa. The issue of the population of countries being uncompromisingly divided along ethnic, religious or geographical territories has become a common feature of elections in various examples, including even the apparent peaceful ones like Ghana. The post-colonial arrangement whereby the elite have just inherited the colonial status quo with just presenting black faces to manage the colonial structure fails to address the aspirations of the masses of the people. In the process of the anti-colonial struggles the masses of people were mobilised in unity to fight the external forces. However, independence has meant that the masses have not played any further role in democratisation beyond endorsing one of rival groups to share the spoils of the colonial arrangements left. This requires that there should be structures to involve the masses of the African people in grassroots decision-making and political involvement and cross-border co-operation among them with the support of forces which are struggling to end the unjust global system which marginalises the majority of people in the supposed advanced countries and then the lesser-developed countries as a whole. The lessons have to be learnt from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire to guide future elections as the factors which contribute towards are present in all the other African countries.

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* Explo Nani-Kofi is the Director of Kilombo Community Education Project, London, UK, and [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTE

[1] I have used the word anti-incumbent here to describe the movements pressurising for change in Africa from the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. Sometimes they have been referred to as pro-democracy movements but I have decided to describe them as anti-incumbent as their mobilisation focused so much on achieving the use of the ballot box and the need to remove the incumbent government.