On Jan 24, 12:28 am, Cornelius Hamelberg
<corneliushamelb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a serious take on the situation in the Ivory Coast (I
> erroneously posted and have since deleted the all too simplistic essay
> riddled with so many platitudes which seem to be the trade mark of
> Frank Eso).
> Reality is more complex than he would like us to believe.
>
> http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/dr-gary-k-busch/the-impa...
>
> 23 Jan, 2011
>
> The Impasse In The Ivory Coast
>
> The electoral standoff between President Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara
> in the Ivory Coast is far more than just a typical electoral conflict
> between African candidates. It exemplifies and dramatizes some of the
> root conflicts which beset Africa, It is a paradigm case of self-
> serving ignorance on the part of an international community; the
> woeful inadequacies of the United Nations and its peacekeeping
> efforts; and the generational splits within African political
> leaderships which entrench old and compromised leaders in positions of
> power, trading on stories of old victories and sacrifices and, thus,
> effectively shutting the door to the rise of younger talent within
> their parties.
> There is a great deal of reference made to the actual results of the
> second round of the election. There were egregious lapses in the
> process in the rebel-held areas of the North and, if the observers are
> to be believed, irregularities as well in the South. Just how these
> two match up to each other in terms of numbers has never been tested
> by any outside party. The Electoral Commission improperly gave its
> verdict on incomplete and untested tallies and the Constitutional
> Council overturned these tallies in one day of consideration. In fact,
> as far as anyone knows for sure, and the African Union has produced an
> internal memo which states the same thing after its examination, no
> one really knows who was the victor and who can say so with authority.
> However, the Constitutional Council was empowered by the Ivoirian
> Constitution to be the final arbiter of all electoral decisions and it
> was they who announced the victory for Gbagbo.
>
> Democracy cannot work without sovereignty because without sovereignty
> an elected government has no foundation for its laws, policies and
> court decisions. This why a Constitution is so critical to any
> democracy as it codifies the rules under which the citizens subsume
> their individual power into a common weal. Without reference to a
> Constitution, government is illegitimate and there is no agreed common
> weal. And, if for some reason, sovereignty is tainted or diluted,
> democracy cannot function in anything but a trivial manner. These are
> all descriptors of the political situation in the Ivory Coast.
>
> It might be useful to examine the fundamental concerns of the Ivoirian
> citizens in these matters, as opposed to the narrower interests of the
> politicians.
>
> Legitimacy:
>
> President Gbagbo and his FPI Party won the election of 2000. They then
> formed a government and attempted to govern. There was resistance to
> the Gbagbo administration by the PDCI and the RDR, as the FPI began to
> remove some of the remaining vestiges of Houphouetism which had
> survived the military rule under Guei. Among these was the derogation
> of much of the Ivoirian national powers to the former French colonial
> power. The Pacte Coloniale, which had tethered the economy, trade,
> finance and military structures to France was carried out in every
> Ivoirian ministry, bank and institution by the hundreds of French
> nationals sent to the Ivory Coast as 'advisors' under the French
> Ministry of Co-operation. In some Ministries there was one Frenchman
> for every Ivoirian. Ivoirian sovereignty was demeaned by the presence
> of the French 'co-operants' who made many of the actual decisions in
> running the country. French soldiers and police were based in the
> Ivory Coast and were responsible for the training, equipping and
> deployment of the Ivory Coast forces; indeed they were also
> responsible for the promotions given to Ivoirian officers.
>
> French business was given the right to operate monopolies in crucial
> sectors of the economy. French companies control water, electricity,
> construction, port operations, transport, a dominant part of the oil
> and gas industries and much of the food trade. Under the new Gbagbo
> government this tight control was relaxed as far as possible. When a
> new bridge was to be built in Abidjan the French quoted a very high
> price. The Chinese offered to build a two-level bridge on the same
> site for about half the price tendered by the French. The co-operants
> in the ministries assured that there was no acceptable technical
> specification which would allow the Chinese to win the right to build
> the bridge. The bridge wasn't built.
>
> The Ivoirian economy was operated under French control and guidance.
> The use of the CFA franc meant that 85% of the cash flows of the
> Ivoirian economy were banked in Paris under the control of the French
> Treasury, after passing through a central BCEAO bank in Senegal. This
> was 'flag independence' with a vengeance. The Ivory Coast had a flag,
> a national anthem and a seat at the UN. The French controlled almost
> everything else. The sovereignty of the country was founded in law but
> handled, in reality, much as it had been under colonial rule. When the
> FPI and Gbagbo moved to shake off these shackles they were also
> attempting to assert the sovereignty of the Ivory Coast and the
> primacy of the Ivoirian Constitution. That is what gave them their
> legitimacy.
> Ivoirite:
>
> There is a great deal of propaganda being circulated that the Gbagbo's
> FPI is a regional party which is hostile to the North, particularly to
> the immigrant Muslim populations from Burkina Faso and Mali who have
> settled in the Ivory Coast. This is not true. It was the government of
> Henri Konan Bedie, the PDCI successor to the long-time leader,
> Houphouet-Boigny, who exiled and drove from the Ivory Coast more than
> 12,000 Burkinabes as soon as he took office. This was not the FPIs
> doing; it was done by the PDCI opposition who now attack the FPI for
> being hostile to the North. Foreigners may be impressed but no one in
> the Ivory Coast with even a short memory is fooled.
>
> This hypocrisy is even more pronounced over the issue of Article 35 of
> the Constitution. The rebels and the two opposition parties of the
> South (the PDCI and the RPR) made the issue of Ivorian parenthood a
> major impediment in the search for peace. The main candidate of the
> RPR, Alessane Dramane Ouattara, a former Prime Minister, had been
> prohibited from standing for the Presidency because his father came
> from Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Ouattara, himself, travelled
> on a Burkina Faso passport... This prohibition derived from Article 35
> of the Constitution. It is Gbagbo who is being blamed for this.
> However, the truth is very different. This Constitutional amendment to
> Article 35 which advanced the notion of 'Ivoirite' was voted upon and
> ratified by the country in a referendum and was supported by both the
> RPR and the PDCI. They both had major national campaigns seeking a
> 'yes' vote on the proposed Constitution; both Bedie and Ouattara
> personally campaigned for a ratification of the Constitution. This was
> not a Constitution of the FPI or Gbagbo; it was a reform Constitution
> of Guei in consultation with the RPR and the PDCI. They lived to
> regret it but it was their creature.
>
> When the parties at the Linas-Marcoussis negotiations raised the
> amendment of this Article 35 as an issue it was not opposed by the
> Gbagbo Government. In subsequent negotiations, Gbagbo agreed to put
> this as a bill in front of the National Assembly. The National
> Assembly met and voted to repeal those sections of Article 35; there
> was no controversy. There was no impediment raised to Ouattara running
> for President. Indeed, the shock was that the PDCI, the party which
> banned Ouattara from running, was locked in an electoral alliance with
> Ouattara.
>
> The Rebellion:
>
> 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.
> Fortunately for Gbagbo, his loyalist Army was led by his Minister of
> Defence, Moise Lida Kouassi; a former cellmate of Gbagbo's when they
> were jailed under Houphouet-Boigny. The internal security was in the
> hands of another cellmate, the Minister of the Interior Emile Boga
> Dougou. 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... The Gbagbo government had
> demonstrated, during its short term in power, a spirit of nationalism
> which had mobilised the population.
>
> As the coup began in the second largest town, Bouake, the loyalist
> troops 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 loyalist army 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
> loyalist troops to attack without killing a lot of Frenchmen at the
> same time.
>
> 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. Busloads 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... 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. The rebels succeeded in assassinating Boga Dougou and taking
> the wife of Lida Kouassi as hostage in a rampage in Abidjan. The
> French, who were bound to defend the legitimate government of the
> Ivory Coast under the same Pacte Coloniale, turned things on their
> head and armed and equipped the rebels. They have continued to support
> the rebels and have provided a protective shield for them by dividing
> the country in two and patrolling the dividing line. The French-
> sponsored Presidents of neighbouring countries (Niger, Mali and
> Burkina Faso) have assisted the French in their support of the rebels,
> just as they assisted the rebels in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
>
> Rebel Rule:
>
> When the French were able to divide the country in two, the
> inhabitants of the North found that they were sheltering foreign
> mercenaries and failed Ivoirian soldiers who had been cashiered from
> the Army. The civil servants in the North left in fright. Doctors,
> nurses, teachers, professionals of all sort fled the North for the
> safety of the South. There was no one of any competence to run the
> institutions in the North. The schools closed; the hospitals shut
> their doors; civil administration came to a close; politics was
> dominated by the rebellion. Many of the rebels quarrelled with each
> other over 'turf', Soro's plane was shot down by a missile and he
> escaped with his life although his comrades were killed. There was no
> repair of the roads or the infrastructure. Rebels and French
> peacekeepers raided the banks and stole all the money that was there.
> Some of the French peacekeepers were tried and sentenced for rape,
> murder and bank robbery in French courts. The rest walked free.
>
> 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 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. 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 could be 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 appeared regularly. A
> substantial proportion of the rebels spoke English with each other
> rather than French. These parties later coalesced into a fragile
> coalition of 'Houphouetists' for the election
> No one in the North paid taxes. No one paid rent (but they did pay for
> protection). No one paid for the utilities provided to the North by
> the South. Education virtually ceased. Soldiers were billeted on a
> supine Northern population. Industry died. Commerce thrived in
> stealing the cocoa, coffee, cotton and hardwoods of the North and
> shipping them to the world market through major French traders
> operating in the North. No customs or excise duties were paid and a
> small business of importing duty-free mopeds became the staple
> industry of lower-level soldiers. Rebel leaders suddenly acquired
> large sums of money and started buying property in Paris and banking
> their wealth in Ouagadougou. Despite ruling the North for almost ten
> years in safety and impunity these rebels have not been able to set up
> any government, civil service or a political infrastructure in the
> lands they occupy. This is one major reason for the citizens in the
> South to fear the empowerment of the rebels and their political
> godfather, Ouattara, in Abidjan. They have no record of any civil
> achievement nor have they built any structures for administering to
> the needs of the country.
>
> Even now, their indifference to the needs of their own people is
> evident. The pro-Ouattara coalition Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes
> pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) has called for civil disobedience
> to protest the stalemate. In the North those schools which were
> partially resuscitated in 2007 are now closed in response to the
> appeal, according to Save the Children in Côte d'Ivoire, This means
> some 800,000 primary-age students are not in school.
>
> The Condominium:
>
> Perhaps the most devastating effect of the rebellion was the reaction
> of the French and the international community to the division of the
> country. In an effort to restore order and constitutional rule the
> treaties signed in Linas-Marcoussis, Accra, Pretoria and Ouagadougou
> were designed to restore peace and order in the Ivory Coast; all
> enshrined the notion of condominium. That is, the international
> community insisted that the Prime Minister step down and be replaced
> by an appointee chosen by them and that there were Cabinet posts
> reserved for the ministers appointed by the rebel political parties.
> Gbagbo and the FPI, who had been democratically elected in 2000, had
> to accept a prime minister not of their choosing and a Cabinet made
> up, in part, by rebels.
> These new Cabinet ministers demanded large salaries, cars and jobs in
> their ministries for their friends and families. No notion of
> competence or training was used in the selection of the new Cabinet
> ministers. Only that they were chosen by the rebel bands. In fact, few
> actually showed up to work. The civil administration of the country
> was incoherent and conflicted as the national interest took second
> place to the demands of rival Cabinet ministers. The FPI was
> effectively stymied by internal dissent from a Prime Minister who
> refused to obey the wishes of the President and a Cabinet which
> refused to obey any rule other than the Law of the Jungle. The United
> Nations sought an international agreement to beef up the French
> presence in the Ivory Coast and sent 'peacekeepers' to the country.
> These have remained there ever since, effectively commanded by the
> French military which has the communications and heavy equipment
> there. The UN peacekeepers are an extension of the French military
> that have also been transformed into UN peacekeepers by UN decree.
>
> In 2006 the International Advisory Group appointed by the United
> Nations decided that the National Assembly should also be abolished
> because the rebels were not officially represented in it. The citizens
> reacted against this demand and took to the streets in protest. The
> French peacekeepers retaliated by destroying the Ivory Coast Air
> Force. They seized the airport and sent a hundred tanks and armoured
> personnel carriers to oust Gbagbo from office by violence. The
> citizens gathered at the Hotel Ivoire which was on the way towards
> Gbagbo's residence and, unarmed and peacefully, they confronted the
> hundreds of French soldiers in their tanks. The French soldiers,
> following a direct order from Chirac and his Minister of Defence Aliot-
> Marie, opened fire on the protestors with automatic weapons and
> snipers on November 9, 2006 and killed 68 unarmed civilians and
> wounded 1,300 more. The United Nations and the French offered no
> apologies to the Ivory Coast citizens for this act of war against the
> country which widened the distrust of their real intentions. The
> United Nations was seen as an enemy of the Ivoirian people and an
> institution which did not respect the sovereignty of the Ivory Coast
> state.
>
> Disarmament:
>
> They key to the Ivory Coast dilemma is that there has been no
> disarmament. Every peace agreement that has been signed, every
> mediation which was accepted by the parties, every political agreement
> among the parties has stipulated that the rebels must disarm. This was
> agreed by them over and over but they have refused to disarm. The
> terms of the election required that at least two months before the
> election there would be a verifiable disarmament of the rebel forces.
> This was not adhered to and the international community has refused to
> act to make the rebels disarm since the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement in
> 2002. Every compromise that the Gbagbo government made under these
> agreements was prefaced by an agreement that the rebels would disarm.
> The Gbagbo government was held to its commitments under these
> agreements but the rebels were left alone.
> This question of disarmament is not just a military matter. It has to
> do, as well, with the ability of electoral officials to move freely
> throughout the country to prepare a valid electoral roll. In the
> absence of any civil service infrastructure in the North it became
> vital to allow officials to wander freely in the North to engage in
> the verification of voter's credentials. They could not do this
> without armed guards and protectors because the warlords of the North
> controlled the registration process. It was impossible to prepare a
> valid and reliable electoral roll without disarmament. It was also
> impossible to certify a free and fair election when voters were
> intimidated by armed men patrolling the electoral stations, preventing
> people from voting, and threatening the observers. This is all
> documented in the AU report.
>
> The international community cannot complain that the election was not
> free and fair when it was they, for almost ten years, which allowed
> the rebels the freedom not to disarm and to achieve impunity from any
> sanction. The Ivoirian people asked how it was possible to have a
> proper election in a country divided in two parts and where a fully-
> armed rebel force was allowed to continue to retain its weapons in
> defiance of every agreement it had made.
>
> The Military:
>
> There have been many observers who have noted that the Ivory Coast
> military remains loyal to President Gbagbo. This is not really
> surprising as each soldier and officer took an oath which pledges them
> to the defence of the Constitution. Since President Gbagbo is the
> constitutional president it is no mystery. Perhaps more importantly,
> when the rebellion took place those who sympathised with the rebels
> deserted the Ivory Coast army and fled north. The army was purged of
> dissidents and became much more homogeneous of the ethnic groups of
> the South. This was not entirely true of the police and gendarmes.
>
> When the hostilities ended there was an effort by the United Nations
> to integrate the rebels with the regular army. This was an impossible
> task. The rebels demanded that they keep their rank and pay in the new
> army and demanded to be paid their wages for the period in which they
> were in rebellion. They demanded to retain their own chain of command
> and armour. This was clearly a non-starter with the loyalist army
> command and troops. They said they would explore integrating some
> units, but only after they disarmed. The rebels refused to disarm and
> participated in seven attempted military coups against the Ivory Coast
> state since 2004, led by French officers sent directly from France for
> this purpose and Burkinabe and Malian mercenaries provided by the Mali
> and Burkina Faso governments.
>
> Clearly there is no basis for the integration of the two opposing
> forces and no wishful thinking of the United Nations will make it
> otherwise. However, if the United Nations and the French decided not
> to assist the rebels the loyalist forces of the Ivory Coast would be
> able to destroy the rebel forces throughout the country in less than a
> month. That is why they demand UN protection and ECOWAS troops to do
> the fighting for them. Although there is a sanction in place by the UN
> in the acquisition of the Ivory Coast military to acquire weapons
> there is no effective balancing sanction against the rebels. This
> situation has made it more difficult for the loyalist forces but has
> not proved to be a major hurdle. The three hundred rebels and their
> hired security mercenaries which are sitting around the Golf Hotel
> protecting Ouattara have been armed by the United Nations and are
> wearing UN uniforms and identifying badges.
>
> The Demographics:
>
> A vital dimension to this conflict is the fact that most of the Ivory
> Coast population is under 26 years of age. There is a great gap
> between the population and the group of geriatrics which run the
> political structures in the country. In reality, there are very few
> people in the country who want either Ouattara or Gbagbo. Ouattara is
> not popular because he is considered the "Godfather of the Rebellion"
> and a Black Frenchman. His loyalties lie with the IMF, the World Bank
> and his friends in France. He remains a symbol of "Francafrique". On
> the other hand there are very few citizens who like Gbagbo. Since 2006
> he has effectively renounced his opposition to French neo-colonialism.
> He renewed many of the French contracts which maintained the monopoly
> of France in the Ivory Coast economy without any transparency or
> competitive bidding. He renewed all the contracts for electricity,
> telephone and water. He gave Bollore the control of the new container
> terminal in the port of Abidjan and new construction contracts to Mr
> Fakhoury. He allowed Total to build a new refinery and pipelines and
> gave Total a new oil lease on the border with Ghana. He turned on his
> former friends in the labour movement and consolidated power, and its
> rewards, in his own hands and those of his cronies.
>
> The problem for the electorate in the Ivory Coast is that they are
> stuck. They must choose between two unsavoury candidates. Younger,
> more dynamic leaders in the ranks of the national parties are stifled
> by the dead hand of the gerontocracy and kleptocracy which rules the
> political scene. There are trained and competent potential leaders in
> the FPI and the PDCI and RDR parties who can unite to bring about some
> progress. Right now the electorate refuses to support Ouattara because
> he is the leader of the rebels; not because he is not competent. They
> do not want the rebels to duplicate in the South what they have
> destroyed in the North. They support Gbagbo because he is the
> constitutional leader and, at least for the moment, seems to have
> given up the notion that he could become the fair-haired boy of
> Francafrique. He is taking a nationalist view which is very popular.
> The UN has made it clear that without Gbagbo there is only Ouattara,
> the French and the rebels. That is not a choice they want to make. The
> young people of the Ivory Coast have shown over and over that they
> want to see a leadership which asserts Ivoirian sovereignty in the
> face of external powers seeking to dominate them. This is the twenty-
> first century; colonialism is dead and should be buried. If there is
> an end to the neo-colonialism and an ascendance of real Ivoirian
> sovereignty then democracy will stand a chance. They can use the
> levers of power to oust the gerontocracy and build a better tomorrow
> for a united Ivory Coast.
>
> West African Conflict and the Jihad:
>
> One of the most important aspects of this conflict is largely
> overlooked but is crucial to understanding the consequences of this
> conflict. Since the days of the Liberian and Sierra Leone civil wars
> Al-Quaeda has increased its presence and influence in West Africa. In
> the weeks preceding the 9/11 attacks in New York, the representatives
> of Al-Quaeda completed a US$20 million 'blood diamonds' deal with the
> RUF in Sierra Leone According to official reports the Lebanese
> diamond trader, Aziz Nassour, used his couriers to exchange US$300,000
> a week for blood diamonds every week for almost ten months ending
> September 2001. The couriers took scheduled flights from Brussels (the
> heart of the diamond trade) to Abidjan. They then took smaller planes
> on charter from Wesuwa Air to fly to Monrovia and Freetown where they
> picked up the diamonds from the RUF. The Al-Quaeda operatives set up
> safe houses in Monrovia and Freetown to trade diamonds for arms for
> the rebel movements. Two of them, Samih Ossaily and his mistress.
> Nora, were arrested and jailed. Several others were freed, but the
> operation has grown and spread. These were mainly Sunni Muslims.
> However they were soon joined by Iranian-backed Shia. Hezbollah now
> has offices and trading spots across West Africa and the DRC.
> The bulk of the traders and carriers are Lebanese. These are not the
> traditional Lebanese in West Africa who were primarily Maronite
> Christians. These have been supplanted by Lebanese Shia Muslims
> attached to Hezbollah and Amal. They act as the arm of the Iranians
> and their Revolutionary Guards. Wherever there are problems in West
> Africa one can find Shia Muslims trading guns for diamonds and gold. A
> recent case was discovered in Nigeria with a shipment of weapons from
> Iran. These Al-Quaeda and Shia traders are the main suppliers of
> weapons to rebel movements across Africa. The RUF rebels in Sierra
> Leone transplanted their affinities to the Ivory Coast when they went
> to fight as mercenaries in the rebellion in the North.
>
> In Mozambique there are several training camps for West African
> jihadists. They arrive from Pakistan or the Gulf through Kenya and are
> flown down, business class, to Mozambique. They then disappear for a
> period of months. They then appear as graduates and, with pockets full
> of cash; they try to make their way home. Many are picked up by the
> Mozambique authorities and put in camps. Periodically the Mozambicans
> gather them together and deport them to their home countries. There
> have been flights of Guineans, Malians, Burkinabe and Senegalese from
> Mozambique to their home countries. Once home they are theoretically
> jailed. In fact most are soon released.
> This accounts for a large and growing group of jihadists across West
> Africa, especially in the Muslim north of most sub-Saharan countries
> with a border on the Sahara or the Sahel. These groups have been
> active in creating an Al-Quaeda movement in the region and have been
> active in insurgencies, kidnapping of French technicians and rearming
> a wide range of rebel groups. The Al-Quaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb
> (AQIM) are a source of equipment and markets and operate their own
> airline. They use around eleven aircraft (Boeing 727s and some
> Antonov) and fly throughout the region from Algeria and the Sahel.
>
> In addition they work closely with the burgeoning cocaine trade from
> Colombia into West Africa which uses smaller airports in Mauretania,
> Mali, Sierra Leone and the main drug importing country of Guinea-
> Bissau. There is a synergy between the Al-Quaeda operators and the
> drug barons. There is a giant and profitable trade in diamonds, gold
> and cocaine throughout West Africa run by drug lords and jihadists.
> The Western powers, especially the US DEA have these under
> surveillance and US Special Forces have set up military training
> programs, JCET (Joint/Combined Exchange Training) with the African
> militaries to combat these.
> That is why it is such a mystery to understand why, in the face of
> this Muslim radicalism which is sweeping West Africa that the Western
> powers and the UN are fighting to impose a Muslim rebel leader as head
> of the Ivory Coast. To most military officers this is madness. In
> Nigeria when Goodluck Johnathan consulted with his generals (many of
> whom now come from the Middle Belt, not the North) they said to him
> "After Jos and Abuja do you really want us to shoot Christian
> civilians to put the Muslims in charge of Ivory Coast?"
>
> Why Do The Western Powers Support Ouattara?
>
> Aside from the fact that the French have a vested interest in keeping
> the Ivory Coast as a colony and not allowing the Ivoirian defiance to
> spread to its other neo-colonial enterprises, there is still a
> question why the US, Britain and the EU go along with France in this
> policy. The UN is easy to understand. One should not expect any more
> from an incompetent and ignorant Secretary-General and his political
> fixer who doubles as his personal envoy to the Ivory Coast. They are
> reacting to an affront to their dignity. They found they cannot order
> member states about and reacted when opposed. They are no threat
> except for the media. This doesn't explain why the Western countries
> can be so openly hypocritical in their singling out of the Ivory Coast
> as an example.
>
> There are seventeen more elections to go this year in Africa and most
> will be as rigged and divisive as the Ivory Coast election. Most of
> the African Presidents on whom they are relying on to kill Ivoirians
> for them are illegitimate, corrupt and often murdered their
> predecessors before taking office or were elected by rigged ballots.
> This cannot be any kind of a principled defence of democracy;
> especially as they overlook other recent ballots (Burma, Belarus,
> etc.) which were egregiously rigged. The answer is more likely to be
> economic.
> One of the most significant events in West Africa last year was the
> purchase of the Swiss oil trading company Addax by the Chinese firm
> Sinopec. Addax was a frequent deliverer of oil to the Ivory Coast and
> was a major player in the West African oil mafia. The loss of a key
> player to the Chinese was seen as a real threat. Since then the French
> oil companies have been buying up oil assets in the region using
> obscure shell companies. The Western oil companies seem to be using
> the Ivory Coast as the first battle against the Chinese moving into
> the oil and gas business in the region.
>
> The Gulf of Guinea is rapidly becoming a major international oil play.
> Abidjan has a good refinery and will soon have another. Looking
> through the list of vessels delivering crude to the SIR refinery in
> Abidjan more than half were Addax vessels. Now they are Addax/Sinopec
> vessels. This has frightened the oil companies, especially Total. They
> do not have the money to compete with the Chinese and now Russian
> companies like Lukoil are entering the Gulf of Guinea market in a big
> way as well. The only way the French can compete is to try and
> maintain control of the strings of power in the Ivory Coast to find
> ways to delay or deter the Chinese and Russian invasion in what they
> thought of a their patch. The US and European countries share this
> ambition. Perhaps that is their reason for their blind and self-
> destructive policy in the country.
>
> The Way Forward:
>
> It should be abundantly clear to everyone that this impasse is not
> going to be solved by additional pressure on Gbagbo. Each day his
> support grows and each day that Ouattara is holed up in his tent at
> the Hotel Golf costs the UN a lot of money and face. The ECOWAS
> countries are unwilling and incapable of putting together an invasion
> force. Moreover it would likely impinge on their nationals residing in
> the Ivory Coast. Despite the provocations of the rebel band in Abidjan
> life there is pretty calm and uninterrupted. No one is being
> threatened except when the people in Abobo or similar enclaves are
> agitated by the rebels and attack the police. There has been a
> substantial rearmament of the loyalist forces by other, friendly
> African states and whoever is sent to fight will know he has a war on
> his hands. The 50-odd present of the population which voted for Gbagbo
> will not just roll over and disappear. The war will go on for a long
> time once it is started and civilian casualties will be high. There is
> every likelihood of African states with very powerful armies entering
> the fray on behalf of Gbagbo.
>
> The way forward seems clear. There will never be a resolution of who
> won this last second round of the election no matter how many times
> the UN says so. The answer is to send Ouattara back home to the North
> and to prepare for a new election which is monitored. First, however,
> the UN forces must insist that the rebels disarm. That would finally
> be a useful project for the UN. If there were disarmament there could
> actually be a free and fair election. Perhaps it would be possible to
> persuade Gbagbo to allow the FPI to choose another candidate. That
> would save face for the international community and would almost
> certainly lead to a better democracy than the tainted version being
> peddled by Ban Ki-Moon and his friends. It has been Ouattara's
> candidacy and his ties with the rebels which has sustained Gbagbo in
> power for so long. His candidacy is what has prevented the FPI from
> choosing a new candidate. Perhaps the international community can be
> persuaded that real democracy is a positive choice in this business.
> If not it will be the Ivory Coast's poor citizens who will continue to
> pay the price.
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