calamity in the making

Calamity in the Making

14th November 2002

WHILE African and world attention has been focused on the disaster in Zimbabwe, a calamity of potentially greater proportions is unfolding in Côte d'Ivoire.

Unless far more forceful action is taken there is a real risk of unleashing in West Africa's most prosperous nation a Liberian scenario complete with unwinnable ethnic warfare, economic meltdown, and untold damage to Africa's image and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

The immediate crisis in Côte d'Ivoire erupted on September 19, when units of the army staged a coordinated uprising across the country. The rebel soldiers the Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) seized control of the northern 60% of the country but failed to capture Abidjan, the country's economic capital.

Forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo proved unable to dislodge rebel troops from their northern stronghold. To avert a full-scale war, about 1200 French troops deployed across the country as a thin buffer between the government and rebel troops. The French troops will soon be replaced by an equally small and far less well prepared African force.

Tensions remain high as government troops and youth militias allied to Gbagbo and his Bete ethnic group murder opposition politicians and attack Abidjan slums which are occupied by foreigners and northerners.

Gbagbo demands that the rebels surrender their arms, while the rebels demand a rerun of presidential elections, which barred the leader of the country's largest opposition party from participating. So far Gbagbo flatly refuses.

How did West Africa's most developed, stable nation come to this?

The situation is the predictable consequence of a leader staying in power too long. Similar instability came to Somalia because of Siad Barre, to Malawi today because of Banda, to Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Côte d'Ivoire, founding president Felix Houphouet-Boigny ruled for 33 years. He oversaw far faster growth and greater stability than any of the country's neighbours. However, the seeds of discontent began to grow as he maintained one-party rule and resisted calls to name a successor.

His death in 1993 brought to power Henri Konan Bedie, who sought to bolster himself by cultivating animosity to foreigners and preventing his most popular rival, Allasane Ouattara, from running for president on the grounds that he is not a citizen, despite having served as prime minister.

Bedie, from the mostly Christian south, began publicly inciting animosity against foreigners. At least a quarter of the population were born outside the country but migrated in search of jobs, mostly from Burkina Faso, Mali and other Muslim countries. With the north of the country predominantly Muslim and heavy with people of mixed local and foreign roots, Bedie's xenophobic move was seen as a direct assault on half the population with dangerous regional and religious overtones.

A pattern of serious human rights abuse has escalated ever since. Violent protests accompanied the 1995 elections. Local independent media reported a coup attempt in May 1996. Journalists were jailed, and opposition figures arrested, tortured and several died in police custody.

Bedie's government was seen as corrupt and inept enough that the public broadly cheered when he was deposed in a coup on Christmas 1999. Gen Robert Guei took power and pledged to hold elections. However, Guei promulgated a new constitution designed to bar Ouattara's participation in politics. Fourteen of 19 candidates were thus banned from contesting the presidential election.

Laurent Gbagbo, the long-time opponent of Houphouet-Boigny, was the only other significant candidate in the 2000 elections. When Guei halted the vote count and declared himself the winner, public outrage and massive street protests swept Gbagbo to power.

Gbagbo refused to acknowledge the dubious process that brought him to power. He persisted with the antiforeign rhetoric and once more blocked Ouattara from standing in parliamentary elections. More than 500 people were killed during and after the elections.

As Human Rights Watch reported, "by December (2000), the relationship between the security forces and the youth wing of Gbagbo's party had consolidated, with the latter enjoying complete immunity, even when they committed atrocities in the presence of gendarmes and police. Although President Gbagbo did not initiate the descent into violence, for which Gen Guei must bear primary responsibility, he (used) the same methods of incitement and ethnic polarisation."

Gbagbo publicly blamed a failed coup attempt in January last year on foreigners, which sparked a frenzy of violence. There were at least 150 extrajudicial killings by security forces last year.

Although Gbagbo did hold a series of reconciliation meetings with Guei, Bedie and Ouattara, he made no fundamental concessions and continued to spout ethnically divisive rhetoric. When the rebellion was launched in September, he immediately blamed foreigners and security forces began widespread attacks on Abidjan townships largely occupied by northerners and foreigners. Guei and his family, including grandchildren, were murdered.

For Africa, all this poses a difficult dilemma. Gbagbo is the recognised head of state subjected to an attempted coup. However, he and his predecessors have launched the country on an extremely destructive path by inciting ethnic animosity and massive human rights abuse.

Although the MPCI were wrong to launch a rebellion, Gbagbo is equally wrong. He has made no concessions and sought to rearm and attack his opponents. In recent days, in the midst of negotiations, his supporters have continued attacking defenceless people and they murdered two opposition leaders.

Even if he could launch a militarily successful counterattack, it would never convince the 40% of the population who are Muslim, or the others who are foreign or disenfranchised, to willingly accept the unfair political systems and state brutality that is official policy. A war at this stage would send the nation into the kind of anarchy, collapse and brutality that Sierra Leone, Liberia and Somalia experienced.

With so much at stake, Africa must forcefully assert itself. Gbagbo must be told Africa will not allow this to be settled through war and if necessary trade and arms sanctions will be imposed. Instead of a hopelessly inadequate force of 1200, a force of 10000 to 20000 soldiers should be deployed.

They should have the might and the mandate to disarm the rebels, to stop the human rights abuses and enforce a fair, inclusive compromise. Otherwise Côte d'Ivoire will become a Liberia but the scale of horror and economic damage will be 10 times worse.

Ross Herbert - Business Day (Johannesburg SA)

Herbert is Africa Research Fellow at the SA Institute of International Affairs and head of its Nepad research and civil society programme.