Civil war in Côte d'Ivoire
| French military / UN peacekeepers | FANCI(Government troops) / New Forces (FN) rebels / Young Patriots of Abidjan militia | |
|---|---|---|
| Dead | 13 French Army soldiers, 2 aid workers, 1 UN observer, 1 UN peacekeeper [citation needed] | (Estimated) 100+ FANCI Government troops, 300+ rebels/militia, 500+ civilians [citation needed] |
| Wounded | 55 | 500+ |
| Côte d'Ivoire |
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The Ivorian Civil War is a civil war in Côte d'Ivoire that began on September 19, 2002. Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remains split in two, with a rebel-held north and a government-held south. French troops were brought into Côte d'Ivoire to help resolve the situation. Hostility increased and raids on foreign troops and civilians rose. As of 2006, the region is tense, and many have said that the United Nations and the French military have failed to calm the civil war. The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire began after the civil war calmed down, but the peacekeepers have faced a complicated situation and are outnumbered by civilians and rebels.
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Context of the conflict
The civil war revolves around a number of issues, particularly:
- The end of the 30-year presidency of Félix Houphouët-Boigny forced the nation to grapple with the democratic process for the first time. Houphouët-Boigny had been president for the 33 years since independence, and so the nation's political system was bound tightly to his myth, charisma, and political and economic competence. The political system was forced to deal with open, competitive elections without Houphouët-Boigny for the first time in 1994.
- The large number of foreigners in Cote d'Ivoire, and Ivorians of somewhat recent foreign descent, created an important issue of voting rights. 26% of the population was of foreign origin, particularly from Burkina Faso, a poorer country to the north. Many of these had been Ivorian citizens for 2 generations or more, and some of them, of Mandinka heritage, can be considered native to the northern part of what is now known as Cote d'Ivoire. These ethnic tensions had been suppressed under the strong leadership of Houphouët-Boigny, but bubbled to the surface after his passing. The term Ivoirity, originally coined by Henri Konan Bédié to denote the common cultural identity of all those living in Côte d'Ivoire came to be used by nationalist and xenophobic politics and press to represent solely the population of the southeastern portion of the country, particularly Abidjan.
- Discrimination toward people of Burkinabé origin made neighbor countries, particularly Burkina Faso, fear a massive migration of refugees.
- An economic downturn due to a deterioration of the terms of trade between Third World and developed countries worsened conditions, exacerbating the underlying cultural and political issues.
- Unemployment forced a part of the urban population to return to the fields where they discovered that earth was exploited by immigrants.
Rising tensions
Violence was turned initially against African foreigners. Indeed, the prosperity of the Côte d'Ivoire attracted many Africans from West Africa, who constituted in 1998 26% of the population, 56% of whom were Burkinabés.
In this atmosphere of increasing racial tension, Houphouët-Boigny's policy of granting nationality to Burkinabés resident in Côte d'Ivoire was criticized as being solely to gain their political support.
In 1995, the tensions turned violent when Burkinabés were killed in plantations at Tabou, at the time of racial riots.
Catalyst to the conflict
The catalyst for the conflict was the law quickly drafted by the government immediately before the elections of 2000 which required both parents of a presidential candidate to be born within Côte d'Ivoire. This excluded the northern presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara from the race. Ouattara represented the predominantly Muslim north, particularly the poor immigrant workers from Mali and Burkina Faso working on coffee and cocoa plantations.
Civil war
In the early hours of September 19, 2002 troops, who were mainly originally from the north of the country, mutinied. They launched attacks in many cities, including Abidjan. By lunchtime they had control of the north of the country. Their principal claim relates to the definition of who is a citizen of Ivory Coast (and so who can stand for election as President), voting rights and their representation in government in Abidjan. On the first night of the uprising, former president Robert Guéi was killed. There is some dispute as to what actually happened that night. The government said he had died leading a coup attempt, and state television showed pictures of his body in the street; it was widely claimed that his body had been moved after his death and that he had actually been murdered at his home, with fifteen other people. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the French embassy, and his home was burned down.
The events in Abidjan show that it is not a tribal issue, but a crisis of transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, with the clashes inherent in the definition of citizenship.
Forces involved in the conflict include:
- Official government forces, the National Army (FANCI), also called loyalists, formed and equipped essentially since 2003
- The Young Patriots: nationalist groups aligned with President Laurent Gbagbo
- Mercenaries recruited by president Gbagbo:
- Belarusians (allegedly)
- Former combatants of Liberia, including under-17 youths, forming the so-called "Lima militia" [1]
- New Forces (Forces Nouvelles, FN), ex-northern rebels, who hold 60% of the country
- French military forces: Troops sent within the framework of Operation Unicorn and under UN mandate (UNOCI), 3000 men in February 2003 and 4600 in November 2004;
- Soldiers of the CEDEAO, White helmets, also under the UN.
The rebels were immediately well armed, not least because to begin with most were serving soldiers; it has been claimed that they were also given support by Burkina Faso. Additionally, government supporters claimed that the rebels were supported by France; however, the rebels also denounced France as supporting the government, and the French forces quickly moved between the two sides to stop the rebels from mounting new attacks on the south. It was later claimed that the rebellion was planned in Burkina Faso by soldiers of the Ivory Coast close to General Guéï. Guillaume Soro, leader of the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) later to be known as the New Forces – the rebel movement– comes from a student union close to the FPI of Gbagbo, but was also a substitute for an RDR candidate in the legislative elections of 2000. Louis Dacoury Tabley was also one of the leaders of the FPI.
Once they had regrouped in Bouake, the rebels quickly threatened to move southwards to attack Abidjan again. France deployed the troops it had based in Ivory Coast, on September 22, and blocked the rebels' path. The French said they had acted to protect their nationals and other foreigners, and they went into the northern cities to bring out ex-patriots from many nations. The USA gave (limited) support.
On October 17, a cease-fire was signed, and negotiations started.
On November 28, the popular Movement of the Ivory Coast of the Great West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP), two new rebel movements, took the control of the towns of Man and Danané, both located in the west of the country. France conducted negotiations.
September 2002
Attacks were launched almost simultaneously in most major cities; the government forces maintained control of Abidjan and the south, but the new rebel forces had taken the north and based themselves in Bouake.
Laurent Gbagbo considered deserters from the army, supported by interference from Burkina Faso, as the cause of destabilization. The principal difference in interpretation related to defence. The consequence is that Paris wished for reconciliation, when the Côte d'Ivoire government wanted military repression.
Paris sent 2500 soldiers to man a peace line and requested help from the United Nations.
The Kléber (Marcoussis) agreements
To bring parties together, the parties signed a compromise at Linas-Marcoussis on January 26 [2]. President Gbagbo was to retain power and opponents were invited into a government of reconciliation and obtained the Ministries for Defense and the Interior. Soldiers of the CEDEAO and 4000 French soldiers were placed between the belligerents - a peace line. The parties agreed to work together on modifying national identity, eligibility for citizenship, and land tenure laws which many observers see as among the root causes of the conflict.
As of February 4, anti-French demonstrations took place in Abidjan, in support for Laurent Gbagbo. The end of the civil war was proclaimed on July 4. An attempt at a putsch, organized from France by Ibrahim Coulibaly (FPI), was thwarted on August 25 by the French secret service.
The UN authorized the formation of the UNOCI on February 27, 2004, in addition to the French forces and those of the CEDEAO.
On March 4, the PDCI suspended its participation in the government, being in dissension with the FPI (President Gbagbo's party) on nominations to office within the administration and in public companies.
On March 25, a peace march was organized to protest against the blocking of the Marcoussis agreements. Demonstrations had been prohibited by decree since March 18th, and the march was repressed by the armed forces: 37 died according to the government, between 300 and 500 according to Henri Konan Bédié's PDCI. This repression caused the withdrawal from the government of several opposition parties. A UN report of May 3 estimated at least 120 dead, and implicated highly-placed government officials.
The government of national reconciliation, initially composed of 44 members, was reduced to 15 after the dismissal of three ministers, amongst them Guillaume Soro, political head of the rebels, on May 6. That involved the suspension of the participation in the national government of the majority of political movements.
The French consequently were in an increasingly uncomfortable situation. The two sides each accused France of siding with the other: the loyalists because of its protection of the rebels, and the non-implementation the agreements of defense made with the Côte d'Ivoire; the rebels because it was preventing the capture of Abidjan. On June 25, a French soldier was killed in his vehicle by a government soldier close to Yamoussoukro.
On July 4, 2003, the government and New Forces militaries signed an "End of the War" declaration, recognized President Gbagbo's authority, and vowed to work for the implementation of the LMA and a program of Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR).
In 2004, various challenges to the Linas-Marcoussis Accord occurred. Violent flare-ups and political deadlock in the spring and summer led to the Accra III talks in Ghana. Signed on July 30, 2004 the Accra III Agreement reaffirmed the goals of the LMA with specific deadlines and benchmarks for progress. Unfortunately, those deadlines – late September for legislative reform and October 15 for rebel disarmament – were not met by the parties. The ensuing political and military deadlock was not broken until November 4, 2004.
The resumption of fighting
But the timetable was not respected. The bills envisaged in the process were blocked by the FPI, the Ivoirian National Assembly. The conditions of eligibility for the presidential poll were not re-examined, because Laurent Gbagbo claimed the right to choose a prime minister, not in accordance with agreements suggested in Accra. Faced with political impasse, the disarmament whose beginning had been envisaged fifteen days after the constitutional modifications did not begin in mid-October.
A sustained assault on the press followed, with newspapers partial to the north being banned and two presses destroyed. Dissenting radio stations were silenced.
UN soldiers opened fire on hostile demonstrators taking issue with the disarmament of the rebels on October 11. The rebels, who took the name of New Forces (FN), announced on October 13 their refusal to disarm, citing large weapons purchases by the Côte d'Ivoire national army (FANCI). They intercepted two trucks of the FANCI full of heavy weapons travelling towards the demarcation line. On October 28, they declared an emergency in the north of the country.
On November 4, the new FANCI planes, apparently manned by Belarusian mercenaries, began a bombardment of Bouaké. On November 6, FANCI planes bombed a French base in Bouaké, supposedly by accident, killing nine French soldiers and an American aid worker and injuring 39 others. The French forces responded by destroying both Sukhoï fighter-bombers based at Yamoussoukro, 15 minutes after the attack. Jacques Chirac gave the order to destroy five other Mi-24 helicopters. One hour after the attack on the camp, French forces established control of the airport of Abidjan. Simultaneously, the Young Patriots of Abidjan (see politics of Côte d'Ivoire for more details), rallied by the State media, plundered possessions of French nationals. Rapes, beatings, and murders followed. Several hundred Westerners, mainly French, took refuge on the roofs of their buildings to escape the mob, and were then evacuated by helicopters of the French Army. France sent in reinforcements of 600 men based in Gabon and France while foreign civilians were evacuated from Abidjan airport on French and Spanish military airplanes.
Recent developments
As of November 8 2004, expatriate Westerners (French mainly, but also Moroccan, German, Spanish, British, Dutch, Swiss, Canadian, and Americans) in Côte d'Ivoire chose to leave. On November 13, President of the Ivorian National Assembly Mamadou Coulibaly (FPI) declared that the government of the Ivory Coast did not take any responsibility in the bombardment of November 6, and announced its intention of approaching the International Court of Justice:
- for the destruction of the Ivory Coast Air force, only recently re-equipped;
- for activities by the French Army responsible for several deaths.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Laurent Gbagbo called into question even the French deaths. Lastly, on the morning of 13 November, 2600 expatriate French had returned to France, and 1600 other European expatriates had left.
The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1572 (2004) on November 15, enforcing an arms embargo on the parties.
A meeting of the Ivorian political leaders, moderated by South African President Thabo Mbeki was held in Pretoria from April 3 to April 6, 2005. The resulting Pretoria Agreement declared the immediate and final cessation of all hostilities and the end of the war throughout the national territory [3]. Rebel forces started to withdraw heavy weapons from the frontline on April 21 [4].
Presidential elections were due to be held on October 30, 2005, but in September the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, announced that the planned elections would be delayed. [5] On October 11, 2005, an alliance of Cote d'Ivoire's main opposition parties called on the UN to reject African Union proposals to keep President Laurent Gbagbo in office for up to an additional 12 months beyond the end of his mandate; [6] however, the Security Council approved this a few days later. [7] It is now considered very unlikely that elections can be held by the end of October 2006, and the consequences of this, including whether Gbagbo's term will be extended again, are not yet clear.
UN Peacekeeping Forces
Main article: UNOCI
As of May 18, 2005 the UN forces, as result of the continued flaring up of ethnic as well as rebel-government conflict, have experienced difficulty maintaining peace in the supposedly neutral "confidence zone", particularly in the west of the country. UN troops have been deployed laterally, forming a belt across the middle of Côte d'Ivoire (stretching across the whole country and roughly dividing it in two from north to south). This area has a mixture of ethnic groups, notably the Dioula (who are predominantly Muslim and typically aligned with the New Forces), who typically sway to both government and rebel loyalties. This conflict of interests has created widespread looting, pillaging and various other human rights abuses amongst groups based on the typical political alignment of their ethnicities.A total of 25 UN personnel have died during UNOCI.
In 2005, over 1,000 protesters invaded a UN base in Guiglo and took control but were forced back by armed UN peacekeepers. A total of 100 protesters died and left 1 UN peacekeeper dead and another wounded.
This is not to say that there are no regions where ethnic groups co-exist peacefully, however, the UN troops lack the man-power to prevent inter-ethnic violence. [8]
See Also
Literature
- (German) Sow, Adama: Ethnozentrismus als Katalysator bestehender Konflikte in Afrika südlich der Sahara, am Beispiel der Unruhen in Côte d`Ivoire at: European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU), Stadtschleining 2005
Categories
Articles with unsourced statements | History of Côte d'Ivoire | Civil wars