Regional rivals strive for a lasting solution to the crisis created by Ivory Coast's restive army, writes Gamal Nkrumah Listening to the news emanating from Ivory Coast one might mistakenly think that Ivory Coast is in a state of imminent collapse. The relatively wealthy West African country is torn apart in a tug-of- war between the beleaguered government of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and a mysterious group of army mutineers who hold great swathes of the central and northern parts of the country, roughly the size of Germany. Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest economy, the world's top cocoa producer, a major coffee, cotton, palm oil and rubber producer, Ivory Coast was an oasis of political stability and economic prosperity until quite recently. With the collapse of international commodity prices, economic malaise ensued. Beneath the surface Ivorian society was supporating furiously. The army began to scent the prospect of power. On Christmas Day, 1999, General Robert Guei overthrew the democratically- elected government of former Ivorian President Konan Bedie. And, the country has not been at peace since. The current spate of violence in the Ivory Coast evidently owes much to internal Ivorian north-south schisms. There are disturbing religious overtones to the Ivorian conflict. While the identity of the mutineers is still not entirely clear at present, there are signs that they draw support from the disgruntled Muslim majority population geographically centred in the northern part of the country and who bitterly complain that they have been largely excluded from power since independence from France in 1960. In one sense the single feature which most marked out the Ivory Coast during the years of economic growth and prosperity was its vibrant cosmopolitanism and its lively multi-cultural mix. Migrants gravitated towards the country, with the third largest economy in Africa south of the Sahara, from all over West Africa. Most migrants, however, hailed from the poorer and predominantly Muslim Sahelian countries to the immediate north of Ivory Coast. An estimated one third of those living in the country originally hail from poorer neighbouring Muslim countries. Not only do the migrants share the religion of local Ivorian northerners, but they spoke the same languages and shared the same ethnicity. It became increasingly difficult for the Ivorian authorities to distinguish the newcomers from the locals in the north of the country. The more the distinctions were blurred, the more the tensions rose. There are suspicions in Ivory Coast, or rather more accurately among the southern mainly Christian political establishment, that Burkina Faso -- one of the Ivory Coast's northern and predominantly Muslim neighbours -- is overtly sympathetic to the mainly Muslim Ivorian political opposition. Rumours are flying about that Burkina Faso, to the immediate northeast of Ivory Coast, is instigating the violence. A stronghold of the mutinous soldiers is the town of Korhogo in the far north of the country not far from the Burkinabe border. Accordingly, there are growing fears that the West African region will be plunged into chaos. The 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held an emergency summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra on Sunday in which the West African leaders were joined by the current head of the African Union South African President Thabo Mbeki. Conspicuously absent was the Burkinabe President Blaise Compaore. The presidents of Mali and Guinea, two other predominantly Muslim states to the north of Ivory Coast failed to show up either. In Accra, the African leaders pledged to deploy a 4,000 peacekeeping force, and urged peace talks between the government and the mutineers. Click to view caption A mini-African summit hosted by King Mohamed VI of Morocco in which France and the acting president of the African Union Commission Amara Essy participated was also convened last weekend to discuss the Ivorian political impasse. The alarm bell was sounded when it became known that an estimated 600 French nationals and 300 Americans were unable to leave Bouake. Some 160 American school children were also trapped in the Christian Academy, Bouake, a distinguished school to which the sons and daughters of US diplomats and businessmen in the region are sent for education. French and American troops were deployed to rescue Westerners trapped in cities captured by the mutineers. With the outbreak of heavy gunfire in several Ivorian cities on 19 September, neighbouring Nigeria and Ghana immediately pledged military assistance and offered to send in troops and warplanes. Nigeria sent three fighter jets to the Ivory Coast. ECOMOG, the armed wing of ECOWAS, has been called upon to play a more decisive peacekeeping role. ECOMOG has been deployed in the past in Liberia, Sierra Leone and briefly in 1999 in Guinea Bissau. Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Togo have been officially approached by the Ivorian authorities for help in putting down the army rebellion. An army mutiny, Westerners trapped, the dispatch of French and US troops to rescue foreign nationals are all the familiar ingredients of a classic African crisis reminiscent of a bygone era. A reminder, however, that we live in a new and more democratic period was the mutineers' allegation that they were fighting the government "dictatorship hiding under the guise of democracy". The mutineers unconditionally permitted the evacuation to proceed and agreed to a 48-hour cease-fire until the evacuation of foreign nationals is completed. Significantly, the citizens of Bouake took to the streets in a strong show of support for the mutineers. The death toll since 19 September has exceeded 500, and includes the Ivorian Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou and the country's former military ruler Robert Guei, who was killed in mysterious circumstances. The country's first president Felix Houphouet Boigny, who ruled the country with an iron fist, only legalised opposition parties just before his death in 1990. Boigny, a staunch pro-Western ally of France, saw his country as a bulwark against the growing influence of socialism in the West African region during the Cold War period. After his death, though, his minions fought each other for office and power. Chief opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim northerner, and one of Boigny's close associates, sought safety in the French Embassy soon after the 19 September mutiny. He had been barred from running for the presidency on the grounds that he was not Ivorian, even though he held senior positions in the past including the premiership. In June, Ouattara was finally granted nationality papers and his supporters, mainly Muslims from the northern part of the country celebrated in impromptu street parties. Last month, Ouattara's RDR was given four ministerial posts in a new government of national unity. Hopes were raised when in January earlier this year President Gbagbo, chief opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, former military ruler General Guei and deposed President Bedie met to discuss the country's political future. Gbagbo set up a National Reconciliation Forum in October 2001, but ethnic and religious tensions remain. Hopes are pinned on the chances that Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans (RDR) and President Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front Party (PFP) will work closely together in the future. Immigrant areas in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan, however, were targeted by Ivorian security forces as potential hideouts for the mutineers and their sympathisers. The mutineers denied government reports that a neighbouring country is backing their mutiny. They insisted that they had no foreign support. They charged that the government is using Angolan troops in a desperate bid to retake Bouake. Western powers are reluctant to get embroiled in the Ivorian power struggles and prefer West Africans to clear up the mess. Two huge US C-130 Hercules transport planes, however, were put on standby in Yamoussoukro airport to help in the evacuation of foreigners. Yamoussoukro, 100 kms south of rebel-held Bouake, is the administrative capital of Ivory Coast. There are more than 2,000 US citizens in the Ivory Coast, 300 in Bouake. Washington has vital economic interests in this part of the world. Suffice it to say that the West African region today exports more crude oil to the US than Saudi Arabia. In February 2001 the US ambassador to the Ivory Coast accused the Ivorian security forces of arresting citizens arbitrarily, torturing detainees and acting with impunity. Fighting periodically erupts between the mainly southern Christian supporters of Ivorian President Gbagbo and the northern Muslim followers of Ouattara. France has refused to take sides. Some 20,000 French nationals are resident in the Ivory Coast, and French economic interests in West Africa are centred around the oil exporting Ivory Coast. More than 1,000 mainly French citizens were evacuated from Bouake last week. France had 500 troops already stationed in Ivory Coast. But the Ivorian authorities are highly critical of France for not crushing the armed rebellion invoking a military pact signed between the two countries.
