Ivory Coast: Colonial Adventure

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Ivory Coast: colonial adventure

The actions of the French Operation Unicorn peacekeeping force in the former French west African colony of Ivory Coast have exposed the greed and seaminess of France’s dual role as both mediator and participant.


By Boubacar Boris Diop


THERE is a widespread belief, never clearly formulated, that the culture of violence is deeply rooted in Africa. The underlying assumption is racist: that power struggles in the continent are the expression of secular ethnic hatreds. Unsurprisingly, western media have persisted in imposing their clichés and preconceptions upon the conflict in Ivory Coast, presenting the head of state, Laurent Gbagbo, as a wily but brutal visionary, the rebels as good communicators and the shouting masses as young patriots.

Two weeks after the rebellion broke out in September 2002, France’s then foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, explained to the Senate in Paris: “The present crisis is the result of traditional tensions. Ivory Coast, with its north-south split, is an ethnic and religious patchwork that has been in crisis since the death of Houphouët-Boigny” (1). What he meant was: “Here’s another fine mess Africa’s got itself into.”

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It is a convenient way of looking at things: one side is as bad as the other, armed rebellion becomes legitimate and the rest of the world can sit back and watch a country split into two. The devastation caused by ethnic attitudes in Ivory Coast is appalling; we cannot condone it but we have to look beyond it. The present mess has not arisen simply because the Dioula and Bete tribes (2) have realised that they cannot live together any more. France is a central, and increasingly open, player in the crisis, and any understanding of the conflict depends upon an awareness of France’s role.

French interests represent 33% of foreign investments in Ivory Coast and 30% of its gross domestic product. Since Ivory Coast’s independence in 1960, French companies have used one-sided contracts to repatriate 75% of the wealth generated there. President Henri Konan Bédié, Houphouët-Boigny’s constitutionally designated successor, tried to correct these anomalies in 1994 by granting coffee and cocoa export contracts to major United States companies and by licensing another US company, Vanco, to prospect for oil. At the end of 1999 he was overthrown in a military coup.

http://mondediplo.com/2005/04/10diop