30 Apr 2009 |
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According to the representative of the Ivory Coast in the United Nations there will definitely be an election for President and the National Assembly of the country this year; in December. The UN officials have reiterated that these elections must take place this time and not be postponed. All the worthies of the African Union and ECOWAS have declared their support for this date. The leaders of the European Union and the US have pledged themselves to achieving this election event. It even has support among the young voters of the country who have held demonstrations, fasts and marches in support of the elections. The government has gone into debt to pay the French company, SAGEM, to prepare the voting lists and identify who is an Ivorian and entitled to vote. Over six million of the eight million potential voters have been ‘indentified’. Over twenty billion CFA francs (US$39.5 million) for materials, training and other electoral operations have been paid already. Despite this registration workers are and have been on strike for lack of pay. They have been threatened and abused and many observers, especially among the FPI youth say that some of these ‘indentified’ people are actually foreigners. What no one seems to have addressed is the fundamental question of the reunification of the country in advance of the election. The rebellion split the country in 2002. The North, where the rebels live, has been governed by tin pot warlords with no semblance of any civic responsibility. There has been virtually no education taking place in the North. There are no banks. There are no hospitals. Taxes aren’t collected. Rents aren’t paid. On average about under half of Côte d’Ivoire’s 20 million people now live below the poverty threshold, on less than about US$1.25 per day; the worst level in 20 years, according to results released by the national statistics institute (INS) on 27 November, 2008. According to the INS 70 percent of Ivoirians have difficulty eating adequately and 68 percent cannot afford proper treatment when ill. The poor of the South support the poor of the North while the rich of both areas seem to be immune to their cries for help or justice. The key to the reunification has been the need for disarmament. This has happened sporadically and the monies which were due to be paid (three lots of US $200 per disarmed fighter) have not all been paid. The rabble of the Northern rebels, loosely defined as New Forces, has kept their disarmed weapons near at hand. They have their man, Soro, imposed as Prime Minister but are unhappy with him as they feel he is a “careerist”. There was an abortive attack on his plane a while ago and there have been frequent threats against him since. The fundamental problem is that there has been a collapse of the political will to resolve these conflicts. Until March 2007 when the contesting parties met in Ouagadougou to sign the Ouagadougou Accord which has formed the basis of the current political structure, the North and the South were at least demonstrating that they had a point of view. After Ouagadougou the conflict of ideas and political initiatives were subsumed in a frenzy of co-operation and collaboration. The situation, viewed historically, is patently absurd. The rebels tried to overthrow the legitimate, elected government of Gbagbo by a military coup. They were encouraged, supported, protected and guided in this by France. They were aided by weapons supplied to them by the French and Libyans delivered to the rebels through Burkina Faso. The insurgents were aided by fighters supplied by the former insurgents from Liberia and Sierra Leone paid for by the French. The hub of this intervention was Burkina Faso and was led and guided by its President, Blaise Campaore who had done the same in the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Soro was his creation and he was the patron of what became the New Forces. The French troops in the country, later supplemented by UN peacekeepers maintained the division of the country into North and South and kept the rebels alive and well, even after they had lost the rebellion. Even after the imposed division of the country the French continued to plan coups against the South and used their power to crush civil unrest. In November 2004 they massacred 65 innocent, unarmed civilians at the Hotel d’Ivoire and injured hundreds more. They then tried, unsuccessfully, to dissolve the National Assembly. The French military and commercial presence effectively made any local political initiatives by the South, or the North ineffective. The politics of the Ivory Coast was the politics of impotence. It is difficult to believe that the path towards this upcoming election was fostered by a series of meetings called in Ouagadougou by the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Campaore. This, as yet unindicted, war criminal who has suborned the rebellion; nurtured it; and who grew wealthy from it was suddenly a peacemaker. His creature, Soro, was put in as Prime Minister. The Cabinet posts were divided among the losers of the rebellion along with the legitimate ministers of the FPI. This formed the new government in the post-Ouagadougou era. Even more preposterously, the rebels demanded to be integrated into the national army and to receive back pay for their period of rebellion against their government. This monstrous demand was actually treated seriously. Now there is a government, made up of a mixed cabinet formed from mongrel parties and totally incapable of uniting on any coherent economic, social or political policy. There is an army of mixed rebels and loyalists who do not take orders from a central command; further enfeebled by constant stories of plots and coups. The New Forces are still unhappy with Soro and they threaten him regularly. The only people who are happy are the French. They have reasserted their neo-colonial hold over the country. Their businesses have returned in force to the Ivory Coast and control over 65% of the commerce. The United Nations pays for most of the peacekeeping troops, including the French peacekeepers. The nations of the European Community are helping subsidise the ‘identification’ process which puts millions into the hands of a French company. The rise of the French has completed the detumescence of the national power. The Ivoirians of the North and the South are impotent and there is nothing in the coming election which appears likely to cure their erectile dysfunction. Until there is actual disarmament and the reunification of the country which will be combined with the return of government services to the North and the participation of the North in contributing to the national coffers these elections will be meaningless. As long as the French can maintain their control over the levers of power in the country the national impotence has no cure.
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