Last Saturday a great man died in the Ivory Coast; Arsène Usher Assouan. Usher was Foreign Minister of the country and, later, the mayor of Grand-Lahou. He served admirably on the UN Security Council and was responsible, to a large degree, for the formation of the “Blue Berets” of the UN as an intervention force for peacekeeping. Most of all, he was a good man and honest, even to himself.

I was with Usher one day in Paris, having returned from a meeting together with Houphouet-Boigny at his residence in Paris. I saw Usher’s frustration in the delays with making arrangements for a diplomatic initiative with a neighbouring country. He said to me, “You know, we are a nation of sleepwalkers. We pass through crises and dangerous situations by God’s will to protect us. One day this might come to an end.” I thought of this when I heard he died. His prediction had come true years ago.

The Ivory Coast has passed through several incidents of somnambulism because it has been sheltered from facing the realities of existing as a country on its own two feet, dependent on its own initiatives and resources. There is a fifteen-ton elephant in the room which everyone tries not to recognise but which shapes and limits national activity; the elephant of French political, economic and military intervention in the domestic business of the Ivory Coast.

 The Fifteen-ton Elephant:

There has been a lot of research and discussion about the Pacte Coloniale and the continued French occupation of its former colonies. According to Annex II of the Defence Agreement signed between the governments of the French Republic, the Republic of Ivory Coast, the Republic of Dahomey and the Republic of Niger on 24 April 1961, France has priority in the acquisition of those "raw materials classified as strategic.” In fact, according to article 2 of the agreement, "the French Republic regularly informs the Republic of Ivory Coast(...) of the policy that it intends to follow concerning strategic raw materials and products, taking into account the general needs of defence, the evolution of resources and the situation of the world market.”

According to article 3, "the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the other two) inform the French Republic of the policy they intend to follow concerning strategic raw materials and products and the measures that they propose to take to implement this policy.” And to conclude, article 5: "Concerning these same products, the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the two others) for defence needs, reserve them in priority for sale to the French Republic, after having satisfied the needs of internal consumption, and they will import what they need in priority from it.”

This privileged position of France is confirmed by a report from the UN Commission: "The testimony we have assembled has also enabled us to see that the law of 1998 concerning rural property is linked to the dominant position that France and French interests occupy in Ivory Coast. According to these sources, the French own 45 per cent of the land and, curiously, the buildings of the Presidency of the Republic and of the Ivorian National assembly are subject to leases concluded with the French. French interests are said to control the sectors of water and electricity, which are worth 10 billion francs CFA per month.”

 Omnipresence of French capital

The report doesn’t give details about this dominant position of French interests. But it is not superfluous to recall it. We find many of the leading players of the French business class:

Bolloré (leader in French maritime transport), principal operator of maritime transport along with Saga, SDV and Delmas, controls the port of Abidjan, the leading transit port in the West African region and the second container port in Africa, whose main container terminal at Vridi was recently acquired by Bolloré in a scandalous fashion, according the other port operators, both French and Ivorian. It also controls the Ivorian-Burkinabe railway, Sitarail. Although it has recently withdrawn from the cocoa business, it has on the contrary maintained its leading position in tobacco and rubber.

Bouygues (leader in construction and public works in France, also present as Vinci, the second company in public works in France) has been traditionally, since independence, number one in construction and public works (we also find Colas, third-ranking firm in road building in France). It also has, through privatisation and obtaining concessions, control of water distribution (Société des Eaux de Côte d’Ivoire), of production and distribution of electricity through the Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Electricité and the Compagnie Ivoirienne de Production d’Electricité. It has also been involved in the recent exploitation of Ivorian oil.

 Total (the biggest French oil company) holds a quarter of the shares of the Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR, no. 1 company in Ivory Coast) and owns 160 petrol stations.

France Telecom (seventh in rank among companies in France and leader in the telecommunications sector) is the main shareholder of Côte d’Ivoire Telecom and of the Société Ivoirienne des Mobiles (it holds about 85 per cent of the capital), since concessions were granted in this sector, in the context of the privatisation of public enterprises.

In the banking and insurance sector, there is the Société Générale (sixth bank in France - the Société Générale des Banques de Côte d’Ivoire has 55 branches) the Credit Lyonnais, BNP-Paribas, AXA (the second largest company in France and leader of the insurance sector, which has been present in Ivory Coast since the colonial period).

The most long-established of French companies is the Groupe Compagnie Francaise de l’Afrique de l’Ouest de Côte d’Ivoire (CFAO-CI, principal "Francafrican" company of the French colonial empire in sub-Saharan Africa, the private-sector colonial equivalent of ELF), which operates in many sectors (cars, pharmaceuticals, new technologies, after having for a long time monopolised exports and the retail trade) and whose profitability (not a single year of loss, from its creation in 1887) led to it being recently taken over the Pinault-Printemps-La Redoute group. It occupies the ninth rank among companies in Ivory Coast, after having ceding its interests the logging industry, in which it had been very much present for decades.

We couldn’t conclude the list without mentioning the presence of the boss of French bosses, Baron Ernest-Antoine Seillères, through Technip (plant for the oil sector) and Bivac (which recently installed the scanner in the port of Abidjan).

This presence of French capital is a demonstration of the profitability of Ivory Coast. And although French direct investment is only 3.5 billion euros - the most profitable ex-state enterprises having often been acquired at knock-down prices - the annual profits from this investment are enormous. Despite the flight of some French nationals after the Force Licorne massacre of unarmed Ivorians, this business presence is recovering its former levels.

 The Question of Foreign Labour:

One of the most divisive aspects of the conflict between the rebels of the North and the loyalist populations of the South derives from the feeling in the North that they have not been allowed to become full, voting, citizens in a country which they feel is theirs. This perceived discrimination and xenophobia has become accepted as the casus belli for the civil war. However, the Ivory Coast has always been a diverse ethnic mix.

In Côte d'Ivoire, as elsewhere in Africa, national boundaries reflected the impact of colonial rule as much as present-day political reality, bringing nationalism into conflict with centuries of evolving ethnic identification. Each of Côte d'Ivoire's large cultural groupings has more members outside the nation than within. As a result, many Ivoirians have strong cultural and social ties with people in neighbouring countries.

Côte d'Ivoire has always depended on foreigners for unskilled labour. Since the early twentieth century, poor migrants from Burkina Faso, Mali, and other parts of West Africa were brought to the Ivory Coast as agricultural and construction labourers. Because immigration was largely uncontrolled, estimates of the number of immigrants varied between 1 to 2 million, and they have accounted for 70 percent to 80 percent of the unskilled labour force in the rural sector.  Because these ‘foreigners’ came from within the colonial region of AOF (French West Africa) their passage into the Ivory Coast was unmarked and unregulated. The French encouraged and managed this immigration.

The biggest effect of the colonial burden was that skilled and managerial jobs were largely unavailable to Ivoirians.

Until recently non-Africans--mostly French--still dominated the managerial and professional cadres. In 1973 the government set up the National Commission on Ivoirianisation to encourage the appointment of Ivoirians to managerial posts throughout the economy. Although Ivoirianisation of management was the announced purpose of the commission, Ivoirianisation was not to be implemented at the expense of efficiency.

Consequently, most Ivoirianisation programs in commerce and industry were voluntary and produced only modest results. According to official figures, in 1979 Ivoirians held only 23 percent of senior management positions and 44 percent of junior management posts in all private, public, and parastatal enterprises. By 1982 the percentage of Ivoirians in senior management positions had actually dropped slightly to 21 percent; for junior-level management posts, the percentage had risen to 52 percent. Among the country's 300 largest companies, Ivoirians still filled only 29 percent of top management posts, compared with 67.4 percent that were filled by non-Africans. The remaining 3.6 percent were filled by non-Ivoirian Africans. In addition, many Europeans worked as mechanics, technicians, and shop owners, underscoring Côte d'Ivoire's continued reliance on foreign initiative and skills.

The government also employed a large number of European teachers and technical experts known as coopérants. Most were recruited by the French Ministry of Cooperation, but others were hired directly by the Ivoirian government through private, usually French, firms on a contract basis. The Ivoirian government was responsible for 80 percent of the total cost of those hired under official cooperation agreements and for 100 percent of the cost of those hired under private contract. Pressures for Ivoirianisation and the economic recession of the early 1980s prompted a gradual reduction in the number of coopérants from a peak of 4,000 in 1980 to 3,200 in 1984. Over the next two years, as economic conditions worsened and as more Ivoirian university graduates took over teaching jobs in secondary schools, this number fell by 1,000.

The privately recruited foreign experts were employed mainly as technical advisers in government ministries and in state enterprises. There used to be one Frenchman for every four Ivorian civil servants. These Frenchmen set policies; handled the budgets; regulated hiring; negotiated contracts and ran the country for the Ivoirians. A friend of mine, a Greek national who was the World Bank specialist on the Ivory Coast, wrote a damning report of the continued colonial (or ‘post-colonial’) control by the French over the Ivory Coast. This was taken up by the IMF who insisted that, as part of a series of austerity measures, 585 of the 650 foreign experts on government payrolls be let go. Those foreign experts allowed to stay were in highly specialized areas, such as the petroleum sector and computer technology. Despite the IMF dictum, very little was done. Two years later there were still 425 privately recruited foreign experts, costing the government CFA F11 billion annually.

According to official figures, 81.8 percent of the salaried positions in the primary sector (agriculture and raw materials) were filled by non-Ivoirian Africans, while only 16.9 percent were filled by Ivoirians. The labour force shifted easily between regions and occupational sectors. Surveys have shown that half the migrant farm labourers changed their employment every two months, and even the more permanent wage earners moved freely from job to job in search of higher pay and more attractive working conditions. The greatest movement occurred between the traditional and the modern sectors of the economy, as farmers from subsistence areas took temporary wage employment to meet specific cash needs. This mobility contributed to the lack of training and skills and the low productivity among non-agricultural workers

The continuation of this colonial-model employment regime was responsible for much of the hostility of Ivoirians and the foreigners (French and African) embedded in their economy.

 The Suppression of the Labour Movement:

In many Africa countries the indigenous labour movements have been the leaders of the move towards democracy and transparency. This was not the case in the Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast labour movement was supine; an appendage to the policies of the PDCI and its leader Houphouet-Boigny.

In the 1980s, approximately 100,000 full-time workers in the regulated sectors belonged to trade unions. Union membership was highest among white-collar workers, professionals, civil servants, and teachers. All unions except the National Union of Secondary School Teachers of Côte d'Ivoire (Syndicat National des Enseignants du Secondaire de Côte d'Ivoire--SYNESCI) were part of a government-controlled federation, the General Federation of Ivoirian Workers (Union Générale des Travailleurs de Côte d'Ivoire- -UGTCI), which counted approximately 190 affiliates. Its secretary general from its founding until 1984 was Joseph Coffie, a veteran of the PDCI and trusted companion of President Houphouet-Boigny. 

From its inception, the UGTCI saw itself as a participant in development rather than a combatant on behalf of labour. In that role, the UGTCI supported government efforts to promote unity and development, justifying its stance as helping to continue the struggle for independence. The UGTCI did not object to the state's development policies, and its leaders participated in government policy debates, thereby becoming, in effect, instruments of economic development.

Not surprisingly, the UGTCI exercised little political or economic clout. Strikes were legal, but principals first had to complete a lengthy process of negotiation, during which any work stoppage was illegal. Moreover, demands on its members by UGTCI leadership seeking more efficient production counted more than workers' complaints. At the same time, the UGTCI exercised a modicum of autonomy in protests over wages and the pace of Ivoirianisation. In response, the guaranteed urban minimum wage had been raised several times since the mid-1970s. However, wages never kept pace with inflation.

Wildcat strikes or other unsanctioned job actions were not much more productive. In dealing with job actions, the government first exploited the media to gain sympathy for its position and then confronted strike leaders with overwhelming force. Usually the government softened its position by rehiring most of the workers previously dismissed and by compromising on peripheral matters. Underlying problems remained unresolved or were settled in accordance with government intentions. In 1985, after 16,892 parastatal workers, many of whom were highly paid professionals, staged a job action to protest deep wage cuts, the government threatened to fire all workers who refused to honour the government's deadline and to replace them with unemployed university graduates. Eventually the government fired 342 holdouts. At other times, the government dissolved the refractory union, thus depriving any strike of legitimacy and the union of any recourse.

This strict control of the labour movement was the direct result of French action and intervention. They knew that it was the success of Ahmed Sekou Toure in Guinea and his labour movement which had forced the pace of independence in French West Africa (AOF) in 1968. After the Second World War the French labour movement split into the Communist-led CGT and the Socialist breakaway union, the CGT-Force Ouvriere (‘FO’). These extended their efforts to France’s African colonies. In 1947 (at the beginning of the Cold War), the French government ordered the French Communist (‘PCF’) Ministers out of the French government and massive strike action took place in France and in its colonies. These were suppressed and the French Socialist Party (‘SFIO’) was asked to join the government in Paris. At that time the ruling party of the AOF was the inter-territorial Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (‘RDA’) was allied to the PCF and its unions with the CGT. By 1950, with strong pressure from France, these links were broken and the French Socialists and the Force Ouvriere took their places as mentors of African political developments.

However, the CGT and its allies retained a great deal of power in France and in the colonies. In 1951 they began a campaign to enforce the code du travail, the new French labour law, in the colonies. After a West African strike, led by Guinea, the French colonial administration agreed to extend the code du travail to Africa. However, they emasculated its provisions. For example, the workweek was reduced from 48 to 40 hours, as per the code, but wages were reduced by 20% to reflect this change. A wave of strikes, spearheaded by Guinea, swept Africa but the French administrators and soldiers forced an end to them.

The pressure towards a break with France dominated French African politics. On the one hand the charismatic labour leader, Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, now head of the RDA in Guinea pressed for independence. His colleague, and head of the inter-territorial RDA, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, pressed for maintaining a relationship with France. The newly-elected government of France, under De Gaulle offered its colonies a stark choice. They could choose immediate independence or agree to remain united with France.  In 1958 only Guinea voted for immediate independence. The others, led by the Ivoirian Houphouet-Boigny, remained with France as loyal colonies.

The French were vindictive at their loss of Guinea. The French left Guinea at its independence, taking with them everything they had brought to the country (telephones, baths, light bulbs, toilets, etc.) in a fit of national pique and childish humiliation.

In the event the rest of Francophone Africa gained its independence only two years later in 1960 but under the tight control of a neo-colonial French presence.

This was especially true for the labour movements; most of whom had supported Toure’s position on the independence referendum. The French, who were never comfortable with free and independent unionism inside France, were completely intolerant of their role in their colonies or former colonies. It fell to the French allies, like Houphouet-Boigny and Senghor, to make the unions part of the ruling administration and to curtail their efforts and leadership.

This was the model for the Ivory Coast. The mould was broken in the famous 1982 teachers' strike which struck a blow against the political control of the UGTCI by the PDCI. A prominent leader of that strike was Laurent Gbagbo a member of the National Trade Union of Research and Higher Education. Gbagbo was, at that time, Director of the Institute of History, Art, and African Archeology at the University of Abidjan. As a result of that strike (which was suppressed with French assistance) he formed what would become the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). Gbagbo went into exile in France in the same year. He was imprisoned from March 31, 1971 to January 1973.  After his election to the National Assembly in 1990, he carried on his work for the FPI and In 1992 he was sentenced to two years in prison, charged with inciting violence, but was released later in the year.

 Today’s Somnambulism:

Today in the Ivory Coast there is not peace, nor disarmament, nor unity nor much hope of any of these. After a brief euphoria over the Ouagadougou Agreement, which saw the rebels installed in high positions of power, the will towards action has largely dissipated. There is talk of an election; perhaps in February 2008; perhaps in October 2008? But how can there be an election for one country when the country isn’t one at all? The poor people in the North remain without much of the basic services they require. The cocoa money has been mired in international reports of corruption and lack of transparency. The oil and gas businesses are burgeoning but the money never seems to reach the people, nor is there cheap fuel. The environment is polluted and decaying with no one willing to take the responsibility for acting in its defense. All positive activity has been suspended in the preparations for an election and narrow personal interests are coming to the fore.

There is now an investigation of cocoa industry agencies, amid media reports that millions of dollars that were supposed to go to cocoa growers has been embezzled. Reports in opposition newspapers claim that millions of dollars meant for a chocolate factory in the United States never reached it. The reports say money from Ivory Coast cocoa producers has been spent on the New York factory for at least three years, but that the factory has produced little chocolate.

In March, the London-based anti-corruption group, Global Witness, reported that cocoa financed both sides in Ivory Coast's civil war in 2002. The group said the Ivorian government diverted more than $58 million from the cocoa industry to fight rebels. And it said the rebels themselves raised an additional $30 million a year by smuggling a proportion of the crop grown in the north of the country. The CAISTAB, the agency in charge of marketing the cocoa, has grown ever more opaque. The peasants are receiving less; the world prices are up; and no one fully accounts for the money.

Economic dissatisfaction is growing and strikes are frequent. Doctors, teachers, civil servants, to name but a few are fed up and have been on extended strikes. Gbagbo who built his reputation as the leader of a university staff union who fought for democracy against the one-party state of the late founding President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, now disowns the labour movement and blames political plotters for labour unrest. The dissatisfied workers, sceptical of promises from both Gbagbo and Soro, are looking for some place to go. Their natural affinity for the FPI is being sorely tested, especially with Gbagbo suggesting that wage levels are too high. The unionist Niamien Messou has pointed the finger for this development on Gbagbo’s sudden re-infatuation with the French.

The fifteen-ton elephant is still dominating the political corridors. French businessmen are returning in large numbers to the Ivory Coast. President Gbagbo has just awarded a fifteen-year contract renewal for control of the country’s water resources with Bouygues without a tender for international competition. The company is considered a target for international investigation by transparency authorities across the globe. Martin and Olivier Bouygues have recently been investigated in France for acquiring shares in the company at the disadvantage of other shareholders.

Worst of all, President Gbagbo has just met with General Bruno Clément Bollet, the head of the Force Licorne, to ask his assistance in supervising the reform of the Ivoirian civil service. This isn’t just sleepwalking anymore; it smacks of substance-abuse. The very people who shot down innocent unarmed civilians in front of the Hotel Ivoire and  provoked, armed and directed a national rebellion against democracy in the Ivory Coast are being politely requested to assist in reforming the civil service. The French were on their way out of the country as a result of Ouagadougou; now they are being asked to stay.

The thinking behind this is twisted. Gbagbo wants to entice Sarkozy to become ‘friendly’ towards the Ivory Coast. This is the traditional sleepwalking effect at work. Gbagbo thinks that the cold winds of international competition which will come with international tenders, foreign investments, capital inflows will be too much for him. The betrayal of yet another generation of Ivory Coast youth, with their limited educational opportunities, job prospects and reliance on political thuggery seems not to matter. Beneath the benign exterior of an Ivoirian patriot is the smirking self-doubt of a French Socialist; a French socialist of the lotus-eating Left.

Someone should make him aware that this fifteen-ton elephant is actually a balloon. France has always been morally bankrupt but now it is also almost financially bankrupt as well. It cannot and will not assist the Ivory Coast. Its allies in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali are economic basket cases, with far bigger demands than the Ivory Coast’s. France can’t help them either. The world of finance, investments, hedge funds, portfolio investments are largely beyond French control and particiption. They are international financial parasites and saprophytes; not builders or developers. Gbagbo should know that Sarkozy is playing a busted flush; and only Africans are afraid to call his bluff.

Someone in the country should puncture the French balloon. Perhaps the bang of its collapse will awaken this poor nation from its sleepwalking.

Robot  # 1 | 24.10.2007 03:06

Last Saturday a great man died in the Ivory Coast; Arsène Usher Assouan. Usher was F...Read the full article.