Eid al-Fitr, Bouaké

It was almost exactly this time 8 years ago that I sat on a plastic chair drinking a beer in Bouaké in Côte d'Ivoire, then controlled by the Forces Nouvelles rebels who were seeking to oust President Laurent Gbagbo (now resident at the ICC at the Hague). It was Eid al-Fitr and out of nowhere these three children appeared, dressed for the holiday. For me it served as a remember that gentle moments can exist even in the most chaotic circumstances. A happy memory, la vie continue...

Photo © Michael Deibert

Of Haiti and Côte d'Ivoire

Reading the novelist Venance Konan's excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times the other day - about how he watched his friend and colleugue Laurent Gbagbo go from the kind of person who went to jail for fighting for democracy to a man who, as much as anyone, undermined it and fanned the flames of ethnic hatred in post-Félix Houphouët-Boigny Côte d'Ivoire - I found the similarities with Haiti, and another leader who went from being a champion of democracy to the nastiest sort of despot, inescapable.

Apropos of Konan’s article, a fellow journalist wrote to me that “[Gbagbo’s] resisting the international community would be almost heroic, if one did not suspect that he's a very bad man. And [Alassane] Ouattara seems typical of the kind of person who wins elections organized by the UN and US: a technocrat, Western-trained, etc. with international banking creds, like Ellen Sirleaf in Liberia.”

My view is this: As in Haiti with Jean-Bertrand Aristide, anyone who has visited Côte d'Ivoire with their eyes open knows quite well and has seen ample evidence that Gbagbo is a bad man, they don't just suspect it. And they just a certainly they know that, like Gbagbo's forces, Ouattara's supporters in the Forces Nouvelles have committed gross human rights abuses.

Given Côte d'Ivoire's particular history, though, I would not only refer to Ouattara as "the kind of person who wins elections organized by the UN and US," but also as the kind of person who wins elections in a country where the 1960 to 1993 government of Houphouët-Boigny encouraged massive migration into Côte d'Ivoire from neighboring countries such as Mali, Burkina-Faso and Guinea, only to spur a venomous backlash to that policy in terms of the discriminatory ivoirité rhetoric of Henri Konan Bédié and Gbagbo himself following Houphouët-Boigny's death. Given the ethnic and religious make-up of present-day Côte d'Ivoire, and Gbagbo's wretched record as president, it is not at all surprising that Ouattara would win a presidential election there, UN organized or not.

I think the interesting thing is how, like Aristide, Gbagbo was once perceived by those who know him best as exactly the kind of person his country needed to leave the dark days of despotism and oppression behind and start on a new, more just and correct course, and how he eventually became the epitome of everything he claimed to have been fighting against all along.

Of course, with the exception of the nutters of the Christian right in the United States, Gbagbo really doesn't have the PR machine of greased-palm attorneys, former and future lobbyists, armchair academics, ignorant or ideologically-blinded journalists and professional "activists" working to whitewash his ghastly history that Aristide still does. At least those years in exile in DC taught him to do something right, I guess, even if governing Haiti wasn’t it.

Despite their great challenges, though, I hope that 2011 marks a brighter year for Haiti and Côte d'Ivoire under the leadership of their new presidents, Alassane Ouattara and Michel Martelly. May they somehow resist the temptations that proved so irresistible to those who came before them.

Refugees tell of Côte d'Ivoire violence after fleeing to Liberia

COTE D'IVOIRE: A Call for Solidarity in Resolving Fate of Missing Reporter

COTE D'IVOIRE: A Call for Solidarity in Resolving Fate of Missing Reporter

By Michael Deibert

Inter Press Service

PARIS, Dec 14, 2007 (IPS) - Early one afternoon nearly four years ago, journalist Guy-André Kieffer was thrust into a waiting car by several armed men in a supermarket parking lot in Abidjan. He has not been seen since.

Following the reporter's disappearance in Côte d'Ivoire's economic capital in April 2004, however, a tangled and murky picture has emerged of the forces in the country which Kieffer had been covering, forces that apparently had good reason to want to silence the troublesome gadfly.

Born in France, Kieffer obtained dual French-Canadian citizenship during a marriage to a Canadian. He spent the better part of two decades as a journalist for the French business publication 'La Tribune' before starting to report from Africa on a freelance basis for a variety of publications. These included the French-published 'La Lettre du Continent' (Letter From the Continent).

Despite the gradual, often deceptive cooling down of the civil wars that tore West Africa asunder during the early part of the decade, Kieffer -- 54 at the time of his disappearance -- still found plenty of corruption, nepotism and violence to write about while working in the region. These problems were notably evident in Côte d'Ivoire.

Read the full article here.

The Bitter Taste of Cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire

ECONOMY

The Bitter Taste of Cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire

By Michael Deibert

Inter Press Service

BINAO, Southern Côte d'Ivoire, Dec 3, 2007 (IPS) - Hacking his way through the lush forest with a machete, his rubber boots sinking into the moist earth, Lambert Kwame surveys the plot of land that his family has worked for over 30 years, harvesting cocoa.

"We know that the national price for cocoa is very high," Kwame says, as he stands under a fecund canopy about an hour north of Côte d'Ivoire's commercial capital, Abidjan. Fat orange and yellow cacao pods from which cocoa beans are extracted cling to the trees. "But the obstacles set up between the farmers and the harbour take all the profit that we could make from the crop."

Hundreds of beans from Kwame's cocoa crop lie drying in the sun on a modest wooden stand before his home, along the highway that leads to Abidjan. For this harvest he will be paid about 90 cents per kilogramme by middlemen who will sell it to international exporters in Abidjan.

Côte d'Ivoire is the world's largest producer of cocoa, a distinction that remained even during the political crisis that has engulfed this West African country over recent years (a 2002-2003 civil war sparked by political and economic instability, as well as tensions over regional discrimination and immigration, led to Côte d'Ivoire being split into government and rebel zones). The nation's crop currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of global cocoa production.

Cocoa is also Côte d'Ivoire's main export, representing some 35 percent of goods sent abroad. This translates into about 1.4 billion dollars of revenue annually in the south, controlled by the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, according to official figures. In the northern sector, overseen by the rebel New Forces (Forces Nouvelles, FN), yearly cocoa revenues are thought to hover around 30 million dollars.

In addition, up to four million of Côte d'Ivoire's 17 million inhabitants work in some aspect of the cocoa trade.

But, concern been growing for several years as to how revenues generated by the crop are used by the maze of overlapping and often opaque organisations set up by both the government and rebels to manage cocoa.

Read the full article here.

In Ivory Coast, a Fragile Peace Is Framed by Promises Unfulfilled

In Ivory Coast, a Fragile Peace Is Framed by Promises Unfulfilled

By Michael Deibert
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, November 16, 2007; A27

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast -- Manning a rebel roadblock leading into this dusty, sunbaked city, Kone Omar spoke wearily of a life at war.

"We hope things improve and the peace settles all over the country," the 26-year-old combatant said, referring to an eight-month-old power-sharing agreement between the Forces Nouvelles, or New Forces, rebel army and the government of Ivory Coast. "I didn't join this army to fight forever."

Bouake, the country's second-largest city, sprawled northward behind him, a collection of low-slung buildings, cacophonous traffic and spit-and-polish rebel soldiers who patrol the streets.

About 200 miles south, the country's economic capital, Abidjan, stands in glossy contrast, with its high-rise buildings and crisscrossing modern highways. On the busy streets there, pro-government militias periodically violently harass opponents of President Laurent Gbagbo.

Five years ago, Ivory Coast was split in half when rebels seized the northern part of the country in a brief but bloody civil war.

Both sides touted the March agreement as the best chance for peace in a conflict littered with broken covenants and mutual distrust.

But the presence of combatants in both cities underscores the fact that men with guns in this resource-rich country wield the power. And despite the power-sharing deal, Ivorians say they have seen precious few improvements in their lives.

Read the full article here.

Interview with Alassane Ouattara: "We Don't Believe Gbagbo Will Organise Transparent Elections"

Q&A: "We Don't Believe Gbagbo Will Organise Transparent Elections"

Interview with Alassane Ouattara

ABIDJAN, Oct 23, 2007 (IPS) - Will it be third time lucky for Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Ouattara during presidential elections which many hope will take place in Cote d'Ivoire next year?

To date, this high-profile politician -- a former prime minister and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- has twice been barred from contesting the presidency.

In 1995 and 2000 he was kept off the ballot by a law excluding candidates with a parent of foreign nationality, or who had lived outside of Côte d'Ivoire for the preceding five years. It was insinuated that Ouattara's mother was Burkinabé, a claim he has always denied.

This occurred amidst politically-fuelled resentment towards migrants from neighbouring countries and their descendants who had helped Côte d'Ivoire take advantage of brisk economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, but who became unwelcome guests when the economy declined along with commodity prices. A contentious debate was ignited on what constituted Ivorian nationality.

Issues of nationality also underpinned the failed coup of 2002 and subsequent civil war that saw the rebel Forces Nouvelles (New Forces) seize control of northern Côte d'Ivoire, while the government of President Laurent Gbagbo retained control over the south. The administration was further charged by the rebels with human rights abuses, corruption and victimisation of ethnic minorities.

Ouattara and members of his Rally of the Republicans (Rassemblement des Républicains, RDR) were the subject of reprisal attacks by government partisans in the financial capital of Abidjan and elsewhere after the September 2002 coup attempt.

The rebellion remained in a tense stalemate until March of this year, when the two sides signed a power sharing agreement in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou. They pledged disarmament, the creation of an integrated national army and provision of citizenship documents (a process known as "identification") to those who can prove their Ivorian nationality, to enable participation in the proposed poll. New Forces leader Guillaume Soro has also been appointed prime minister.

IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down with Ouattara at the RDR's headquarters in Abidjan earlier this month to get his opinions on the current state of the peace process.

Read the full interview here.