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

Message à la Nation: la Déclaration du Président de la République SEM Alassane Ouattara

Alassane Ouattara wins Côte d'Ivoire presidency

Alassane Ouattara has been declared the winner of Côte d'Ivoire's first presidential election in a decade. Here is my 2007 interview with him.

Selectively shrugging off world conflicts

NONFICTION

Selectively shrugging off world conflicts

The author attempts to answer why some warfare draws attention while other examples are ignored.

BY Michael Deibert

The Miami Herald

STEALTH CONFLICTS: How the World's Worst Violence is Ignored. Virgil Hawkins. Ashgate. 234 pages. $80.

(Read the original article here)

More than six million people perished over the last decade in the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Western world's response was little more than a collective shrug. Yet when 10,000 people died during the conflict in Kosovo, the result was a sustained international military intervention.

These are but two of the jarring examples that Virgil Hawkins, a professor at Osaka University's Global Cooperation Center, uses to ponder this question in his important and perceptive new book. Examining a range of conflicts from Africa to the Middle East and Europe, Hawkins seeks to thoroughly dissect why some instances of warfare draw the world's attention while other examples are ignored.

Hawkins argues that the end of the Cold War infinitely complicated matters, as it ''significantly accelerated the rise of warlord politics'' in states such as Cote d'Ivoire, the DRC and Somalia, all of which have been host to brutal civil wars in the past decade.

Though Africa accounts for 90 percent of the world's conflict-related deaths, Hawkins discovers that conflicts on the continent are often met with a condescending ''African solutions for African problems'' refrain. He cites the fact that, from 1999 until 2006, the DRC received only 54 percent of its emergency humanitarian aid requests from the United Nations while Sudan received only 65 percent. Iraq and Europe (including the former Yugoslavia), by contrast, received 91 percent and 68 percent, respectively.

Hawkins adroitly reveals that the sheer number of deaths don't have a major bearing on the level of sympathy elicited from the public to any given conflict. Disputes are filtered through an institutional consciousness determined by sets of competing geopolitical and economic interests that have little to do with the particular heinousness of crimes committed.

The complicated internal dynamics of bodies such as the U.N. and the scramble for funds by non-governmental organizations working in conflict zones also often fall victim to such politicking. Hawkins finds that scholars not infrequently reflect this already-fractured mirror, focusing largely on conflicts or events that have already been pre-determined as important by various sectors of the powerful.

When it comes to critiquing the media, Hawkins' footing is a bit less sure. The book occasionally uses sources to explain media indifference that are less than trustworthy, such as the commentators Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann, whose claims about press coverage of the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia have been convincingly debunked.

But it is hard to find fault with Hawkins' contention that the decimation of foreign bureaus for the print media (particularly in the United States) has resulted in an ever-shrinking pool of coverage, with greatly disproportionate attention given to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in comparison with other, more deadly, wars around the globe.

Refusing to resign himself to hopelessness, however, Hawkins calls upon all of the international actors concerned to do a better job when confronting some of the world's most intractably violent problems:

``When even a cursory glance reveals how grossly distorted the image of the state of conflict of the world is, the realization of some form of proportion between image and reality, and between scale and response, is not too much to hope for.''


Michael Deibert is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti.

Reflections on Côte d’Ivoire’s economic outlook

My five-part series on Côte d’Ivoire’s economic prospects was published by the Financial Times’ Foreign Direct Investment magazine at the end of last year and recently became available online.

The report include a pair of overviews of the country’s current political-economic condition, which can be read here and here, an interview with Chairman and CEO of the Village de Technologies de l’Information et de la Biotechnologie Vincent Gadou Kragbe, an examination of other commodities looming on Côte d’Ivoire’s horizon beyond cocoa and a look at the country’s vibrant telecoms industry.

2007: A Reporter's Notebook of the Year Gone By

This past year was a fairly interesting one for me, from a reporting perspective and otherwise, and saw me traveling to six countries on three continents.

Beginning in the slums of Bombay and the hills and valleys of Kashmir, continuing on through electoral politics and civil unrest in France and extending to the cocoa fields and rebel roadblocks of Côte d'Ivoire, it was a period during which I felt, as acutely as ever, the importance of the role that a journalist serves as witness and recorder of the struggles of the disenfranchised and how, in our ever-more fraught and divided world, that role of illuminating our common humanity as people - despite transitory national, linguistic, religious, racial or economic differences - is as important now as it has ever been.

What follows is a review of nearly all the articles I've published this year, spanning a number of subjects across the globe.

Here's to hoping for a gentler, more humane and healthier 2008, with greater freedom married to a greater sense of local and global community for all concerned.

Much love,

MD

Côte d'Ivoire: A Call for Solidarity in Resolving Fate of Missing Reporter for the Inter Press Service (December 14, 2007)

The Bitter Taste of Cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire for the Inter Press Service (December 3, 2007)

Interview with France Kassing on Davis, California’s KDVS radio (December 3, 2007)

Blood Diamonds No Longer Congo-Brazzaville's Best Friend for the Inter Press Service (November 30, 2007)

France's Troubled Suburbs Erupt Again for the Inter Press Service (November 29, 2007)

Update on Riots in France on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show (November 29, 2007)

Riots Rage in Paris Suburb After Police Collision, an interview with Robert Siegel on National Public Radio's All Things Considered (November 27, 2007)

In Ivory Coast, a Fragile Peace Is Framed by Promises Unfulfilled for the Washington Post (November 16, 2007)

On Lyrical Terrorists for Countercurrents (November 10, 2007)

Project May Boost Biofuels in East Africa for the Inter Press Service (October 30, 2007)

"We Don't Believe Gbagbo Will Organise Transparent Elections" An Interview with Alassane Ouattara for the Inter Press Service (October 23, 2007)

Puma pounces for Foreign Direct Investment magazine (October 03, 2007)

Burma: Criticism of Total Operations Grows for the Inter Press Service (October 4, 2007)

North Africa a Launch Pad For Auto Markets for the Inter Press Service (September 25, 2007)

'Silicon Ribbon' Pops Up Across the Maghreb for the Inter Press Service (September 29, 2007)

Trade-Africa: Improved Regional Integration Still Key For Success for the Inter Press Service (September 25, 2007)

France: Two Years After Riots, Little Has Changed for the Inter Press Service (September 24, 2007)

Sarkozy Hedges Free Market With Government Control for the Inter Press Service (September 15, 2007)

France: New Employment Law Sets Stage for Showdown for the Inter Press Service (September 3, 2007)

African Countries Stand Up to EU for the Inter Press Servce (August 28, 2007)

L'Affaire Libyenne Shows a New Policy for the Inter Press Service (August 27, 2007)

France: Differences Arise Over Education Law for the Inter Press Service (August 27, 2007)

In Defense Of Taslima Nasreen for Countercurrents (August 11, 2007)

France: Sarkozy Charges Ahead for the Inter Press Service (July 30, 2007)

Russian Roulette: A Review of Anna Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia for the Miami Herald (July 29, 2007)

For Jazz Musicians, a Paris Tradition Continues for the Inter Press Service (July 25, 2007)

Hope, Concern Greet China's Growing Prominence in Africa for the Inter Press Service (July 23, 2007)

Following Oil Boom, Biofuel Eyed In Africa for the Inter Press Service (July 13, 2007)

France: Diaspora Trade Strengthens Communities for the Inter Press Service (June 29, 2007)

G8: Few Concrete Steps Proposed for Darfur for the Inter Press Service (June 27, 2007)

New Plans for Niger Basin for the Inter Press Service (Jun 26, 2007)

France: Immigrants Uneasy over Proposed Policies for the Inter Press Service (June 19, 2007)

Haiti-Dominican Republic: Film on Plantations Spurs Backlash for the Inter Press Service (June 4, 2007)

Trade-Africa: Europe Looks to Encourage Diaspora Investment for the Inter Press Service (May 31, 2007)

West Africa: Currency Integration Still A Few Years Off for the Inter Press Service (May 30, 2007)

An Appeal to Decency on behalf of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent: An address delivered to the Journalists & Editors Workshop on Latin America and the Caribbean delivered at the Biscayne Bay Marriott Hotel in Miami, Florida (May 12, 2007)

Underreported: An Update on Kashmir on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show (May 03, 2007)

The Dead and the Missing in Kashmir for The World Policy Journal (Spring 2007)

Politics-Sudan: "Do Something Now, Because People Are Dying Every Day" for the Inter Press Service (April 30, 2007)

Haiti: A Literary Icon for "Les Damnés de la Terre" for the Inter Press Service (April 11, 2007)

Haiti/Democratic Republic: Exhibit Reveals a Bitter Harvest for the Inter Press Service (May 13, 2007)

Kashmiri Separatist Seeks End To Armed Struggle for the Washington Times (February 25 , 2007)

Haiti : The terrible truth about Martissant for AlterPresse (February 13, 2007)

The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) calls for action on the Jean-Rémy Badio killing press release (January 30, 2007)

Haiti’s Mythical Man: The Novelist Madison Smartt Bell Humanizes the Person Behind the Legend of Haiti’s Independence for the Miami Herald (January 21, 2007)

Politics-US: Ailing Health System Defies Easy Fix for the Inter Press Service (January 3, 2007)

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.

Interview with KDVS

I had a fairly wide-ranging interview with France Kassing of Davis, California’s KDVS yesterday, concerning the recent Paris riots, my exposé of the cocoa industry in the Côte d'Ivoire and my view of the peace process there, some recent developments in Haiti and other topics. The interview can be listened to in its entirety 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.

TRADE: Blood Diamonds No Longer Congo-Brazzaville's Best Friend

TRADE: Blood Diamonds No Longer Congo-Brazzaville's Best Friend

By Michael Deibert

Inter Press Service

PARIS, Nov 30, 2007 (IPS) - The announcement that the Republic of the Congo, or Congo-Brazzaville, has been readmitted to the Kimberley Process, which aims to stem the flow of conflict diamonds, marks a breakthrough.

Congo-Brazzaville was expelled from the-then year-old process in 2004 for exporting diamonds from its war-wracked neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and falsifying certificates of origin.

''Congo-Brazzaville comes back now after a very serious domestic effort to put their house in order and to get their domestic systems to the level required,'' Karel Kovanda, chairperson of the Kimberly Process secretariat, told IPS. ''It was quite an emotional moment. We're always happy to have new people (come on board the Kimberley Process).''

Congo-Brazzaville's fate is just the latest example of the enforcement procedure which gets its name from the South African city where one of the first meetings was held on stemming the flow of diamonds used by rebel armies or other groups to fund conflict.

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.

Les nuits de Paris: Black, blanc, beur

It is the evening of the Nuits Blanches here in Paris, the “white nights” of all-night cultural events that were inaugurated by Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë's in 2002.

As I prepare to go see a pair of African bands set to play a free concert at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, the fierce debate regarding immigration in France continues. In recent months, as I alluded to in an article some time ago, France has witnessed the creation of the (often justly) maligned Ministère de l'immigration, de l'intégration, de l'identité nationale et du codéveloppement and the implementation of policies that have chased middle-aged Chinese workers and schoolboys out of windows in nighttime immigration raids and bundled screaming Malians onto planes taking them "home" to Bamako. As a resident of an immigrant community and, indeed, an immigrant myself, I can only say that I hope some kind of humanity to one’s fellow man prevails in this discussion. As I would similarly criticize the current government in the United States, one can control one’s borders without victimizing the most defenseless in society.

Also note that this blog may be silent for a bit as I depart tomorrow for a two week reporting trip to Côte d'Ivoire, which promises many, many interesting things but among them perhaps not regular internet access.