by Guy Arnold
Lissouba blamed Chirac for his political fall and Congo’s oil was the key to the Paris line. Elf Aquitaine dominated the Congo’s oil industry, which it controlled with other French companies. When Lissouba came to power the Congo only retained 15 per cent of the oil revenues, the rest being kept by the companies. After becoming President, Lissouba changed the system governing the country’s oil. He introduced competition by persuading other oil majors such as Exxon and Shell to come in or increase their stakes and he negotiated a 33 per cent take for the Congo government. Elf, the main beneficiary of the previous system, set out to destroy the new one and, according to Lissouba, used Sassou-Nguesso and enlisted the support of Chirac. Shortly after Lissouba’s overthrow, the oil companies renegotiated the Lissouba oil deal with the new government and had the 33 per cent national share of profits reduced to 20 per cent. While the fighting was taking place Chirac had telephoned Lissouba from Paris to demand that he appoint Sassou-Nguesso as vice-president and head of the armed forces, a request that would have put him in an all-powerful position. When Lissouba demurred on constitutional grounds, Chirac reportedly said, ‘Chuck your bloody constitution in the dustbin’.5 Further, again according to Lissouba, a pan-African peacekeeping force, prepared by the French Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, was set to intervene when pressure from Chirac aborted the plan.
In the end, oil and French economic and political interests in Congo ensured French support for Sassou-Nguesso and the destruction of the democratic process which had been inaugurated in 1992 after 14 years of Sassou-Ngueso’s autocratic rule. Despite its stated belief in democracy and its opposition to Marxism, France preferred the dictatorial Sassou-Nguesso, provided he would safeguard its interests, to the democratically elected Lissouba who wanted a greater share of the country’s oil resources to be used for the Congo rather than be expatriated to France. The relationship between France and Sassou-Nguesso reveals a great deal about France’s role in Africa and power-hungry African leaders. Sassou-Nguesso was quite prepared to reduce his country’s legitimate take from its oil by reducing a reasonable (and still moderate) 33 per cent dividend on oil to 20 per cent in order to ensure French support for his seizure of power while France had been prepared to undermine the democratic process in Congo so as to maximize its exploitation of the country’s major resource. Commenting on the French attitude towards its former colonial territories six years after the events described here, the Financial Times said retrospectively that, ‘France’s passive attitude towards the violent overthrow of President Pascal Lissouba of Congo was widely criticized. Mr Lissouba’s government had looked favourably on US energy companies exploiting offshore oil reserves, much to the anger of French companies. A successful uprising led by Congo’s former military dictator, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, was barely criticized in Paris, and French companies resumed their prime position once Mr Lissouba was overthrown.’6
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
The long years of Houphouët-Boigny’s rule and the apparent stability he achieved (the velvet glove and iron fist alternating) had produced the impression of a more stable society than was actually the case. This impression had been greatly enhanced by one of the most successful, agriculture-based economies in West Africa and the fact that Houphouët-Boigny had encouraged the sizeable French community to remain. France, as a result, had come to view Côte d’Ivoire as the showpiece of Francophone Africa. By the end of the 1990s, however, this cosy view of the country was about to change.
In 1998, with two years still to go before elections were due, pre-election manoeuvres had nevertheless got under way and an alliance appeared to be forming between the ruling Democratic Party of President Bédié, who had succeeded to the presidency in 1993 on the death of Houphouët-Boigny, and the opposition Front Populaire Ivorien (FPI) (Ivorian Popular Front) of Laurent Gbagbo. The alliance had a good deal to do with the fact that the other popular contender for power, a former prime minister under Houphouët-Boigny, was Alassane Ouattara. He had been ‘constitutionally’ disqualified from running for the presidency under nationality and citizenship clauses because it was claimed that he was a Burkinabe rather than an Ivorian. Although the economy performed well at this time, with a 1998 growth rate of six per cent, debt servicing had become a near crippling burden demanding 50 per cent of foreign exchange earnings.
The crisis came at the end of 1999 when, on 24 December, West Africa was shaken by what until then had been unthinkable: a coup in Côte d’Ivoire. A military junta overthrew the government of President Henri Konan Bédié. The coup, apparently, had begun at a barracks meeting by an elite para commando unit, which had not been paid for serving with the UN in Central African Republic. However, what might have been no more than a mutiny over pay soon developed into a full-scale takeover as the airport, TV-radio station and president’s office were seized, suggesting that careful planning was involved. Gen. Guei, a former chief of army staff, was brought out of retirement, possibly against his will, at first to act as spokesman for the mutineers. However, he announced the removal of the head of state and the dissolution of the National Assembly, the Constitutional Council and the Supreme Court. These institutions were replaced by a nine-member National Committee of Public Safety; later it was announced that Gen. Guei was to be the new head of state. Bédié and his family fled to the French Embassy using an underground passage from state house, whose existence suggests an even closer liaison between France and the rulers of Côte d’Ivoire than might have been expected. Bédié then broadcast, calling for resistance to the coup though none was forthcoming. Despite the tunnel there had been no French response on behalf of Bédié and the only pro-Bédié Frenchman appeared to be President Chirac’s African Affairs Adviser, Michel Dupuch. France did however send reinforcements to its base in the country in case of any threats to the French community. Bédié went into exile in Paris. Prior to the coup the economy had been slowing down while revenues from commodities, the principal exports, were slumping. The IMF had assisted this decline by suspending payments because it was unhappy at ‘governance’. The coup appeared to be well received in the country and though France, the United States, the EU and the OAU condemned it, they contented themselves with calling for as short a period of military rule as possible. Every one of Côte d’Ivoire’s neighbours had experienced one or more coups; now the success story of Francophone West Africa was in trouble.
Although Guei was accorded a measure of goodwill, people were wary that the army had become involved as the country’s power broker. The most influential figure in the new regime, briefly, was Alassane Ouattara, but he faced much opposition in the south because of his Burkinabe connections. Guei, who may have thought otherwise to begin with, decided to run for the presidency in the forthcoming elections. In August 2000 a referendum was held that entrenched the concept of Ivoiricité with a substantial majority, which was a further blow to Ouattara’s political chances. An assassination attempt against Guei in September was blamed on two generals sympathetic to Ouattara. In October, as the presidential elections approached, the courts again ruled that Ouattara could not stand for the presidency with the result that his party, Rassemblement Démocratique Républicain (RDR), boycotted them. This left two main contenders for the presidency: Gen. Guei and Laurent Gbagbo. They had collaborated in order to exclude Ouattara from running; now they fell out. Guei, in classic military style, sacked the electoral commission and proclaimed himself the winner. His prime minister, Souleymane Diarra, resigned in protest while thousands of Gbagbo’s supporters took to the streets to demonstrate and sections of the army deserted Guei who was obliged to flee the country instead of swearing himself in as president. Diarra reinstated the electoral commission and pronounced Gbagbo the winner with 59 per cent of the votes to Guei’s 31 per cent. Ouattara’s supporters called for fresh elections. He met with Gbagbo and both men appealed for calm although Gbagbo maintained the ban on Ouattara, with the result that his RDR boycotted the parliamentary elections of December. Gbagbo’s FPI won th
e elections and the RDR came in second place. However, the exclusion of Ouattara and his RDR from political life threatened a breakdown of the country’s political structure and split Côte d’Ivoire between north and south along ethnic and religious lines, with the north predominantly Muslim and the south predominantly Christian. The north also played host to several million migrants from Burkina Faso and Mali who habitually worked the coffee and cocoa plantations. By this time the economy was in free fall.
The dramas that had characterized the last half of 2000 led to heightened tensions in 2001 for though Gbagbo had successfully faced down Gen. Guei and the army, the exclusion of Ouattara from politics had edged the country close to civil war. An attempted coup in January was rumoured to have the support of Burkina Faso while the rise of anti-northern feelings in the south had led thousands of Burkinabes to leave the country. Gbagbo tried to damp down the growing north-south split as did France, which saw its showcase Francophone country collapsing. Gbagbo, however, would not do the one thing that could have diffused the rising tensions: that is, recognize Ouattara’s Ivorian nationality, no doubt fearing that Ouattara would win the presidential elections. In June Gbagbo called together a National Reconciliation Forum. Bédié, Ouattara and Guei returned from abroad to take part although Ouattara needed a good deal of convincing, though in the end he felt it would be politically counter-productive to boycott it. An uncomfortable lull followed and continued into 2002. Finally, in September the tensions exploded when army mutinies broke out simultaneously in five cities. The outbreak failed in Abidjan but was successful in Bouaké in the centre north of the country and Korhogo in the far north. The revolt had been sparked off by 750 army recruits who had been told they would be dismissed from the army. The uprising took place on 19 September. Both Gen. Guei and the Interior Minister were killed when President Gbagbo was out of the country. The Defence Minister, Lida Moise Kouassi, said on television that the government had brought the situation under control and only pockets of resistance remained. This soon proved to be incorrect although, in the way of coups, there were lulls while the different factions gathered their forces and decided on what actions to take. At first Gbagbo, who was on a visit to Italy, said he would delay his return until he had had an audience with the Pope. In Bouaké the rebels took control of police and military bases. In Abidjan paramilitary police set fire to dozens of houses around the military base on the grounds that they needed to secure the area but, perhaps, it was no accident that most of the people whose houses were destroyed were Muslims from neighbouring countries. In Korhogo the mutineers handed out guns to civilians.
Gbagbo now cut short his visit to Italy and returned to Côte d’Ivoire. Claims by the government that it had regained control were increasingly unrealistic. In Abidjan, after hours of gunfire, Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou and a number of senior military officers had been killed while Ouattara, fearing he would be blamed for the uprising, sought asylum in the French embassy. France airlifted in reinforcements to its base in the country, ready to protect its 20,000 citizens. Sgt Alfred Camin in Bouaké said: ‘We mutineers are ready to negotiate under the aegis of France, which must assure the application of agreements.’7 The United States then sent 200 Special Forces soldiers to rescue American children trapped in a school in Bouaké that catered for the children of missionaries serving in various West African countries. President Gbagbo pledged to launch a full-scale assault to free Bouaké. Speaking from the French embassy, where he had taken refuge, Ouattara accused the government of trying to kill him after the uprising and said: ‘It is clear they are using the situation to try to liquidate and eliminate people in my party.’8
At the end of September African leaders met in Accra, Ghana, to prevent what by then had come to be called a conflagration from spreading across West Africa. Loyalties in the region are complicated. Ivorians believed that Burkina Faso was supporting the rebels yet both countries belonged to ECOWAS and Nigeria, its leading member, sent three jet fighters to be used by Gbagbo in putting down the rebellion. Ghana also offered military assistance. Gbagbo, however, wanted to ‘cut off the rebels’ head’ by striking at Burkina Faso where he believed the rebels had bases. Mali also had many citizens working in the north of Côte d’Ivoire and, like the Burkinabes, its citizens had often suffered from xenophobic attacks by the Ivorians. At this time the current Chairman of ECOWAS, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, was considering raising a force of 3,000 to 4,000 men to help Gbagbo regain control of his country, under the auspices of ECOMOG, the ECOWAS Monitoring Group. By the end of September about 600 people has lost their lives while the French had managed to remove 2,000 French citizens and other foreigners, especially from Bouaké. The French rescue operation, however, obstructed the government’s efforts to recapture the northern towns and, according to the Defence Minister, Kida Kouassi, the ‘invisible hands’ of the French had put pressure on President Gbagbo not to pursue the rebels as strongly as he wanted and that French troop movements had made it impossible for the government forces to be reinforced and supplied.
Ouattara, who had been Houphouët-Boigny’s prime minister from 1990 to 1993, could be the key to a solution. Although born in Côte d’Ivoire he had Burkinabe ancestors and each of Houphouët-Boigny’s successors made that an excuse to bar him from standing against him. They feared Ouattara because he was a Muslim and they constituted the single largest voting bloc in the country. Since most Muslims live in the north of the country and large numbers of Malians and Burkinabes, who are also Muslims, reside and work in the north, this creates a potential divide from the largely Christian south.9 The dangers of a north-south split along ethnic and religious lines became all too apparent once the uprising had begun. Meanwhile, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had joined the other leaders in Accra. President Gbagbo, in response to the ECOWAS offer of troops, said he only wanted logistical help in crushing the rebels. Gbagbo rejected peace proposals, arguing that the rebels should disarm first, and according to the Togolese foreign minister the Ivorian authorities ‘believe that their government is legitimate and should not be considered on the same levels of legitimacy as the rebels’. By early October as many as 150,000 people had been displaced by the fighting in Bouaké against which the government had launched an offensive. One result of the fighting was an exodus of thousands of Malian and Burkinabe immigrants back to their own countries. The rebels held on to Bouaké and then suspended talks with the West African mediators, accusing Angola of flying in troops to back the government. A spokesman for the rebel Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI) (Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast), Cherif Ousmane, said that 500 Angolan troops had arrived in Abidjan and that the MPCI suspended all participation in any mediation until they had left the territory. Having rejected one ceasefire agreement because of the Angola scare, the rebel leader, Tuo Fozie, signed a ceasefire agreement in Bouaké on 17 October. By mid-October the rebels had seized most of the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire and, following the ceasefire, French troops had taken up positions along the front line to monitor it. A stalemate characterized the following month, with neither side gaining any positive advantage. By early December, however, the country appeared to be closer to outright civil war after new rebel groups appeared in the west of the country and both sides accused one another of massacring civilians. France, with 1,000 troops in the country, was appreciably nearer greater involvement in the conflict. The defence minister, Bertin Kadet, denying government responsibility for a massacre, urged France, the United States and the European Union to intervene to halt the fighting and, speaking on state-controlled television, said: ‘One shouldn’t wait until there is another Rwanda to intervene. In order to finish with these aggressors and free our country, I want to appeal solemnly for a general mobilization of Ivorians beneath the flag.’ He called upon 20- to 26-year-olds to sign up with the army.10 By late December France had become more fully committed to intervention. In Paris the government decided to double the number of its troops in Côte d’
Ivoire to 2,500 after a fierce battle between rebels and troops of the French Foreign Legion in the west of the country. The Legionnaires had put to flight a rebel group that was pursuing routed government forces near the town of Duekoue. The increased French involvement was widely seen as a move to shore up the position of Gbagbo. While the rebels accused France of waging a colonial war, Paris insisted that its role was still one of peacekeeping. However, on the insistence of Gbagbo, the French ambassador in Abidjan, who opposed deeper French involvement in the conflict, was removed by Paris.
Following the widespread condemnation of its intervention in Rwanda in 1994 it appeared that France had abandoned its long-standing tradition of direct and indirect intervention to bolster client governments in Francophone Africa. The decision to send troops to Côte d’Ivoire, even with UN blessing, was seen as a return to the old policy. Fighting in the west of the country erupted in January 2003 where the Mouvement Populaire Ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO) (Popular Ivorian Movement for the Far West) seized control of the town of Neka. The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dominique de Villepin, visited Côte d’Ivoire on 3 January. In Abidjan he had talks with Gbagbo who promised to observe the October ceasefire and to send home foreign mercenaries from Israel and South Africa. De Villepin also visited Bouaké for talks with the leaders of the northern-based rebel group, the MPCI. The rebels also agreed to abide by the October ceasefire and to attend peace talks in Paris on 15 January. Fighting continued in the west of the country.