Cote d'Ivoire crisis presents challenge to African leadership

On the 25th and 26th of this month, January, President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d'Ivoire and leaders of other Ivorian political formations, leaders of the various rebel groups in that country, the leadership of the UN, the AU, EU, ECOWAS, the President of the French Republic, as well as representatives of the international donor community, met in Paris to discuss the situation in the Cote d'Ivoire.

This followed a meeting at Linas-Marcoussis, France, of representatives of the Ivorian government and political parties, as well as all the rebel groups operating in the Cote d'Ivoire, convened by the French government.

The Marcoussis meeting agreed on a government of national reconciliation, with Laurent Gbagbo remaining as the President. It agreed that a new prime minister would be appointed, which President Bagbo did. The new Prime Minister, Seydou Diarra, would then proceed to constitute the inclusive government required by the Marcoussis agreement. This new government would include the various political parties as well as the rebel groups.

Being keenly interested to see the Core d'Ivoire return to a situation of peace, stability, national unity and development, all the non-Ivorian participants at the Paris meeting expressed their support for the Marcoussis agreement. Many among these pledged material support to the Cote d'Ivoire, to support its social and economic recovery.

The problem however, is that people have taken to the streets of Abidjan, the capital of the Cote d'Ivoire, to express their opposition to the Marcoussis agreement, which as we have said, was arrived at by an inclusive collective of Ivorian leaders, including the rebels.

This is despite the fact that all the participants at the Marcoussis meeting had agreed to attend and negotiate an agreement, when the French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, visited the Cote d'Ivoire to discuss this matter with all those concerned.

As we write this letter, it appears that the hostility of the Abidjan demonstrators to France, the convenor of the Marcoussis and Paris meetings, has reached such intensity that French citizens in the Cote d'Ivoire have felt obliged to return home.

The denunciation of France has also been accompanied by calls by the Abidjan demonstrators that the United States should intervene to facilitate the resolution of the Ivorian crisis.

These goings-on suggest that we are still some distance away from resolving this crisis. The longer this persists, the worse the situation will become both for the Cote d'Ivoire and its West African neighbours. This also means that it will be more difficult to find a solution.

All this makes an important statement about our continent and its institutions, such as ECOWAS and the African Union. As Africans, we must openly admit the reality that we have failed to help the Ivorians to end the crisis in their country.

It was precisely because of this African failure that France made a military, political and diplomatic intervention to help move the Cote d' Ivoire towards peace. And yet the crisis in this sister African country has thrown up precisely the sort of challenges that require African solutions.

From its independence in 1960, the Cote d'Ivoire was an island of peace, stability and development. It avoided the experience of its neighbours and other countries in West Africa and the rest of our continent of military coups.

This gave it the possibility to attend to the challenge of economic development and the improvement of the lives of the people, relying significantly on its raw coffee and cocoa exports.

From 1904 it became part of French West Africa, having been subjugated as the French colony of Cote d'Ivoire in 1893. In 1947 the French-controlled area to the north, which had been added to the Cote d'Ivoire in 1932, was separated, to form the present state of Burkina Faso, at that time called Upper Volta.

The significance of this is that it meant that, naturally, the post-1947 Cote d'Ivoire would have a significant section of its population that would be linked to the population now settled beyond its northern border as Burkinabe. At the same time, this northern section of the population was, and is, Moslem, whereas the population in the southern part of the country is Christian.

In addition, the higher level of economic development of the Cote d'Ivoire relative to its poorer northern neighbour, would inevitably draw more Burkinabe across the colonial border into a Cote d'Ivoire that, anyway, was home to people who were kith and kin.

The pull of the Cote d'Ivoire resulted in large numbers of people from Burkina Faso and other countries of West Africa migrating to that country. These include Malians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Senegalese, Guineans and Liberians. With a total population of about 16 million, some estimates have suggested that 40 percent of the population resident in the Cote d'Ivoire comes from these neighbouring countries.

From independence in 1960 to 1993 when he died, Felix Houphouet-Boigny was President of the Cote d'Ivoire, having served in the French parliament from 1946 as the elected representative of the Cote d'Ivoire, at that time defined as an overseas territory in the French Union. Throughout the years of his Presidency, Houphouet-Boigny encouraged the acceptance of the notion that all Africans resident in the Cote d'Ivoire should be accepted as Ivorians.

Accordingly, during these years, whatever the social and other differentiation among these Africans resident in the Cote d'Ivoire, the issue of the presence of the immigrant Africans in this country did not become a matter of political contest and conflict.

At the same time, the country succeeded to manage the competing interests of the various domestic ethnic groups that constitute the Ivorian population. This, taken together with the acceptance of foreign Africans, added to the p restige of the Cote d'Ivoire as a truly African island of stability and African solidarity.

However, after the death of the founding President, the situation began to change for the worse. Domestic ethnic tensions began to raise their ugly head. Xenophobia inserted itself forcefully into the national political discourse.

The delicate balances built by the political class since independence began to unravel. The very legitimacy and acceptability of the leadership of this class was questioned, based in part, on the gap that had developed between this class and other sections of society in terms of the standard of living and the accumulation of wealth.

Questions arose about the very legitimacy of the political order that had evolved during the period of independence. Reflecting these growing tensions, during 1990, the people engaged in strike action and student unrest to get their voice heard.

Among other things, the political class responded by abandoning the construct of a one-party state, allowing the emergence of multi-party politics. The country achieved a relatively smooth transition from the period of its founding President, to the period of his successor, the former Speaker of Parliament, President Henri Konan Bedie.

However, in the end, the centre could not hold. At Christmas 1999, General Robert Guei seized power from the elected government of President Bedie by coup d'etat. Among other things, these developments posed questions about the relationship between the Cote d'Ivoire and France, the former colonial power, which had military forces based in Abidjan.

During the same year that the OAU had finally decided not to recognise governments that seized power by force, the Ivorian military took a route that the Cote d'Ivoire had avoided for 39 years. A bubble had burst.

Since then, the Cote d'Ivoire has been caught in a downward slide away from the peace, stability and development that had characterised its evolution as an independent African state.

The military coup was followed by elections in 2000 that created more problems, even as these elections sought to return the country to democracy and stability. The elections were followed by the outbreak of an armed rebellion in 2002, which challenged the outcome of the election and exacerbated the divisions that had compromised the elections.

The armed rebellion was followed by negotiations between the government and the rebels in 2002, which emphasised that the divisions among the negotiators were irreconcilable, and that the neighbouring regional facilitators of these negotiations had serious limitations with regard to their capacity to help the Ivorians to resolve their problems.

The negotiations in the African capital city of Lome, in Togo, were followed by negotiations and an agreement arrived at in Marcoussis and Paris in France in 2003, underlining the better capacity of the former colonial power, surpassing the ability of the now independent Africans, to help solve the problems of the formerly colonised.

This has led to the evident rejection by the masses in Abidjan of the Marcoussis agreement, which brought together the political class of the Cote d'Ivoire and those who took up arms against it, so that, together, they could take the first steps to return their country to its previous position as a truly African island of stability and African solidarity.

Africa has embarked on a new path towards its rebirth. This is the meaning of the African Union and its socio-economic programme, NEPAD. That rebirth means that we have to address, successfully, the critical issues of democracy, peace, stability, national unity, good-neighbourliness, social progress and African dignity and solidarity.

Our failure in the Cote d'Ivoire constitutes an immense and urgent challenge both to the African leadership and the African masses to respond to the task we have set ourselves to transform the 21st century into an African Century, ensuring that the people govern and not those who use guns to impose their will on the people.

This will require that we address directly, together with the leaders and the people of the Cote d'Ivoire, their obligation to respect the imperatives that face the peoples of Africa. This will necessitate that, together with them, we recall the example they set when they took decisions to ensure that neither their future nor the future of Africa would be compromised by submission to reactionary instincts of tribalism and xenophobia.

It will require that as a continent, we take the necessary decisive steps to demonstrate to ourselves, including our Ivorian brothers and sisters, that we were serious in our intent, when we established the African Union and launched its continental programme for the upliftment of the African masses, NEPAD.

Iraq crisis

Join the campaign against war

The ANC has joined a South African campaign against the threatened war on Iraq. Being organised under the banners of the 'Stop the War Campaign' and 'Anti-War Coalition', the campaign will culminate in actions on 15 and 19 February in the country's main centres.

All ANC structures, members, supporters and allies are being mobilised to participate in these actions. The campaign will see South Africans joining with millions of people in both the developed and developing worlds to add their voice to the call for peace and against threatened unilateral military action against Iraq.

This follows continued threats by the United States government to wage war against Iraq, even if it means defying the members of the United Nations and its Security Council. On Monday this week, UN weapons inspectors reported on progress in verifying the dismantling of any weapons of mass destruction which Iraq may possess or have possessed. The report clearly indicated that more time needed to be devoted to this important task - and that in terms of existing UN Security Council resolutions, no grounds currently existed for resort to military force.

On Saturday 15 February, which is the day of global action against the war, the main event will be in Cape Town. A march will leave Kaizergracht Street for the US Consulate at 10.00. Stop the War campaigners will also be gathering at the Library Gardens in Johannesburg at 10.00, and at venues in other centres.

This will coincide with events scheduled to take place in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Athens, Bangkok, Barcelona, Belfast, Berlin, Berne, Brussels, Budapest, Cairo, Copenhagen, Dublin, Glascow, Helsinki, Istanbul, London, Lisbon, Manila, New York, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Ramallah, Rome, San Francisco, Skopje, Stockholm, Tallinn, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna and Warsaw.

On Wednesday 19 February there will be an anti-war protest in Pretoria which will go to the United States Embassy.

Throughout this period, South Africans will be called on to show their opposition to the war by wearing blue 'peace' ribbons. These ribbons symbolise opposition to war as a means to resolve international disputes and support for development through peace.

The ANC's support for this campaign has its roots in its own history and policies. On the question of international relations, the Freedom Charter, the bedrock of ANC policy over decades, says 'There Shall be Peace and Friendship'.

It says: "South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiation - not war". Since its inception, therefore, the movement has been committed to the resolution of all disputes by peaceful means.

A US-led attack on Iraq would have dire consequences not only for the people of Iraq, but for much of the world. At a time when the nations of the world are united in their commitment to eradicate the scourge of terrorism, a war against Iraq would undermine that effort and create a situation that itself threatens international peace and security. It would create instability both in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. There are fears that it would postpone further the resolution of the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a delay which would be at great cost to both Israelis and Palestinians.

Instead of making the world a safer place, as the US government claims, a war on Iraq would only make the global security situation more unstable and treacherous.

A war would mean greater loss of life and suffering among Iraqi people, who have already endured great suffering as a result of punitive sanctions against the country. A people who pose no threat to the world or the security of the United States should not be subjected to the kind of suffering an attack would bring.

A war would also have a profound effect on the poor countries of the world, particularly in Africa, which would set back development and progress years and perhaps even decades.

As happened during the Middle East crisis of the early 1970s, a war in Iraq would lead to an escalation in the price of oil. Together with related negative economic consequences, the war would condemn the African continent to a deep economic crisis. It would put paid to all the high hopes raised by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the promise brought about by the formation of the African Union.

Already we have seen the cause of Africa's development relegated to the bottom of the agenda at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. War in Iraq means that the peoples of Africa and many other developing countries would be subject to even further impoverishment at a moment when there seemed to be growing global consensus on an agenda to promote sustainable economic growth and social development in these countries.

War in Iraq would have a negative impact on the people of South Africa, the people of Africa and many other peoples across the world. They have a direct interest in ensuring that war is avoided, and that the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is resolved peacefully.

The ANC's approach to weapons of mass destruction is also informed by our history and our policy over several decades. Following the Second World War, and from the onset of the arms race, the movement has maintained a principled opposition to such weapons - and nuclear weapons in particular. This commitment is not merely theoretical. It is now a matter of historical record that South Africa was the first and only country to of its own accord implement a comprehensive programme to destroy the nuclear weapons developed under the apartheid regime.

Iraq must do the same, destroying all weapons of mass destruction which it may possess. For this reason, the ANC supports efforts undertaken by the United Nations to verify the destruction of these weapons, and has directly urged the Iraqi authorities to comply.

In this process, the world should seek nuclear, biological and chemical weapon disarmament from all the countries that possess such weapons. The United States, for example, has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The Israeli government, which stands in brazen violation of numerous UN resolutions, is know to have a nuclear arsenal and other weapons of mass destruction. If the world is serious about removing weapons of mass destruction from the face of the earth, it needs to make sure that this is done in a systematic and even-handed manner.

In dealing with disarmament, in tackling terrorism and in all other matters of international importance, the principle of multilaterism needs to guide all actions. Unilateral action, by one or two powerful countries, in the face of opposition from most of the world will not provide lasting solutions to problems.

Countries of the world have agreed to act together, multi-laterally, in forums such as the United Nations. Part of this campaign must look at strengthening multilateralism, democratising institutions like the UN and its Security Council, and seeking to put in place a world order where the powerful do not dictate to the rest of the world.

To achieve these goals, the campaign in South Africa is seeking to bring together the broadest possible range of South African people and organisations to unite in action against war in Iraq. The campaign has already brought together a diverse range of groupings and formations with a common aim to educate and conscientise South Africans on the problems facing the world and their impact on our country and the African continent. This effort needs to become part of a longer term South African movement for peace and international human solidarity.

As the ANC, we will lend our support and our weight to these efforts to build a broad front against the war, and are making a strong call to all South Africans - for the sake of our continent and our world - to do the same.

Return to Index