Xenophobia poisons the Ivoirian tangle

Most of the real lessons to be learned from the ongoing chaos in Côte d’Ivoire are being ignored, both by politicians and the popular media. Perhaps because the tangle of political, economic, ethnic and religious differences in the region seems too complex. In the first place, it is not and, unless this background is understood, what is — and has been — happening in there makes little sense.

Xenophobia, the same social poison that triggered the genocidal slaughter in Rwanda, is very much part of Ivoirian society and it is complicated by religious differences and perceptions of social class. Much of the southern part of the country is at least nominally Roman Catholic; the north predominantly Muslim. Many of the northerners are also ethnically linked to people in neighbouring Burkina Faso which, as Upper Volta, was previously administered with Côte d’Ivoire as one French colonial territory.

As two countries, the region achieved independence from France in 1960, with a devout Roman Catholic Francophile, Felix Houphouët-Boigny becoming the first president of Côte d’Ivoire. With its main exports being the labour intensive crops of cocoa and coffee, the country’s economy was prone to the fluctuations of the world market. But in the early years of independence, prices were generally high and migrant labour was encouraged from Burkina Faso and Ghana, especially to the plantations in the north. Abidjan received the soubriquet: Paris of Africa.

When prices fell in the early 1980s, Houphouët-Boigny relied on support from France, but the country began to slide into debt. His decision in 1983, to relocate the capital of Côte d’Ivoire from Abidjan to his home village of Yamoussoukro, then a dusty backwater in the middle of the bush, caused considerable anger among the urban elite of Abidjan, but also among people of the generally more impoverished north and the increasing numbers of unemployed everywhere.

This anger was compounded by Houphouët-Boigny’s decision to construct a monument to himself in Yamassoukro: the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, built over five years at a cost of $300 million and modeled on the Basilica of St Peter in Rome, is biggest church in the world. By the time it was completed in 1990, the president had managed to double his country’s debt burden. Despite this and despite the swirl of rumours of corruption, Houphouët-Boigny was still widely revered as the “father of the nation”.

It was at this point that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — and, with it Alassane Dramane Ouattara — became involved. A highly regarded economist, Ouattara, at that time the governor of the Paris-based Central Bank of West African States, was appointed chair of Côte d’Ivoire’s “stablisation and economic recovery programme”. Only months later, in December 1990, he became prime minister.

By that stage, the economy was creaking and tensions were rife. In Abidjan and in the west of the country, there was growing, but still minority, support for the Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) headed by Laurent Gbagbo, a former history teacher and trade unionist. Within the governing Democratic Party (PDCI) a succession battle was also brewing, as 85-year-old Houphouët-Boigny’s health deteriorated. On December 7, 1993, the “father of the nation” died. Within hours, the president of the national assembly, Henri Konan Bedie, announced on state television that he had taken over. It was an effective coup against the prime minister, and sometime acting president, Alassane Ouattara.

Bedie, a former diplomat, economics minister and adviser to the World Bank, was regarded by critics as a “chauvinist” who favoured the Baoulé people of eastern and central Côte d’Ivoire. His only serious challenger was Ouattara, whose main support base was in the north. Bedie was quick to play the ethnic card. He introduced the concept of “Ivorite” (Ivorianess) that demanded that only “pure” Ivoirians should have jobs or hold office in the country. A “pure” citizen was defined as one who was born in the country and whose father had also been born in Côte d’Ivoire.

At one level, it was a knee-jerk response to an economic situation that had created a large, potentially angry, army of unemployed. It also drove a wedge between workers; xenophobia bubbled to the surface. However, the ruling also had a specific political purpose: it excluded Alassane Ouattara from holding office because his father was born in Burkina Faso. Ouattara then took up a post as deputy managing director of the IMF but accepted nomination for the 1995 election — despite Ivorite — as the presidential candidate for the breakaway party from the PDCI, the Rally of Republican Democrats (RDR).

Under Houphouët-Boigny’s virtual one-party state, there had never been much attempt to register voters and the 1995 election, marred by violence, had all the hallmarks of a farce, especially when Ouattara’s nomination was ruled invalid by the “Ivorite” regulations. The RDR and Gbagbo’s FPI protested and then boycotted the poll. Bedie, with only the tiny Workers’ Party providing an illusion of parliamentary contestation, then declared himself elected by more than 96 per cent of the vote.

Social and economic tensions continued to grow and in 1999, three months after Ouattara resigned from the IMF after declaring he was returning to politics in Côte d’Ivoire, a section of the army under General Robert Guei deposed Bedie and seized control. The following year, in what was almost universally declared to be a rigged election, Guei declared himself president and also extended the concept of Ivorite to exclude anyone whose parents were not both born in Côte d’Ivoire. By this time, the country was already showing signs of fragmentation, with various rebel groups forming. A combination of regional, international and local protest forced Guei to step down and Gbagbo — with Ouattara still excluded from office by the Ivorite regulations — stepped into the vaccuum. Fullscale armed rebellion began almost immediately.

It was led initially by the Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI) headed by Guillaume Soro, a Roman Catholic from the north. Although often regionally based, these rebel groups almost all expressed democratic principles and three of them came together in December 2002 to form the New Forces of Côte d’Ivoire (NFCI). The civil war that erupted divided into north and south. France did not support Gbagbo, but with investments at stake, acted to broker a peace deal; regional leaders such as the former Liberian warlord, Charles Taylor and president Blaise Compare of Burkina Faso were accused, with apparent justification, of supporting the northern rebellion.

In January 2003, French-brokered peace talks were held at the Marcoussis rugby training centre south of Paris. It was agreed that Ivorite be scrapped and Soro joined a unity government that was characterised more by its disputes and walkouts. The division between north and south remained and issues land redistribution and citizenship were unresolved. It took another four years before some of these issues were at least partially settled in an agreement hammered out in Ouagadougou in 2007. Soro then became prime minister, with Gbagbo remaining president.

But the dismantling of various militias, the unification of the armed forces and voter registration, largely a consequence of the divide and rule policies of the past, proved difficult. Matters were further complicated by the fact that oil and gas had, by 2006, overtaken cocoa and coffee as the country’s biggest export earners. Once again, there was the prospect of greater prosperity and wealth for those who could gain hold of the reins of power.

Ouattara, wearing the mantle of the economic reformer and untainted by the accusations of corruption and profiteering levelled at most other politicians, again became the presidential nominee of the RDR. In 2007 Gbagbo agreed that, with Ivorite officially scrapped, Ouattara would not be barred from standing for election. But the legacy of Ivorite is everywhere and the identification and registration of voters proved extremely problematic. So much so — along with other problems such as the disarmament and the integration of the various armed forces — that the election planned for November last year was abandoned.

But there were only two real contenders: Ouattara and Gbagbo. The former has a reputation for efficiency and honesty, but is also seen as an elitist and part of what is widely regarded as the neo liberal assault on the developing world. On the other hand, Gbagbo, although tainted by accusations of corruption, opportunism and traces of Ivorite, is a populist whose rhetoric still has resonance, especially among the urban working class. It was always going to be a close contest, and one that showed up the divisions between north and south and between “older” and “new” Ivoirians.

However, because of his years in power and the failure to integrate fully the armed forces, Gbagbo probably still has the support of the bulk of the army. So when Ouattara was declared to have won the presidential poll by a narrow margin, Gbagbo knew he still hand a strong hand to play, especially given the examples of Kenya and Zimbabwe, where losers have still managed to retain power, albeit shared.

So whatever the outcome of the present negotiations involving Kenya’s Raila Odinga, or the threats of regional military intervention, the losers will be the ordinary citizens of whatever parentage or religious persuasion; Ivoirians whose electoral choices have so far been extremely limited.

* Terry Bell was, until 2006, the editor of the London-based Africa Analysis