Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
By Vladimir Antwi-Danso (PhD)
Legon Centre for International Affairs (LECIA)
University of Ghana, LEGONLecture at GAFCSC, April 7, 2014
Côte d'Ivoire was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire, and Baoulé. Long before to its colonization by Europeans.
There were two Anyi kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi, which attempted to retain their separate identity through the French colonial period and after Côte d'Ivoire's independence.
In 1843–1844, French admiral Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions.
These treaties placed their territories under a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region.
In 1893, it became a French colony as part of the European scramble for Africa, with Captain Binger appointed as governor. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Côte d'Ivoire for economic and administrative reasons.
Côte d'Ivoire became independent on 7 August 1960.
The son of a Baoulé chief, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was to become Côte d'Ivoire's father of independence. From 1960 to 1993, the country was led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny
At the time of Côte d'Ivoire's independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports.
When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Côte d'Ivoire into third place in world output (behind Brazil and Colombia).
By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil.
French technicians contributed to the 'Ivoirian miracle'. In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence; but in Côte d'Ivoire, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.
For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
But in the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased threefold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan.
Meanwhile, the breeze of the ‘Third Wave’ of democratization, following the collapse of Communism and the implosion of the Soviet Union, had started to be felt in Africa. It was a period when the Berlin Wall collapsed and almost all monolithic systems began experiencing cracks
In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multi-party democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble and invited Alhassan Ouatarra to become the Prime Minister. He died in 1993.
In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganized opposition.
Bedié emphasized the concept of "Ivority" (Ivoirité) to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained.
Similarly, Bédié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bédié fled into exile in France.
A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was peaceful.
The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo.
Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality.
A heavily flawed election brought Laurent Gbagbo to power in 2000 with a five-year mandate, but a failed coup attempt in September, 2002 effectively divided the country on ethnic/tribal and/or religious lines (virtually into a government-led south and rebel-controlled north).
The resulting cross-national divisions have been preyed upon by politicians willing to ride ethnic bigotry and regional chauvinism into power
Since 2003, several peace agreements and election dates have come and gone.
In January 2003, the French-sponsored Linas-Marcoussis Agreement was signed between the government, the main political parties and the rebel Forces Nouvelles, providing for the creation of a new government of national reconciliation, a clear timetable for elections, a proper disarmament campaign, and rebuilding of national army.
This was to be followed in May by the adoption of a UN Security Council Resolution 1479, establishing the UN Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI) with a six-month mandate to facilitate the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement and the ceasefire.
Earlier, in March 2003, a government of national reconciliation had been formed, including representatives from opposition political parties and Forces Nouvelles.
In February 2004, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1528, establishing UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) for one year.
UNOCI’s Electoral Division was mandated to work closely with the recognized electoral authorities and international organizations right up to the announcement of results. The division had 16 regional electoral bureaus across the country, mandated to give advice and technical assistance to 430 local electoral commissions.
Control of the forces deployed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and MINUCI transferred to the new mission.
In April 2005 the government, opposition and Forces Nouvelles representatives signed the Pretoria Agreement after a mini-summit chaired by Mbeki, reaffirming commitment to peace, holding of elections and a comprehensive disarmament.
Since the situation was still volatile the UN adopted a Security Council Resolution 1633, extending Gbagbo’s term of office by a maximum of one year, urging the choice of a new prime minister acceptable to all parties, a roadmap for disarmament, and proper support for the preparation of elections.
By October when elections should be held the situation was still not conducive. Elections had to be postponed; and so was it that several postponements (in 2006, 2007, twice in 2008, and again in 2009) had to follow until 2010.
On 31 October 2010, Ivoirians voted in presidential elections.
There were 14 candidates, the three main contenders being the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, former president Henri Konan Bédié and former prime-minister Alassane Ouattara.
On the 6th of November the Constitutional Council validated the results of the first round, the leading candidates, Gbagbo and Ouattarra, obtaining 38 percent and 32 percent respectively and therefore, had to go for a run-off.
In the run-off Ouattarra was declared winner by the Electoral Commission with 54%.
It was validated by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Mr. Choi, who by the UN Security Council Resolution 1765 of 2007 had the mandate of certifying the results. Gbagbo, through the Constitutional Court, annulled the results and declared himself the winner.
Since then the international community became virtually unanimous in recognizing Ouattarra as the President-elect – the UN, the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and several multilateral organizations condemned Gbagbo and demanded of him to exit honourably.
This is one of the rare moments, when there is a consensus in the international community that an election’s results are being ignored and that actions needed to be taken.
Using existing protocols, the AU and the ECOWAS quickly suspended the Ivory Coast.
The ECOWAS, later, at an emergency meeting held in Abuja in January, 2011, gave Gbagbo the opportunity to negotiate his exit or be forced out through the ‘legitimate use of force’.
In all this, Gbagbo still remained adamant, a situation that gave rise to severe human rights violations in the Ivory Coast.
The ground was therefore fertile for the resumption of war.
The Forces Novelle quickly regrouped and marched southward, capturing very important and strategic cities: Bouake, Bondougou, San Pedro, and others.
Abidjan also quickly fell to the rebels and Gbagbo was now holed-in in a bunker at the Presidential Palace.
There are several unanswered questions.
Was it proper to have conducted the elections under situations of instability?
Is democracy a la Westminster conducive for Africa?
Who really won the elections? Has the international community been
helpful or damaging to Ivory Coast? What lessons are there for Ivory Coast,
Africa, the Third World, and the international system at large?
Other questions may relate to: The UN – the Force’s legitimacy including
the dogged question of certification of election results
The Announcement by the IEC The Constitutional Council – Ultra vires’
Principle General Legal framework governing the
elections.
In any case, the crisis in Ivory Coast must be seen in the broader context of the democratic deficit in Africa. Democracy in Africa is badly hiccupping, because of the socio-historical and cultural specificities of the continent.
Contemporary African states are poorly functioning hybrids of indigenous cultures and customs mixed with Arab and European models of governance that arrived with invasions, colonialism, migration, and globalization.
In such a setting, one would expect visionary leadership to be able to chart new contours, taking into cognizance Africa’s socio-historical relativities for the development of their countries.
Govt. of the people, by the people, and for the people
Unfortunately, instead of looking at democracy as a process, African leaders view it as an event; and instead of institutional renewal, there is the personal and/or the individual (‘big politics’).
One basic problem in African governance, therefore, is the fixation on the personal failings of leaders.
This obscures the deeper problem: a fundamental disjuncture between Africa’s modern political institutions and its ethnic communities and traditional institutions.
Africa’s governance crises are firmly rooted in its dysfunctional political systems. This disjuncture, so well reflected in Ivory Coast, is at the heart of the continent’s governance crisis.
Rather than merely search yet again for short-term solutions in the violent aftermath of an election, it would seem more sensible to look for ways to prevent future crises rooted in Africa’s dysfunctional political systems.
Africa’s best hope is finding a middle way of governance that is inclusive and rooted in the legitimacy of its own ways, but borrows pragmatically from the globalized system to fit its challenges.
Africa’s answer may be another hybrid form of governance, but one constructed by Africans themselves instead of imposed from the outside. Then, at last, Africa would be the author of its own future.
The crisis in Ivory Coast manifests a deep rift between the largely Muslim north and Christian south exacerbated by ethnic tensions – a result of colonial borders drawn without regard for the integrity of African ethnic communities.
The biggest challenge will be the reunification of a country still divided by the legacy of the 2002 civil war.
That means tackling national identity and citizenship issues, reforming land tenure, and devolving power from the presidency to achieve more representative and inclusive governance.
It also means avoiding the ‘big-man’ politics reminiscent of Cold War days and concentrating on institutional renewal.
When state institutions are strong, governments have a rare chance of manipulating the system.
For Ivory Coast, as elsewhere, it is especially important that such reconstruction create more linkages with the large segments of the population whose lives are still governed on a daily basis by African customary and traditional institutions.
