2002-2003/WEST AFRICA: Ivorian Crisis Likely to Dominate the New Year

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Chris Simpson

DAKAR, Senegal, Dec 23 2002 (IPS) - The crisis in Cote D’Ivoire looks likely to dominate the first months of 2003.

Regional and international initiatives can be anticipated, with the United Nations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and France all likely to play important roles. But the short-term prognosis is far from optimistic.

With an annual gross domestic product (GDP) of more than10 billion U.S. dollars, for years Cote D’Ivoire has been identified as the powerhouse of West Africa, a crucial regional hub.

The economic boom in Cote d’Ivoire, once a bastion of stability in West Africa, has attracted millions of workers from poorer neighbouring countries in search of jobs and economic opportunity.

Cote d’Ivoire’s 16 million people include 2.2 million Burkinabe, 800,000 Malians and 230,000 Guineans, according to government statistics.

Any prolongation of the three-month conflict, which has effectively partitioned Cote D’Ivoire into government and rebel-held areas, will have significant economic repercussions throughout the sub-region. Should the conflict escalate, spreading out across Cote D’Ivoire’s borders, the consequences will be considerably more serious.

Already UN agencies have warned of substantial refugee problems, with over 45,000 refugees crossing the Liberian border in recent weeks. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has made contingency plans for fresh refugee influxes into Burkina Faso and Mali.

The WFP’s regional director, Manuel Aranda da Silva, has warned: ‘’we hope for the best on the political side, but we have to prepare for the worst”.

There are also hundreds of thousands of Ivorians displaced inside their own country. The emergence of fresh fronts in the west in the past few weeks, with fighting in and around towns like Danane and Man, has triggered fresh concerns.

In its last statement on Cote D’Ivoire, issued from New York on Dec 20, the UN Security Council ‘’condemned all attempts to overthrow the elected government of Cote D’Ivoire”, but also stressed that any solution to the current crisis had to ‘’address the underlying causes of the conflict”.

The UN and ECOWAS are both pinning their hopes on a peace plan to be presented by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. But it is not clear what concessions Gbagbo is prepared to make.

The government opened talks with the main rebel organisation, the Patriotic Movement of Cote D’Ivoire (MPCI) in Lome on Oct 30 under the chairmanship of Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema, but that dialogue has so far yielded little.

The government’s concessions have included an amnesty for rebel soldiers and their future reintegration into the national army. But the MPCI has held out for new elections and the removal of Gbagbo. Any hints of a rapprochement have been undermined by reports of new military initiatives from both sides in Cote D’Ivoire.

The government has faced persistent accusations of using foreign mercenaries, including South Africans and Angolans, and importing new military hardware. The rebels have also come out strongly against French intervention, with the MPCI accusing France of ‘’deviating from its mission and becoming a true force of occupation”.

The emergence of two ‘new’ rebel movements in the west, the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Greater West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Peace and Justice (MJP), has brought additional complications and encouraged speculation about the role of non-Ivorians in the conflict.

Conflict observers have pointed to a steady flow of weaponry into Cote D’ Ivoire and have suggested the conflict is ripe for freelance operators, mercenaries and arms traffickers.

Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan has denied any Liberian involvement in the insurgencies in the west. Highlighting the refugee flows Liberia had experienced in recent weeks, Captan told IPS: ‘’I don’t think we ‘d do anything to trigger that kind of humanitarian catastrophe on our side of the border”.

Captan acknowledged that Liberian mercenaries might be involved in the fighting, but pledged the state would prosecute any Liberians nationals found to be involved in the Ivorian conflict, while stressing his own government retained excellent relations with the authorities in Cote D’ Ivoire.

Ivorian opposition leader, Alassane Ouattara, has argued that the MPJ and MPIGO should be brought into the peace process. Outtara, a former prime minister, who heads the Rally of Republicans (RDR) left Cote D’Ivoire for Gabon in late November having spent weeks in the French embassy after his house was attacked by government supporters.

Speaking in Dakar, where he held talks with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Ouattara called on Gbagbo to resign, accused him of presiding over an ‘’ethnic apartheid and dictatorship” in Cote D’Ivoire and traced the rebellion back to the elections of 2000, which he said had been stolen by Gbagbo.

Ouattara said he had so far had no contacts with rebel movements, but was now looking to talk to them as part of a broader peace initiative.

Ouattara said all belligerents in Cote D’Ivoire and other parties should come together, but warned there could be no meeting inside Cote D’Ivoire until the country had been stabilised.

Ouattara welcomed France’s expanded military presence and the scheduled deployment of ECOWAS troops, arguing that both could help prepare the way for a return to peace and the holding of fresh elections.

The recent extraordinary ECOWAS summit in Dakar revealed the regional organisation’s commitment to sending troops in, this time to complement rather than replace French soldiers. But while countries like Ghana and Senegal appear ready for deployment, other ECOWAS member states appear more cautious. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who warned earlier that ‘’a threat to Cote D’Ivoire is a threat to all of us”, is amongst those apparently un-keen to commit.

There are strong signs that ECOWAS is far from united on what to do in Cote D’Ivoire. Only three heads of state, Gbagbo, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde, came to Dakar amidst hints of a collective snub for Wade, accused by his peers of trying to muscle in on the Ivorian peace process.

The ECOWAS meeting appealed to both the African Union (AU) and the UN to offer more assistance to peacemaking efforts in Cote D’Ivoire. The human rights organisation, Amnesty International, concluded its recent report on rights violations in Cote D’Ivoire, by concluding that ‘’if the international community does not act immediately, we fear the worst for hundreds of thousands of people living in the sub-region”.

But, with the exception of France, few actors outside West Africa look capable of taking any lead.

Eyadema, Wade and Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali are all likely to play high profile peacekeeping roles. Eyadema, strongly criticised in the past for his human rights record, has yet to be dislodged as mediator. Wade and Toure are viewed favourably in Europe and the United States.

Other leaders may have enough problems at home to stay away from the Ivorian dossier.

Nigerian President Obasanjo faces presidential elections in April and first has to secure his own candidature from the People Democratic Party (PDP). Former vice-president Alex Ekwueme has already hinted he will push for the PDP nomination. Other possible presidential candidates include former president Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo’s priority will be to avoid further eruptions of the kind of inter-ethnic and religious killings, which have become an embarrassing feature of his rule.

Another head of state facing elections is Liberian President Charles Taylor. The vote is scheduled for July 2003 and Taylor’s actions will be closely monitored in the months ahead.

The last UN report on Liberia was damning, arguing that Liberia was systematically breaking an arms embargo. While that embargo has been extended to cover the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), Liberian Foreign Minister Captan says Liberia is fighting against an ‘’externally-backed aggressor” (Guinea) and is being unfairly penalised. ‘’Doesn’t Sierra Leone speak for itself?” is Captan’s response to allegations of Liberian support for Sierra Leonean dissidents, pointing out the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has long been neutralised.

Sierra Leone is now routinely presented as a regional success story following the successful holding of elections in May. UN troops are slated to leave in Mar 2003, after their mission was extended for another six months in Sep 2002. Sierra Leone does not share a frontier with Cote D’ Ivoire, but will feel the knock-on effects from continuing conflict there and in Liberia.

While Cote D’Ivoire’s internal problems will dominate the regional international agenda, the UN has already signalled its concern about developments in Guinea-Bissau. Guinean President Kumba Yala has been strongly criticised for his maverick approach to government, including his frequent sacking of ministers. Legislative elections are scheduled for February and are unlikely to pass off quietly.

Senegal has tried in the past to enlist Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia’s support for peace in Casamance, its troubled southern region. President Wade has yet to deliver on longstanding promises to end that conflict, while the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) has yet to resolve serious internal differences.

The recent Joola ferry tragedy has focused attention on Casamance (most of the 1,000 plus passengers who died came from Casamance) and prompted fresh government commitments to break the region’s isolation. Wade will be expected to move faster in the year ahead.