By Julio Godoy
PARIS, Nov 4 2005 (IPS)

Revelations that French forces killed a local man, and that generals then protected the killers, have cast new doubts over the French ‘peacekeeping’ role in the Côte d’Ivoire.

The French government confirmed Wednesday that French officers had been found guilty of killing Firmin Mahé. Two generals, Henri Poncet and Renaud de Malaussène face accusations of falsifying reports to conceal the crime.

Mahe was killed by a French military patrol May 19 this year, after he had been captured. Mahe had just been released by a local tribunal that had found him innocent of charges by French troops that he was responsible for murders and other acts of violence.

The two generals have been demoted but not dismissed. Gen. Henri Bentégeat, the highest ranking military officer told media that the crimes were “in every respect unacceptable.” But he added that Mahé was the suspected head of “the most terrifying gang” in the ‘zone of confidence’ that divides the Northern from the Southwestern region of the country. This zone is controlled by French troops.

After Mahé was released by the tribunal, “the French troops felt they were forced to take justice in their own hands,” Bentégeat told media representatives.

The new scandal follows a long litany of French troubles in this West African nation.

More than 3,000 French soldiers have been posted in the Côte d’Ivoire since late 2002, controlling the ‘zone of confidence’ to stop rebels from the north ousting President Laurent Gbagbo, whose forces control the southwest of the country. This region includes capital Yamoussoukro and the economic heart of the country, the Atlantic port Abdijan.

A civil war broke out Sep. 19, 2002, following a coup attempt against Gbagbo. The coup failed, but rebel forces believed to be armed by Burkina Faso and Liberia took control of the northern region.

France, the former colonial power, has a military cooperation agreement with the Côte d’Ivoire since Ivorian independence in 1960, and the government sent troops to support the regime of Gbagbo.

The French military mission, Operation Licorne, became the basis of the UN peacekeeping mission for the Côte d’Ivoire. The operation stopped the rebels’ advance, but has left half the country ruled by a despotic regime, and the other by rebels of doubtful legitimacy. A grave economic crisis has ruined the country.

While France was militarily supporting Gbagbo, the French government also legitimised the rebellion by supporting its demand for a radical change of the Ivorian nationality legislation, particularly the concept of the ethnic ‘Ivoirité’ that denies electoral and land ownership rights to a substantial minority, particularly from the north.

According to the 1998 census, 26 percent of the country’s 15 million people are immigrants, mostly from Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea Conakry.

The rebels’ move to end such racial segregation was accepted by the international community through the Agreement of Marcoussis near Paris January 2003. This agreement obliged Gbagbo to eliminate ‘Ivoirité’ from the constitution, and to agree to share power with rebel leaders in a national reconciliation government.

“By building the end of the Ivoirite into the peace agreement the French government bestowed a degree of legitimacy on Gbagbo rivals,” Claudine Vidal, expert on West African politics at the French National Research Centre told IPS.

“Gbagbo never really accepted the Marcoussis agreement,” Vidal said. “He publicly said that he had to accept it because at the time he did not have the military capacity to crush the rebellion.”

The agreement remained dead letter. The reconciliation government failed, violence broke out again, and the Ivorian military and militias loyal to Gbagbo even attacked French troops and possessions. Human rights organisations say many civilians have been massacred both by Gbagbo’s regime and by rebels trying to oust him.

Gbagbo has tried again to crush the rebellion, but failed. On Oct. 14, the UN Security Council and the African Union agreed to suspend elections scheduled for Oct. 31, and prolonged Gbagbo’s mandate by a year.

But new conditions were set. A new national reconciliation government must be named, and Gbagbo would have no right to interfere in its policies, especially those concerning domestic security, the military, and electoral affairs. Elections must take place next year, the UN and the African Union agreed.

So far, no peace agreement has succeeded.

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