By IPS Correspondents
ABIDJAN, Jan 7 2006 (IPS)

2006 may be just a few days old, but it has already presented the Ivory Coast’s new prime minister, Charles Konan Banny, with a substantial challenge: how best to deal with the attack staged Monday on Akouedo military base in the east of the financial capital, Abidjan.

In the early hours of Jan. 2, a group of unidentified persons descended on the Akouedo installation. Three government troops and seven assailants were said to have died in the incident, although some sources put the number of attackers killed at about a dozen.

Five government soldiers were later arrested for conspiring with the assailants. While officials deny that Monday’s events constituted a mutiny by troops, reportedly dissatisfied over pay, their statements have not been received with assurance by all.

“If the Akouedo attack was an abortive mutiny attempt, one shouldn’t be surprised. Pandora’s box was opened on December 24, 1999 and will probably not be closed very soon,” said Antoine Koffi, an Abidjan-based civil servant, in reference to a coup by General Robert Guei which prompted the exit of President Henri Konan Bedié.

The toppling of Bedié, the first-ever coup in Ivory Coast, marked the beginning of a cycle of violence that also saw an attempted takeover of government in September 2002 – by which time Laurent Gbagbo had assumed the presidency. Since then, the West African country has been divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south, the two areas separated by a buffer zone patrolled by United Nations and French troops.

Akouedo remained volatile on Jan. 3 when a military commander, Ange Kessy Kouame, came under fire at the exit of the camp – this after he had been investigating the previous day’s events.

The attack this week was one of several to have taken place against police and military installations in recent months. In December, Abidjan’s biggest national police base was targeted, also by unidentified assailants.

Certain members of government appear to hold the rebel New Forces responsible for the latest incident, although the rebels themselves have pointed a finger at Gbagbo, General Philippe Mangou, and an army deserter – Chief Sergeant Ibrahim Coulibaly. The latter was instrumental in the 1999 takeover by Guei, now deceased.

The grave of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara’s mother was also desecrated last month (Dec. 19), with the woman being disinterred a day after she had been buried.

Ouattara has been at the centre of a heated debate about “Ivoirité” (“Ivorian-ness”).

A 2000 constitution drawn up under Gueï stated that presidential contenders had to be born of Ivorian parents. The amendment was widely viewed as a bid to prevent Ouattara, said to have foreign parents, from contesting the 2000 presidential election ultimately won by Gbagbo. (In response to international pressure, the president last year agreed to use his constitutional powers to allow Ouattara to stand for president.)

The opposition leader and former prime minister is a Muslim from the mostly-Islamic north of Ivory Coast, which has long complained of discrimination from southerners.

The campaign around “Ivoirité” was also symptomatic of a rising tide of xenophobia.

Migrants from nations such as Burkina Faso and Mali make up a substantial part of the Ivory Coast’s population, and often take on jobs which Ivorians consider too menial. An economic downturn occasioned by falling commodity prices towards the end of the last century led to anti-immigrant sentiments, however.

“It’s a pity that every year the country has to go through such events. We are living in uncertainty and have no idea of how tomorrow will be,” Tarek Faouzi, a businessman whose concerns are failing as a result of the various crises in Ivory Coast, said of recent events.

Added an Abidjan-based economist, “Each passing day that we don’t work is a considerable loss for the country at a time when the government’s coffers are empty.”

“Paying employees in the months to come is going to be a Chinese puzzle,” he added.

Ivory Coast is the world’s top cocoa producer, and a leading coffee exporter. However, both of these sectors have suffered as a result of persistent instability in the country.

The attack on Akouedo took place shortly after Konan Banny formed a transitional government that will attempt to disarm the country’s various factions, and prepare it for elections. The poll, initially set for October 2005, was postponed until October this year.

According to diplomatic sources interviewed by IPS, Monday’s incident marks a vote of no confidence in the new administration, which includes rebel representatives – notably New Forces leader Guillaume Soro.

Paul N’da, a political analyst and sociologist, voices similar sentiments.

“Remember that the government was hardly formed before youths erected barricades in certain quarters of Abidjan to demonstrate against it,” he said. “Imagine if the new army recruits, numbering more than 4,000, accept being their (the youths’) spokesmen. Anything could slow down the electoral process presently in progress.”

However Thierry Legre, a member of the Alliance of Young Patriots, which supports Gbagbo, sees matters differently.

“We acknowledge having demonstrated when the composition of the new government was announced. But in the interest of the nation, we stopped; we have no interest in organising an attack on ourselves,” he noted.

“Remember that every time we take a step toward peace, there are a few misfits who oppose it. And it’s just been confirmed again,” he added, on the topic of the attack, Monday.

This week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for more peace-keepers to be deployed in Ivory Coast, citing concerns about renewed violence in the country.

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