POLITICS-COTE D’IVOIRE: More French Soldiers Amid Rising Violence

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Dec 20 2002 (IPS) - The French government is stepping up its military presence in the C- te d’Ivoire as human rights groups fear that the civil war is leading to a blood bath.

The French army sent 300 more soldiers to the port city Abidjan this week, raising its military strength there to 2,600. France began to send in soldiers soon after the beginning of the civil war on September 19.

Foreign minister Dominique de Villepin says that by "reinforcing its military apparatus, France wants to facilitate a political solution to the conflict."

He added that "we have only sought to guarantee the security of French and other foreign citizens in the C- te d’Ivoire" and that the military move was aimed at "preventing a humanitarian catastrophe."

De Villepin also supported the diplomatic efforts of other African leaders. "We fully support the demand of African leaders to the United Nations that the Security Council should intervene in the conflict," he said.. France wants negotiations to be held in Paris "with the presence of all regional leaders," he said.

Critics of French intervention in the Côte d’Ivoire say the French have only helped the government of Laurent Gbagbo to rearm and reorganise his army, and to save it from collapse in face of the rebel offensive. Rebel forces in Côte d’Ivoire are apparently directed by neighbouring countries, especially Burkina Faso and Liberia.

French military presence has also stopped rebels gaining control of economic assets. A cease-fire line drawn by the French army prevented the rebels attacking the centre and the west of the country. This ensured government control of the capital Yamoussoukro and the Atlantic port Abidjan, the economic heart of the country.

The French army has also protected the cacao plantations in the west, and the port of San Pedro. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s leading producer of cacao, from which cocoa is made.

But the discovery of mass graves suggests that the French military has failed to prevent "humanitarian catastrophes". In a report published Thursday the human rights group Amnesty International says the West African country is on the brink of all-out war. It demanded "immediate international mobilisation" to save Côte d’Ivoire from a blood bath similar to that in Rwanda in 1994.

Amnesty accused both the government and the rebels of committing crimes driven by ethnic hatred. It says government forces have carried out summary executions against "criminals" – mostly people from the north of the country..

Of the population of 16 million people, about four million have ancestors in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso. Most of them live in the north of Côte d’Ivoire, near the borders with those two countries.

Official forces have been harassing the followers of the Rassemblement des Republicains, the political party of former prime minister Alassane Outtara. The former leader was not allowed to contest the last presidential elections in 2000 because he has a family name from the north, and was therefore not considered a citizen of Côte d’Ivoire.

Amnesty International says mass graves have been found around the city of Bouaké controlled by rebel forces.

Earlier this month about 120 bodies were found in a mass grave in Monoko-Zohi in the west in a region that has been in turn under the control of rebels and the government forces over the past three months. The bodies were said to be those of people described as foreign citizens, suggesting that the official army is responsible for the massacre.

Death squads working with government forces are reported to have assassinated several opposition leaders, especially in Abidjan.

Some opposition leaders have survived only because of French diplomatic protection. Outtara has been living in the French embassy since September 19..

France has denounced "all use of violence, and all human rights violations" and despite its own military presence, even "all foreign interference" in Côte d’Ivoire. It has warned that the civil war "may embrace the whole region."