Tuesday, Nov 09, 2004
French 'activism' in Ivory Coast
By Vaiju Naravane
The Ivory Coast campaign gives Paris an opportunity to strengthen its military presence in the lucrative region of the Gulf of Guinea.
ANTI-FRENCH FEELING runs high in the West African state of Ivory Coast as looting and mayhem continued following the Ivorian Government's weekend bombing of French peacekeeping positions in the north of the country. The French Unicorn force is part of a 6,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission that patrols a buffer zone created to keep the warring parties apart while negotiations to end the civil war continue.
The country has been in the grip of a civil war for the past two years with a full-fledged armed uprising in the rich cocoa-producing north, and peace accords brokered by the French have broken down. France has also rushed another 500 soldiers from nearby Gabon raising the number of its troops to 4,500. With the deployment of 500 extra troops over the weekend, Paris has entered a new phase of "activism," no longer content to be a neutral observer or peacekeeper.
This is the most important direct French involvement on the African continent since the operation in Rwanda in 1994 and in Chad in the early 1980s, and there are fears that France might get mired in a long and sticky conflict. The bodies of the nine French soldiers killed in the weekend air raid were brought back to France today along with most of the 38 wounded French soldiers. President Jacques Chirac announced that French troops were in the Ivory Coast to defend the lives and property of the estimated 14,500 French nationals who live there. He said there were no plans yet to evacuate French nationals. As helicopters fired from the air to disperse crowds and looting mobs in the northern suburbs of the capital Abidjan, the Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, said the air raids were necessary "to liberate the country." Government controlled radio stations have been exhorting people to protest the French presence in the country.
Most French nationals in the Ivorian capital have been moved to the Hotel Ivoire where they are under heavy military protection. There has been a furious anti-French campaign in the Ivorian press as well as several demonstrations against the French presence on Ivorian soil. In response to the air raid against its positions, France, in retaliation, wiped out the entire Ivorian Air Force made up of a couple of Sukoi fighters and three helicopters. This forced President Gbagbo to withdraw his troops to their earlier positions behind the buffer zone that separates territory seized and controlled by the rebels. President Gbagbo contends that France supports the rebels.
The U.N. firmly condemned the Ivorian raids on international peacekeepers and a Security Council debate is scheduled to take place today. Paris describes its destruction of the Ivorian Air Force as "an act of legitimate self-defence." France has thus hugely upped its military intervention in the West African state. The mission has set something of a precedent, reviving as it does, military operations in the region and opening the door for future campaigns meant to protect West African oil production. The campaign in the Ivory Coast reverses a decade-long trend of limited French involvement in francophone African countries, and it sets the stage for renewed French military intervention throughout the region. It also gives Paris an opportunity to strengthen its military presence in the Gulf of Guinea — possibly one of the world's most lucrative regions for the development of deepwater oil reserves.
France has attempted to start a multilateral dialogue in the Togolese capital Lome for the resolution of the conflict that includes several African leaders. But negotiations are at a standstill. The French have maintained a military presence in Africa since the end of the colonial period and have thousands of troops stationed in Chad, Djibouti, Gabon, Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire. But they are there ostensibly to provide protection only for French residents and to serve in multinational peacekeeping missions, according to the French Defence Ministry.
During the last decade, France has declined to intervene in internal conflicts in francophone countries, providing military advisers instead. The global reduction of French involvement in Africa follows a decline in France's strategic interests in the continent. For instance, despite the countless coup attempts against Central African Republic President Ange-Felix Patasse, French troops have not been sent to maintain stability in the former French colony. But the case of the Ivory Coast is markedly different. In addition to the economic value of Paris' ties with the world's largest cocoa producer, the country's port at Abidjan is one of the largest in the region and one of francophone Africa's most modern and well developed.
More importantly, France has a growing interest in exerting military influence over the stability of the entire region and protecting what is expected to become a strategic supply of offshore oil reserves. French officials probably are worried that if the situation does not improve, instability might reach levels seen in Sierra Leone. The Government is also hoping to counterbalance likely support for rebels from neighbouring Liberia and Burkina Faso.
Finally, France hopes to demonstrate that it will not tolerate civil war in the Ivory Coast, while at the same time using it as a test case for reviving French military intervention in the region — and in the long term, building up its own naval base in Abidjan. The situation on the ground is confused with three principal rebel factions formed on ethnic lines, coming together and splitting apart, sometimes approving the French presence, at others violently reacting to it.
President Chirac called President Gbagbo after the attack "to warn him against any act liable to break the ceasefire" between the Government and rebel New Forces holding the north of the country, the President's office said. The Ivory Coast is the world's leading cocoa producer. The troubles have severely affected the cocoa crop and the world price of cocoa has gone spiralling upwards, soaring to a three-month high on the London futures market.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.