France and U.S. maneuver over Ivory Coast
By G. Dunkel
While the Ivory Coast itself grows poorer, and renewed
violence threatens to burst out into a civil war, the
imperialist governments of France and the United States are
both colluding and colliding over this African nation.
The current crisis began in September 2002, after a failed
coup attempt led to fighting and rebel movements took over the
northern and western parts of the country. These movements
recently united and now form a national opposition to the
government of President Laurent Gbagbo.
In September French forces, from their bases in Africa, and
U.S. forces, from a transit base in neighboring Ghana, arrived
quickly. The pretext was moving French and U.S. citizens to
safer quarters.
Le Pays, a newspaper published in Burkina Faso, the Ivory
Coast's northern neighbor, pointed out that the dispatch of
these troops "confirms the neocolonial designs of France." It's
impossible to even imagine, wrote Le Pays, that "the Ivory
Coast might send its troops to France to save its citizens who
are being mistreated there." This goes double, of course, for
the United States.
The French troops then turned their attention to propping up
Gbagbo's regime and stopping the rebellion's advance. But the
rebellion and the opposition to both Gbagbo and the French had
deeper roots and more support than the French had counted
on.
In areas they controlled, the opposition mounted a number of
anti-imperialist demonstrations against the French. Opposition
forces also had some fairly sharp military skirmishes with
French troops, blocking their advance.
So France decided it would hold a "national conference of
the Ivoirean people"--with a French politician as chair--in
Marcoussis, a rugby arena near Paris, Jan. 23-26.
The agreement that came out of Mar coussis proposed a unity
government in which the main rebel group would supply the head
of the national police and the army, while Gbagbo would remain
president.
After the agreement was signed, the French got United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1464 passed, unanimously
endorsing Marcoussis. This resolution also authorized the
presence of French troops, with a contingent from the Economic
Community of West African States under French command. Both the
United States and Britain voted for this resolution.
Once the details became known in the Ivory Coast, Gbagbo's
faction organized huge demonstrations outside the French
Embassy and the French barracks in Abidjan. Protesters waved
Ivoirean and U.S. flags and carried signs in English saying,
"USA: we need your help."
After the demonstrations, the French brought in
reinforcements and the United States also sent in a small
contingent of soldiers. (Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 6)
The situation in the Ivory Coast is still very fluid.
The Ivory Coast, with a diversified economy and the world's
largest cocoa production industry, has been the most profitable
of the French neocolonies in West Africa. However, U.S.
imperialism is taking advantage of popular anger at the former
colonial power to try and take a major step in supplanting
France in Africa. It is doing so at a time when Washington has
also been leaning heavily on France, demanding support for
Bush's war on Iraq, so far without success.
Reprinted from the Feb. 20, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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