Civil War in CÙte díIvoire May Destabilize West Africa by Larry Luxner Once considered West Africaís most prosperous nationó"a paradise by the sea that drew investors, tourists and retirees by the thousands," in the words of Ambassador Pascal D. KokoraóCÙte díIvoire is now being torn apart by a civil war that has killed hundreds of people, made thousands homeless and threatens to destabilize the entire region. Three groups of rebels opposed to President Laurent Gbagbo have been waging war for the last four months and now control the northern half of CÙte díIvoire. Economic growth has shrunk to one-third of previous projections, while an estimated 25,000 refugees have fled the New Mexico-size country. Kokora, in a Jan. 10 interview with The Washington Diplomat, blamed his peopleís problems squarely on France, the colonial power of CÙte díIvoire until independence came in 1960 (the country officially changed its name from Ivory Coast to CÙte díIvoire in 1985). "This is an economic war because the current government wants to open up the market for water, electricity, road infrastructure and telecommunications in 2004, and those who own the monopolies donít want this to happen," the ambassador said, claiming that 80 perce nt of the countryís economy lies in the hands of French conglomerates. "The press coverage on CÙte díIvoire is so unfair and biased," Kokora continued. "In the French media, everything the rebels do is good, and everything the government does is bad. How can the Western world help our nationís democracy if they encourage people to take power by military force, unless there are other motives they donít want to tell us about." In the 42 years since independence, CÙte díIvoire has made huge economic strides but still suffers from political instabilityóa fact that has defined Kokoraís career. A former linguistics professor at the National University of CÙte díIvoire in Abidjan, he and four other activists, including the current president, Gbagbo, established the clandestine Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) in Kokoraís living room in 1982. "I fought for 30 years to bring democracy to my country," said Kokora, 62. "One day, I was told that I had lost my position as a tenured professor at the university and was put under house arrest by a presidential decree issued in the name of the late president, FÈlix HouphouÎt-Boigny." In 1988, Kokora fled the country and ended up in Washington, D.C., where he landed a job teaching linguistics at Georgetown University. He also became the FPIís official U.S. representative, setting up regional chapters in Washington, New York and Philadelphia. Kokora says the greatest achievement of his tenure working for the FPI here followed the February 1992 arrests of Gbagbo and others opposed to the HouphouÎt-Boigny dictatorship. "With the precious assistance of some Washington- and New York-based human rights agencies, my organization lobbied Congress and succeeded in obtaining a letter of support for the political prisoners," he said, claiming his lobbying efforts put pressure on the Ivorian government to immediately release Gbagbo and the others from prison. HouphouÎt-Boigny died in office on Dec. 7, 1993. The National Assembly named a successor, Henri Konan BÈdiÈ, who was re-elected in 1995 but ousted in a military coup on Dec. 24, 1999. The coup leader, Robert GuÈi, lost a presidential vote on Oct. 22, 2000, but claimed victory anyway. "When it was becoming clear that the current president was going to win the elections, Gen. GuÈi stopped the process and proclaimed himself the winner," said Kokora. "He disbanded the National Electoral Commission, and the people in the street refused to accept this. So they took to the streets and the results were finally recognized." On Nov. 8, 2001, a year after Gbagbo assumed the presidency, Kokora became CÙte díIvoireís envoy in Washington, where he supervises a staff of 40 (including 12 diplomats) at the embassyís rented mansion along Massachusetts Avenue. Yet political tensions have continued and on Sept. 19, rebels orchestrated a mutiny against Gbagbo, sparking the current civil war. In an attempt to stop the fighting, France has committed a 2,500-member force to CÙte díIvoire, its biggest African military intervention since the 1980s. Despite the signing of a cease-fire agreement between one guerrilla group and the Gbagbo government in mid-October, two other rebel groups have continued the fight in western CÙte díIvoire. On Jan. 13, those two groupsóthe Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West and the Movement for Justice and Peaceósigned a truce as the warring parties attempt to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict in Paris. At the moment, Kokoraís government controls only the southern 50 percent of CÙte díIvoire. The northern, largely Muslim half of the country remains in guerrilla hands. "The rebels have no legitimacy," charges Kokora. "This uprising is a mystery to everybody because everything was going so well." After all, despite CÙte díIvoireís per-capita annual income of only $610, the country traditionally has accounted for about 40 percent of the combined economic output of West Africaís eight French-speaking nations. It is the worldís largest cocoa producer and the fourth-largest coffee producer behind Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia. In 2002, CÙte díIvoireís gross domestic product came to $11.18 billion, up from $10.4 billion in 2001 and $10.02 billion the year before. "Before the current crisis, we were expecting a 3 percent growth rate for 2003," said Kokora. "We were one of the most prosperous countries in the region. This is why we have so many people from neighboring countries. About 5 million of our 16 million inhabitants are from somewhere else." So are a good part of those waging war against Kokoraís government, Kokora says. "The people fighting with the rebels are basically from Liberia and Sierra Leone. To be fair, the majority of those fighting are Ivorian. But many of them speak English, and some speak French with a non-Ivorian accent," he said. "The tragedy is that since the early 1960s, we have had a military agreement with the French government. This is why President Boigny never had a national army, because he was sure the French would always defend the country in case of foreign invasion. And since the beginning of this crisis, weíve been telling the French government that this is a foreign invasion, therefore, we should apply the bilateral military agreement. They say itís not a foreign invasion. We have been going through semantics." Kokora says that for the time being, the stated mission of the 2,500 French troops in CÙte díIvoire is "to be a buffer zone between the government and the rebels," and to shoot at any party that gets out of control. Yet thatís not enough for him. "Given the agreement we had with France, our country is entitled to expect more than what has been done," he complained. "In my opinion, if the agreement is to work, the French government should have expelled the rebels." France sees things differently. Nathalie Loiseau, a spokeswoman at the French Embassy in Washington, said she believes foreign troops are fighting on both sides. "We feel it is our responsibility to settle this crisis, but weíre doing it with the full support of the international community," she said. "We strongly believe there is no military solution to the current crisis in CÙte díIvoire. We want to encourage all the parties to find a political solution." If that doesnít happen, she said, fighting could spread to nearby countries such as Liberia, Mali and Burkina Faso, bringing down the entire West African economy with it. In the meantime, the Ivorian Embassy pays Washington-based firm Piper Rudnick $25,000 a month to lobby on CÙte díIvoireís behalf. It has also contracted well-known Washington publicist Edward von Kloberg III to improve the countryís image in the U.S. media. In an op-ed piece published last month in The Washington Times, Kokora said the United States should give his country military and intelligence help in its moment of crisis. "Establishing and maintaining progressive democracy in Africa has its challenges. We have little precedent on which to fall back, and even less company with which to move forward. But the world, perhaps especially the West, must be made aware that it has a major stake in the fate of CÙte díIvoire," wrote the ambassador. "In a world in which country after country is teetering on the edge of social, economic and political disorder, our friends in the West must act quickly to preserve th e beachhead of freedom that CÙte díIvoire represents." Larry Luxner is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.