What has gone wrong in Côte d'Ivoire, and is it still possible to prevent the escalation of the conflict there into a new round of civil war? The latest round of violence began on 16 January 2006 with assaults by young Ivorians on bases, living quarters and vehicles belonging to the 7,000 United Nations peacekeeping forces in the southern, government-controlled half of the country. In the western camp of Guiglo manned by Bangladeshi troops, at least four of the assailants were killed before the Bangladeshis evacuated the area.
In Abidjan, the commercial capital, several days of protests against the UN presence in the country took place against the background of an announcement on 17 January by President Laurent Gbagbo's ruling party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), that it was withdrawing from the UN-sponsored peace process.
This is the most recent episode in an intractable conflict. In September 2005, Côte d'Ivoire (also called by its English appellation Ivory Coast) marked the third anniversary of a failed coup attempt that quickly morphed into a brief civil war, and was followed by a tense separation of the country into two halves divided by an internationally monitored "zone of confidence". In these three years at least four international peace accords have underlined the points of contention - including the disarmament of the ex-rebels and the pro-government militias, and long-standing disputes over citizenship, land tenure, and eligibility for the presidency. Notwithstanding their divergent claims, the leaders of the Ivorian political class have systematically sabotaged the peace process and reneged on their promises.
This process was given a new lease of life with the nomination of Charles Konan Banny as the new prime minister in December, but there were some troubling weaknesses in the agreements surrounding his appointment which have not prevented a recurrence of violence which threatens to spin even further out of control over the course of 2006.
Mediations led by South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, had achieved some notable results between November 2004 and September 2005, including agreement by President Laurent Gbagbo to allow his adversary Alassane Ouattara a former Ivorian prime minister banned from competing in the elections on the grounds that his mother was born in what was then Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) to run in upcoming elections. Gbagbo also modified laws on nationality and naturalisation that would give Ivorians from the country's north a better chance at full participation in public life.
Mbeki's efforts were, however, rejected by both the Forces Nouvelles ex-rebels and the Ivorian opposition parties, and with the end of Gbagbo's five-year presidential term on 30 October, the country headed into alarmingly uncharted territory. Gbagbo insisted he would remain in power, and his opponents promised street battles to oust him.
Near-term disaster was averted by the agreement to leave Gbagbo in power while choosing a consensus prime minister who will (in principle) have authority to choose and direct a new government, and insisting further that the interim government hold elections within one year. This proposal originated in a meeting of west African heads of state, was agreed by the African Union, and somewhat strengthened by the UN Security Council, which passed it on 30 November 2005 as Resolution 1633.
A regional danger
The trouble with the formula is that it does not go far enough, and needs stiffening in two significant respects. First, the Security Council resolution should have set an exact date, most probably 30 October 2006, as the expiration date of this transitional period, specifying that if elections had still not been held, the entire government, including president and prime minister, would be forced out. Without this discipline, there is little hope that the Ivorian political class will be any more responsive to international opinion than it has been in the past. The fact that the first step in the process finding a prime minister acceptable to all parties took five weeks after the country entered its constitutional void, gives little cause for optimism.
Second, the international community must take a much bolder step with regard to the implementation of the citizenship laws that President Gbagbo has promulgated. From the first negotiations, everyone acknowledged that drafting new and better such laws was the easiest part of the process leading toward Ivorian peace. The real problems would arise in their application, where local officials could continue long-standing practices of abusive and arbitrary treatment of those seeking identification documents.
If Côte d'Ivoire is to have any chance of holding elections worthy of the name by 30 October 2006, it can only happen after the implementation of citizenship laws and the simultaneous creation of a new electoral list by a mixed team of Ivorian civil servants and international experts, working under Antonio Monteiro, the UN high representative for elections named by Kofi Annan.
If these laws are applied expeditiously and neutrally, the ex-rebels will have absolutely no excuse to refrain from disarming, and neither they nor the opposition parties will have any reason to fail to participate in the transitional period that will culminate in elections. Many Ivorians, especially those who support President Gbagbo, will object that internationalisation of the laws' application breaches Ivorian sovereignty. But the sovereignty barrier was crossed three years ago when President Gbagbo invited 10,000 international peacekeepers into the country (who included 3,000 French troops as well as UN forces). Assuming the president promulgated the laws with the sincere intention they be applied, there are no grounds for objecting to international assistance in this logistically daunting task.
The stakes in Côte d'Ivoire are high. With its recent elections, immediate neighbour Liberia has already started down the perilous road toward durable peace. War-torn Sierra Leone saw its contingent of peacekeepers reduced to zero at the end of 2005. Neighbouring Guinea is teetering on the edge of implosion, its president so ill that he has rarely been seen in public for two years. If Côte d'Ivoire, once a regional economic powerhouse, melts down, it could quickly drag any of these countries into war and radically destabilise the regional economy, not least by sending millions of potential refugees into Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana.
The announcement today, 23 January, that the Ivorian ruling party has decided to resume its participation in the peace process offers a glimmer of optimism in a bleak climate. But a large responsibility for finding a way forward lies with the international community; and halfway measures to solving the Ivorian crisis have shown their limitations all too clearly. The United Nations Security Council should take a decision that will give peace in Côte d'Ivoire a real chance, placing the interest of the Ivorian people over the self-interest of the country's political elite.
