The unprecedented explosion of violence in Ivory Coast this month, which sparked an exodus of foreigners, has plunged relations between France and its west African former colony over a cliff with no hope of reconciliation, experts say. The dire state of affairs was underlined Thursday when Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo made a plea on French radio for French businessmen to return to his country, the world's biggest cocoa producer now facing economic ruin. "The breaking point has been reached, a certain post-colonial era has come to an end and there will be no going back. French-Ivorian ties will never be as they were," said Antoine Glaser, an Africa specialist and director of the authoritative "La Latrine Lettre du Continent" publication.
| He says this as if it's a bad thing. |
More than 6,000 French citizens were evacuated from Ivory Coast after a sudden rise in racist violence against whites spread by militant gangs of youths loyal to Gbagbo. Several Frenchwomen were raped and other brutal assaults were said to have occurred. The gangs have been roaming Abidjan in anger after French forces acting as a buffer between government troops and rebels wiped out Ivory Coast's tiny air force in retaliation for a November 6 air attack that killed nine French soldiers and an American. "Before, during crises, there was only pillaging of property. But now, for the first time, we have seen physical assaults, rapes, a real witch-hunt against the French," Glaser said. The result was that "a taboo had been broken" and the sort of protection the French had assumed had existed had been swept aside. "The line has been stepped over, and the model of successful decolonisation has been blown to bits," he said.
| The rapes are bad, and the rapists need to be jugged. The violence is bad, and the perpetrators need to be jugged. Gbagbo, are you listening? |
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