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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Eruption close in Ivory Coast |
| 2003-02-10 |
| The French foreign legionnaires reach a blind spot in the red earth track, halt, and drop silently as cats into western Ivory Coast's tangled bush. They crouch there, listening. But nothing stirs except chattering insects and startled birds. The lead man rises, beckons, and cautiously points his gun back up the track. One by one, the legionnaires follow - an anxious-looking Belgian, an unmistakable American, four men with Slavic features hidden behind Aviator shades - drawing France further into the most violent theatre of west Africa's new war. The patrol is ostensibly monitoring a ceasefire, following France's recent efforts to quell the three rebellions mushrooming in its most treasured former African colony. Yet here in Ivory Coast's humid west, despite a two-week lull in fighting between the main parties, the French foreign legion is indisputably at war. Over the past two months, the 140 legionnaires dug in around Duekoue, 150 miles west of Abidjan, Ivory Coast's main city, have come under attack eight times. Seventeen have been wounded. They have killed at least 50 of their attackers, and probably many more, admits their commander Col Emmanuel Maurin. Legionnaire Alan Barnes, a Dubliner with 15 years' service in the legion, tries to explain why things are going so badly wrong. "The rebels here are bloody crazy," he says. "They keep coming at us. When real soldiers open fire in Africa, rebels run; everyone knows that. But these keep coming." Sound determined. Sounds like there aren't yet enough legionnaires. "We're fighting them almost hand-to-hand - the guys are taking them out at 10 metres." Too close. Over the past three months, little noticed by a world obsessed by a possible war with Iraq, France has been drawn deeper and deeper into an actual war; splitting one of Africa's richest countries three ways, and displacing more than a million people so far. Last week, the latest contingent of 450 French troops arrived in Abidjan, to protect 25,000 French citizens and 220 French businesses; and taking the official total to 3,000. Has the Charles de Gaulle been turned around yet? Western diplomats say the true number may be far higher. If France is to stop Ivory Coast going the way of neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, it will probably need to be. Since September the country has been split into north and south, with only a thin line of French troops preventing the well-organised Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI) sweeping south to Abidjan. Now, two more recent rebellions in the west are evoking bitter memories of neighbouring wars, with refugees reporting redundant rebels pouring over from Liberia and Sierra Leone. They tell of ethnically-targetted killing, and routine murder and rape. In Abidjan itself, the UN last week reported 300 ethnic and political murders carried out by death squads "close to the government and the presidential guard". Death squads who somehow can't find the front. On Thursday, President Laurent Gbagbo, who came to power in a violent election from which many northerners were excluded, revoked a French-brokered agreement to share power with the MPCI. The rebels have promised to wait for a week, reserving their right to resume the attack. "Abidjan and the west are now the serious threats to peace; we're at a crucial moment," said Col Maurin. "If the crisis continues, with fighting likely to spread across borders, we could see a conflagration across the region." A pointer towards that possibility is that Col Maurin is not even sure who his legionnaires have been killing. "More and more fighters are appearing in uniform, but we don't know who's providing them," he says. "The people of Ivory Coast want peace, and I believe the MPCI want peace; but here in the west the rebels don't want anything except to be able to rape and pillage." Mobs with guns. The Brussels-based thinktank the International Crisis Group has reported that thousands of youths have been recruited in Liberia to cross into western Ivory Coast. France would be unlikely to confirm this: to do so would be to acknowledge the need for a huge increase in troops. This could break the French bank. "There could be political reasons to avoid making that connection," said Col Maurin. If so, the atrocities reported by the 300,000 people fleeing eastwards through the legionnaires' lines will continue unchecked. Benedicte Guei, a smartly-dressed 26-year-old mother of two, is one such fugitive. She says she was raped by ten rebels in turn, mostly Liberian, when they overran her village, just four miles from the foreign legion's camp. The rebels decapitated her younger sister and chopped her uncle into small pieces, she says. Her grandfather was abandoned there, being too feeble to flee. "If the president says No to the peace deal and the French leave, the rebels will kill us all," she said. "Tell everyone that the French must stay. We owe our lives to them." The same request, and similar stories, are everywhere in the swollen villages straddling the legionnaires' front line in western Ivory Coast. But in Abidjan, five hours' drive away, few people seem to be listening. Since the French peace accord was signed two weeks ago, the city has been rocked by well organised anti-French protests. "The president seems unaware that if the French leave, the country will collapse in days, as many parts already have," a western diplomat said. Issah Sudre, an ethnic Burkinabi - of the same tribe as the MPCI - is one of the hundreds of ethnic northerners who have seen their homes burned down by police in recent weeks. "Unless the madness ends soon, there will be massacres right here," he said. "Even here in Abidjan - isn't it obvious?" Not to Aline Gogo, 30, a government worker given the day off to chant slogans outside the French embassy. "We're not afraid of war," she says. "If the French clear out, we will crush the rebels." Aline, take a good look around and tell us what you see. It's hard to make snarky comments about what is about to be a complete humanitarian and political disaster. I'll forgive the French a fair bit if they'll land in the Ivory Coast with both feet and get things under control. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Joe --- I think that France bid on too many jobs. The Ivory Coast has been subbed out to them and now they have to perform. It is in their court and they are in trouble. Taking it to the UN will destroy their "credibility" in this arena. Of course if they bring it to the UN it can always take precidence over Iraq, ha ha. The French are getting their ass in a sling. If they want to run with the big dogs, they better quit pissing like puppies. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-02-10 19:09:09 |
| #5 One has to ask, in all seriousness, if France is on the verge of a major intervention in the Ivory Coast, just how they propose to form the core of a tens-of-thousands-strong international peacekeeping/arms-monitoring force in Iraq at the same time. |
| Posted by: Joe 2003-02-10 18:22:43 |
| #4 With thousands of Burkina Faso jihadis in the Ivory Coast, France imposed a status quo "peace," which permits further Muslim infiltration. That is why 200,000 patriots took to the streets to protest that diplomatic atrocity. |
| Posted by: Anon 2003-02-10 11:55:48 |
| #3 There's been precious little detail on the internal workings on this little fiasco. If Burkina Faso and Libya have their fingers in the north, it's not necessarily a "mainstream" Islamist tide; more like Muammar's meddling, though to what end no one knows - probably not even Muammar. If Charles Taylor is sending thugs from Liberia, that's another story. Possibly both are going on at the same time. Taylor is an out and out crook, with visions of being a big-time crook. Where he's involved, there go slaughter and rapine, just on principle. Liberia, up until Samuel Doe, used to be a prosperous country, for West Africa. Doe was a lunatic, but stupid. Taylor's a lunatic, but smart. He needs an "unfortunate accident." |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-02-10 10:41:16 |
| #2 I protest the "unilateral action" of France in the Cote D'Ivoir. Why have they not sought international approval for this blatant violation of national sovreignty? Yet again, France has eschewed the political solution in favor of violence. I exhort France to come back to the bargaining table rather than pursue continued warlike behavior. . . Giggle! |
| Posted by: Scott 2003-02-10 08:18:39 |
| #1 The main rebels groups are backed by Burkina Faso and Lybia, effectively splitting the country between the muslim north and the animist/christian south, with west ethnic liberian factions adding to the confusion. Problem is, France has major economical interests in IC, 20 000 nationals (less now), 60 000 lebaneses (strong ties too) and was initially unwilling to choose between the gvt and the rebels. Now, we're stuck in the middle of an political, religious and tribal stand-off, which is going to be long and possibly messy. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-02-10 03:24:06 |