[A-List] French imperialism: Ivory Coast

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Le Monde / Undercover war in 'our little Iraq' / Stephen Smith

Undercover war in 'our little Iraq'

Comment Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith

France's alternative diplomatic approach to the conflict in Ivory Coast is
bad for its credibility

In which country that possesses weapons of mass destruction has France
maintained a contingent of 4,000 soldiers for the past six months? Which
regional conflict between three "rogue states" has France been trying to
resolve by mobilising not only its army but the full range of its diplomatic
arsenal?Finally, which multilateral solution consistent with the legality
embodied by the United Nations has France attempted to implement by
committing itself to the hilt?

If such a solution existed, it would be an ideal method for dealing with
other threats to world peace, and certainly an alternative to the law of the
strongest that the United States has been applying in Iraq.

The country concerned is Ivory Coast - and its "weapons of mass destruction"
range from the machete to the Kalashnikov. It would be a mistake, however,
to pooh-pooh such weapons, given that nine years ago in Rwanda, 800,000
people died, most of them hacked to death, within the space of three months.

It was because they refused to accept another massacre of Africans that the
French intervened in Ivory Coast last September. On February 4 UN resolution
1464, passed unanimously by the security council, gave France the task of
protecting civilians. Fact one: if those civilians had had to depend on the
"international community", they would not have survived. Fact two: the
French intervention was initially legitimate, but became legal only
subsequently.
In the French foreign ministry communique, which announced in December that
France's military commitment was going to extend well beyond the protection
of its nationals, there was no reference to either an Ivorian authority or
an  international body. The UN simply confirmed a situation after the event.

In that same communique, Paris denounced "all interference from outside",
and said it regarded breaches of Ivory Coast's territorial integrity as
"unacceptable".
Ivory Coast's borders had indeed been violated. By whom? The communique did
not say. And the UN issued no condemnation of, let alone sanctions against,
such breaches of international order.

The fact was that Burkina Faso and Liberia had breached Ivory Coast's
territorial integrity with impunity. In response, the Ivorian regime
resorted to criminal practices, setting up "patriotic" militias and even
death squads as undercover fighters against an imagined or real "enemy
within". Law and order broke down. Faced with two aggressor countries that
controlled rebel movements, the Ivorian regime tried by fair means or foul
to defend itself.
So France found itself at war with three West African "rogue states". The
malaise created by its Ivory Coast policy, notwithstanding its humanitarian
legitimacy, stems from the fact that it is at war without having declared
it.
"Is it legitimate to talk of a French failure when France has taken the risk
of peace and reconciliation?" the French foreign minister Dominique de
Villepin asked parliament on February 4.

On January 24 a report by the UN High Commission on Human Rights voiced
suspicions that death squads in the capital Abidjan were "reportedly made up
of elements close to the government and a tribal militia of the president's
ethnic group". That same day a report by the French secret service confirmed
that those groups of killers had worked for the president's services and
were almost exclusively from the president's ethnic group, Bete.
When Paris imposed a ceasefire in  Ivory Coast on October 18, Burkina Faso
opened a second front with Liberia's help: at the end of November the
appearance of two new rebel movements in western Ivory Coast gave the war a
new lease of life. It was a classic "fight and talk" situation.

But the images of hordes of drugged youngsters swooping on peaceful Ivorian
villages should not delude one into supposing that neighbouring states were
either ill-prepared for or only superficially involved in the conflict.
Comfort Ero and Anne Marshall revealed in an article in Politique Africaine
No 89 that the attack on the border town of Danane on November 28 "was
carried out by some of [the Liberian president] Charles Taylor's most highly
reputed military leaders". All the indications are that France is  waging an
undercover war to which the UN - the body of appeal that France would like
to see as the keystone of world order - has so far given only a blank cheque
of legality "for a renewable period of six months".
That mandate may have to be repeatedly renewed, particularly as the US has
blocked the setting up of a UN peacekeeping operation that could take over
from French troops in Ivory Coast. And the 1,260 West African "white
helmets" would hardly constitute a realistic way out of the dilemma for
France even if their numbers were greatly increased.

The problem is not about getting "bogged down". More French soldiers have
been deployed in Kosovo than in Ivory Coast without anyone asking awkward
questions. Nor has the  problem anything to do with obstruction by the
Americans, who argue that a UN operation in Ivory Coast would be
exorbitantly expensive.

Their bad faith is no greater than that of De Villepin when he claims that
the UN "provides efficiency, transparency and legitimacy". The UN is an
undeniable source of international legitimacy, but it is also an appallingly
inefficient bureaucracy.

Just before the war against Baghdad, one of De Villepin's aides described
Ivory Coast as "our little Iraq". The trouble is that the alternative
approach adopted by the French in the hope of dealing with an international
trouble spot - with the UN as a fig leaf and three "rogue states" left to do
more or less what they want - can only undermine France's credibility. <I>
May 8</I>

The Guardian Weekly 20-3-0515, page 25