French leader Nicolas Sarkozy in the Ivory Coast capital for President Alassane Ouattara's inauguration. Photo CNN

How long will this farce of pretend government in the Ivory Coast be tolerated by the other African states? The French and UN forces attacked and killed thousands of peaceful Ivoirians supporting the presidential candidate for whom they had voted and brought in its place the French puppet Ouattara and a ragbag of barely civilised, illiterate irregular troops calling themselves the Republican Force (FRCI). The issue at hand is not about the divergent claims about who won the election. It is about how one creates a productive and peaceful country from the rubble of its destruction and wresting democratic control of the nation by harnessing the corrupt and murderous thugs and rabble who have been imposed to run it.

Ouattara cannot control the warlords who actually run his country. He admitted during his visit to Washington that he is afraid for his life. That is why he spends most of his time out of the country on ‘missions’ which keep him away from the assassin’s bullets. His Prime Minister, Soro, has not been seen or heard of for two weeks as he, too, is afraid for his life. The two major warlords, Wattao and Vecho, are fighting each other for the right to collect ‘informal taxes’ on anyone or anything that passes through their territories by using their brutish lieutenants to enforce roadblocks on all maj0r routes and within Abidjan itself. This is in addition to their smuggling of diamonds and cocoa from the territories they control. There is a total breakdown of law and order as these hordes of armed rabble search for sustenance among a captive audience.

The post-war violence has not been much different than the violence perpetrated during the conflict, except that the French and UN helicopter gunships and tanks are not presently being used. According to Guillaume Ngefa, the acting human rights chief in the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) “Violations committed include proven cases of summary, extrajudicial executions, illegal arrests and detention, the freeing of people in return for cash, extortion, and criminal rackets against numerous drivers.” There have been twenty-six extrajudicial executions in Côte d’Ivoire cited last week by the UN, including that of a 17-month-old baby; over a hundred other human rights abuses were perpetrated in the past month by the FRCI. This is not only in the military fiefdoms operated by these tin pot warlords in the North since their rebellion in 2002, but in the heart of Abidjan itself.

Mr. Ngefa also voiced concern at violent clashes between the army and young villagers in several areas, denouncing “acts of intimidation, extortion and numerous obstacles to free movement committed by army elements.” Citing cruel and inhuman treatment and violation of property rights, he said similar abuses had also been perpetrated against ethnic groups, such as the Bété, Bakwé, Attié and Ebrié. People are being attacked, robbed and killed for their tribal identity. This is what the UN and France have achieved.

Alassane Ouattara gives Guillaume Soro a decree naming him prime minister in Abidjan

What did they expect? The rebels who separated the North from the South of the country after their 2001 rebellion were not regular soldiers. There were less than 1,250 regular soldiers in the New Forces which morphed, by decree, into the FRCI. These rebel troops were shoemakers, porters, rubbish collectors, itinerant labourers. They were joined by experienced mercenaries from the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia who showed them how to run these rackets. At the time of the rebellion, all the civil servants, educators, doctors and the other members of the professional class fled the North. The poor farmers who were left there paid no taxes, no rents, no customs fees, and no services to the central government. They paid these to their local rebel commanders. They are still paying these to their local commanders. Only now, this corrupt and vicious system has been spread to cover the whole of the Ivory Coast when this malignant northern scum took over power in the South and the municipalities.

There is no government. At the top there is only a bunch of black Frenchmen kowtowing to the wishes of their French masters in giving out contracts and cash to the French business community. Alternatively they have the FRCI raping, looting and persecuting. There is nothing in between. The rebels looted and destroyed the records in every ministry in the capital. They burned and looted all the schools and universities. There is little left on which to build. The feeble efforts at disarmament of the rebels have succeeded in rounding up some ancient equipment from the 1970s, most of which had already been turned in for cash in prior disarmament operations. Things are growing worse and there is little hope of any improvement.

The whole operation by the UN, the French and the notional ‘international community’ has been a nightmare for the people of the Ivory Coast. These FRCI troops have not worked in ten years. They have no useful skills. They have survived by pillage and extortion for a decade. Who would believe that they would give this up to return to their wretched lives as porters or itinerant labourers? The Ivoirians knew this which is a good portion of the reason they supported Gbagbo. Only the French benefit from this continued dependence. Why the African states and the other European states tolerate this behaviour is an imponderable question.

This wizened, disease-inflamed and corrupt system will never give birth to a democratic organised nation capable of fulfilling the role demanded of it. Pity the Ivory Coast as it is the victim of other nations’ indifference and moral bankruptcy.

By Dr. Gary K. Busch

Gary K. Busch is an international trades unionist, an academic, a businessman and a political affairs and business consultant for 40 years, and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa.

France's President Sarkozy. Source: thisisafrica.me

The French Treasury is holding billions of dollars owned by the African states of the francophone nations of West and Central Africa in its own accounts and invested in the French Bourse. The Africans deposit the equivalent of 85%of their annual reserves in these accounts as a matter of post-colonial agreements and have never been given an accounting for how much the French are holding on their behalf, in what have these funds been invested, and what profit or loss there have been. The French have been acquiring and holding the national reserves of fourteen countries since 1961. Even allowing for losses and expenditures in keeping the CFA franc viable, the French are holding about at least four hundred billion dollars of African money, wholly unaccountably to the money’s putative owners, the African states. Even Bernie Madoff couldn’t have constructed a Ponzi scheme that large without being exposed.

This ‘bargain’ was made between the African former colonies and the French as part of the Pacte Coloniale which accompanied their independence and controlled through a single currency, the CFA franc… This was largely the work of the French presidential adviser, Jacques Foccart. Jacques Foccart was the chief adviser for the government of France on African policy as well as the co-founder of the Gaullist Service d’Action Civique (SAC) in 1959 with Charles Pasqua, which specialized in covert operations in Africa.

It was Foccart “the eminence grise” who negotiated the Pacte Coloniale with the evolving French West African states who achieved their “flag independence” in 1960. Not really having planned for it, in 1960 de Gaulle had to improvise structures for a collection of small newly independent states, each with a flag, an anthem, and a seat at the UN, but often with precious little else. It was here that Foccart came to play an essential role, that of architect of the series of Cooperation accords with each new state in the sectors of finance and economy, culture, education, and the military. There were initially eleven countries involved: Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Niger, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, and Madagascar. Togo and Cameroon, former UN Trust Territories, were also co-opted into the club. So, too, later on, were Mali and the former Belgian territories (Ruanda-Urundi, now Rwanda and Burundi, and Congo-Kinshasa), some of the ex-Portuguese territories, and Comoros and Djibouti, which had also been under French rule for many years but became independent in the 1970s. The whole ensemble was put under a new Ministry of Cooperation, created in 1961, separate from the Ministry of Overseas Departments and Territories (known as the DOM-TOM) that had previously run them all.

The key to all this was the agreement signed between France and its newly-liberated African colonies which locked these colonies into the economic and military embrace of France. This Colonial Pact not only created the institution of the CFA franc, it created a legal mechanism under which France obtained a special place in the political and economic life of its colonies.

The Pacte Coloniale Agreement enshrined a special preference for France in the political, commercial and defence processes in the African countries. On defence it agreed to two types of continuing contact. The first was the open agreement on military co-operation or Technical Military Aid (AMT) agreements, which weren’t legally binding, and could be suspended according to the circumstances. They covered education, training of servicemen and African security forces. The second type, secret and binding, were defence agreements supervised and implemented by the French Ministry of Defence, which served as a legal basis for French interventions. These agreements allowed France to have pre-deployed troops in Africa; in other words, French army units present permanently and by rotation in bases and military facilities in Africa; run entirely by the French (and, incidentally, paid for by the Africans).

Source: cfr.org

In summary, the colonial pact maintained the French control over the economies of the African states; it took possession of their foreign currency reserves; it controlled the strategic raw materials of the country; it stationed troops in the country with the right of free passage; it demanded that all military equipment be acquired from France; it took over the training of the police and army; it required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc.). France not only set limits on the imports of a range of items from outside the franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from France. These treaties are still in force and operational.

One of the most important influences in the economic and political life of African states which were formerly French colonies is the impact of a common currency; the Communuate Financiere de l’Afrique (‘CFA’) franc. There are actually two separate CFA francs in circulation. The first is that of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which comprises eight West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The second is that of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) which comprises six Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon), This division corresponds to the pre-colonial AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française) and the AEF (Afrique Équatoriale Française), with the exception that Guinea-Bissau was formerly Portuguese and Equatorial Guinea Spanish).

Each of these two groups issues its own CFA franc. The WAEMU CFA franc is issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest) and the CEMAC CFA franc is issued by the BEAC (Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale). These currencies were originally both pegged at 100 CFA for each French franc but, after France joined the European Community’s Euro zone at a fixed rate of 6.65957 French francs to one Euro, the CFA rate to the Euro was fixed at CFA 665.957 to each Euro, maintaining the 100 to 1 ratio. It is important to note that it is the responsibility of the French Treasury to guarantee the convertibility of the CFA to the Euro.

The monetary policy governing such a diverse aggregation of countries is uncomplicated for African Central Banks because it is, in fact, operated by the French Treasury, without reference to the central fiscal authorities of any of the WAEMU or the CEMAC. Under the terms of the agreement which set up these banks and the CFA the Central Bank of each African country is obliged to keep at least 65% of its foreign exchange reserves in an “operations account” held at the French Treasury, as well as another 20% to cover financial liabilities.

The CFA central banks also impose a cap on credit extended to each member country equivalent to 20% of that country’s public revenue in the preceding year. Even though the BEAC and the BCEAO have an overdraft facility with the French Treasury, the drawdowns on those overdraft facilities are subject to the consent of the French Treasury. The final say is that of the French Treasury which has invested the foreign reserves of the African countries in its own name on the Paris Bourse.

In short, more than 80% of the foreign reserves of these African countries are deposited in the “operations accounts” controlled by the French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but have no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know, nor are they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the French Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the investment of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to be added to the pool but no accounting has ever been given to either the banks or the countries of the details of any such changes. The limited group of high officials in the French Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the “operations accounts”, where these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or the central banks of the African states.

This makes it impossible for African members to regulate their own monetary policies. The most inefficient and wasteful countries are able to use the foreign reserves of the more prudent countries without any meaningful intervention by the wealthier and more successful countries. Most importantly, the French Government uses these funds on deposit in France as assets of France. The CFA franc devaluation of 50 per cent against the French franc in January 1994 was a great surprise to several of the African states and caused major problems for them.

Africa Colonial Map. Source: sandafayre.com

The problems for the African states are growing. The coming crisis in the Euro, with the bailouts of Greece, Portugal and others will have a strong effect on the value of the Euro. With the CFA franc pegged to the Euro the value of the CFA will decline with it. The cost of commodities (petroleum products, foodstuffs, etc.) priced in dollars will grow to be a heavier burden on the African economies. Moreover, France itself is in deep financial trouble.

The International Monetary Fund has warned this week that France will have to carry out more spending cuts to ensure it reaches its deficit reduction commitments amid lower-than-expected growth expectations. While France has predicted 2.25 per cent growth for 2012, the IMF has downgraded this to 1.9 per cent next year.

The French are spending almost US$2 million a day bombing Libya; above the budgeted expenditure in its defence budget. France is very short of money. However, the cost of massacring Ivoirians, using tanks, helicopter gunships and Special Forces were offset against the Ivory Coast money it was holding, so it didn’t add to the budgetary problems. The killing of Africans in the Ivory Coast, Cameroons, Rwanda, Chad and the Central African Republic have never been the subject of a budget request to the French defence budget as the Office of the President deducts these from the tranche at the Treasury (which is why it has never been debated in the French National Assembly). To add insult to injury the French estimated that the French business community had lost several millions of dollars when, in the rush to leave Abidjan in 2006 when the French Army massacred 65 unarmed civilians and wounded 1,200 others, the French lost money as they feared the revenge of the Ivoirians. The French demanded that the Ouattara government which they had installed paid them compensation for these putative losses. Indeed the Ouattara government paid them twice what they said they had lost in leaving.

Surely the time has come for the francophone governments to ask the French for a proper accounting of the money they are holding. Perhaps the next government in the Ivory Coast which will succeed Ouattara’s assassination or defeat at the polls will ask the French for an accounting. Wade in Senegal has asked but was never answered. The solution seems simple. Until the French give a proper accounting for Africa’s billions the African states should stop sending more to them. It is bad enough paying their overseer for the cost of his whip used to chastise them. It is wholly unreasonable to continue to do so when there is no upside, only potential losses.

By Dr. Gary K. Busch

Every time US drones mistake a wedding or a funeral or some other party for an ‘Islamic militant gathering’, the missile fired causes carnage on the scale of Oslo. This has been going on for ten years and the number of drone strikes has doubled since Obama came into office. For example, of the 258 air strikes in Pakistan, 248 have taken place since 2008 (The Long War Journal). Drones have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. That the US should be bombing in these countries at all is an outrage.

Drones: Should we not be outraged when American kids playing a deadly video game with joy-sticks, sometimes thousands of miles away from their target, kill people who did nothing to them, or us for that matter? And is this not one of the most cowardly acts you can think of? What if a Pakistani drone killed hundreds of people mistakenly taken for ‘Christian Fundamentalists’ in Cincinnati?

How many military videos does wekileaks have to release before we see that our soldiers are having fun killing unarmed people from a cowardly safe distance? If you have not seen one go here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

Shooting the wounded, torture, secret prisons in Bagram, Mogadishu ,Guantanamo, extra-judicial executions … where’s the outrage?

In the first six months of this year alone, Israel has shot hundreds of unarmed protesters, killing scores. For example, on June 6, Tsahal shot dead 23 unarmed people and wounded 350 more in the Golan. The Jewish state was mildly chastised for shooting before they even tried tear gas.

When western supported Bahraini and Saudi troops shoot unarmed protesters seeking better lives, there is hardly a whimper. When US trained and equipped special-forces in Yemen shot down hundreds of protesters, Washington said nothing for three months. Then the US called on the thug President Saleh to step down and hand power over to another pro-American kleptocrat while the US continued to pound the country with Hellfire missiles from drones. The ‘collateral damage’ (i.e. dead civilians) from these attacks is pushing people “who never hurt US interests” into the arms of more radical groups (interview with Abdul Jabbar, The National).

The British medical review The Lancet along with John Hopkins University published a second Iraqi survey on October 11, 2006 which estimated there were 654, 965 excess deaths related to the war (2.5% of the population). Civilians died in droves during the US invasion and subsequent street battles with Iraqi Insurgent/Resistance fighters.

How many martyred cities like Falluja, 90% destroyed, are there in Iraq and Afghanistan? We can only mimic US Army Major Phil Cannella in Vietnam who explained to Peter Arnett “we had to destroy the village to save it,” after Ben Tre was wiped off the map on February 7, 1968.

And what do we say of the 200 000 Blackwater type mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan; those we euphemistically call “civilian contractors”? Each and every one of them is an Anders Behring Breivik, murdering with impunity in our name. Even the idea of privatizing and subcontracting war should spark outrage.

It is estimated that the embargo on Iraq from 1990 led to the deaths of over five hundred thousand children under the age of five (UNICEF). In an interview on May 12, 1996, then US Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright was asked on 60 Minutes if the embargo was worth the price in lives. Her response was “We think the price is worth it.”

And yes, the instability caused by the US (and Israel) has led to Muslims killing other Muslims on the Oslo scale daily.

Our use of selective outrage is not new.

How many people died under US bombs in the first Gulf War like the one that killed over four hundred civilians in Baghdad’s Amiriyah bomb shelter on February 13, 1991? What could be more cowardly than the US air attack on fleeing Iraqi troops on Iraq’s Highway 8 (the Highway of Death) on February 26 – 27, 1991. A US pilot said “It was a turkey shoot. Like shooting ducks in a barrel.” The war was over. The Iraqis had abandoned Kuwait. The attack was cowardly mass murder.

This year France went to war against, I believe, the legitimate government of Ivory Coast to put a puppet in power whose Coup d’Etat had failed in 2002. The French backed and armed rebels killed thousands as they marched on the capital, Abidjan. Since the take over, there have been many more killings. But the western press and governments are not nearly as interested as they were when people got killed in attacks on the forces of a government they did not like. Almost total silence. Very often ‘theirs’ and ‘ours’ determines the worthy dead from the unworthy to quote Chomsky and Hermann.

In Libya, the rebels supported by NATO systematically executed the Black African prisoners they took, accusing them of being mercenaries. Most were merely migrant workers. Where is the outrage? It is known that NATO bombs are killing civilians in Libya and all of this, I believe, because Qaddafi threatened to nationalize the country’s oil and create an African Central Bank which would make the IMF and World Bank useless and, more importantly, powerless. There was nothing spontaneous about the Benghazi revolt as far as I am concerned. The flags had been industrially made and were in the streets the first day. The posters and banners, in several languages, were professionally printed in a country without private printers and were out the first day. The ‘rebels’ were armed and ready on the very first day. How is it reporters have not picked up on this. Where is the outrage?

The reality is some deaths are worth more than others. Every now and then a Twin Towers(9/11/01), London underground bombing (7/7/07), Madrid metro bombing (11/3/05) or Oslo killing spree comes along and because more worthier people are killed, we get outraged.

By George Kazolias

George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.

Ivory Coast Republican Force. Source: ivoirediaspo.net

This is an old Spanish proverb which reflects the insidious power of a traitor, especially when he is faced with the results of his own treachery. In the last two weeks there has been a witch hunt of junior officers and NCOs in the loyalist Gbagbo armed forces that followed the orders of their superiors and went to fight to preserve the unity of the nation and the Constitution of the Ivory Coast. When they became soldiers they took an oath to support the Constitution and its lawful Commander-in-Chief, the President. In fact, less than ten days before the final onslaught of the French and the rag-tag rebel forces the senior officers of the loyalist national army and gendarmerie renewed their oath of loyalty to the commander in chief, Gbagbo. They pledged this oath on behalf of all the officers and men under their command.

Now the putative leadership of the new rebel army, the FRCI, are calling in and detaining junior officers and NCOs of the national army and accusing them of treason and other crimes for fighting on the side of the President who was, at the time, their commander in chief. The local press has published that fifty members of the defence and security forces – the former Ivorian army – have been arrested in connection with crimes and other abuses committed in Cote d’Ivoire during the post-electoral violence, while another twenty-two are on the run. This is the work of the military prosecutor, Colonel Ange Kessi Kouame, who has disclosed that the seventy-two soldiers have been formerly charged with crimes.

One who got away was Abéhi Jean Christmas, head of the armoured squadron of police, an elite unit who remained faithful to the government until its fall. Abéhi left the country at the beginning of this week for a still unknown destination. This departure is in addition to the already long list of valorous officers and warrant officers of the ex-Forces of Defence and Safety (FDS) of Ivory Coast. They took the road of exile, fleeing imprisonment and fearing for their lives. In addition to the commander Abéhi, other charismatic officers have left; in particular Colonel Konan Boniface, the commander of the Fusillers commando (FUMACO); the head of the mobile rapid intervention force (DMIR), and Colonel Gouanou Alphonse, formerly head of the tactical sub group. He and his men put up a fierce resistance near Bondoukou, where they prevented the rebel entry to the capital, Zanzan. Colonel Gouanou then led the 2nd battalion at Daloa, organising the resistance He appeared on national television. He then was moved to lead the operations of the pro-Gbagbo army in Abidjan. A few days before the fall of the Palace, Colonels Boniface and Gouanou reappeared on television, broadcasting from within the presidential residence in Cocody. At their side were the top commanders Philippe Mangou, Tiapé Kassaraté and Brédou Me Bia. They were received in audience by President Laurent Gbagbo.

Residents of the Treichville neighborhood gather outside the damaged former base of Laurent Gbagbo's Republican Guards, as soldiers loyal to Alassane Ouattara occupy it, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, April 15, 2011. Photo: AP

The ones who fled are much better off than those who stayed. Their junior officers are the ones now being rounded up. There was a particular embarrassment for Banny, who is now in charge of uniting the rebel fighters with the professional army, that Jean-Christmas Abéhi had escaped. Abehi had stayed in his bunker in the Agban camp and refused to leave the camp to meet with Soro on Monday. The FRCI had demanded that Banny let them attack Agban camp to get Abehi but this was not allowed. When they visited Agban (which had been defended by the FDS even after the French capture of Gbagbo) they found that Abehi was gone. They probably would not have been allowed to enter if Abehi was there. The FANCI, the loyalist army of the Ivory Coast had little problem defeating the rebel forces in virtually every engagement; sometime at a twenty to one disadvantage in numbers. The FRCI were rabble; untrained and badly led. It was only when French troops accompanied them and helicopter gunships and French tanks were used that they made any progress at all. During the conflict local sources say that twenty-three French soldiers lost their lives, four of whom were killed by French bombs and shells.

The whole notion of loyalist soldiers being tried for treason or violence against the rabble masses while doing their duty is a very tricky subject. They were acting to protect the Ivory Coast Constitution; the rebels were there to destroy the legitimate government. The politicians who served in the many governments introduced by the French and the UN after 2002 and those formed after the Ouagadougou Agreement owed a debt of allegiance to the Ivory Coast. They swore an oath to that effect when taking office. Article 13 of the Ivory Coast Constitution states: “Article 13. The Political Parties and Groups form themselves and exercise their activities freely within the condition of respecting the laws of the Republic, the principles of national sovereignty and of democracy. They are equal in rights and subject to the same obligations. Political Parties or Groups created on regional, confessional, tribal, ethnic or racial bases, are forbidden.”

How can Ouattara, Banny, Bedie and the other members of this band of vipers have the nerve to accuse the loyal soldiers for doing their jobs and fulfilling their oaths when they, as elected officials, heads of parties, and agents of the State chose to violate their oaths of office and their obligations under the Constitution to raise a rebellion against the national government in which they purportedly served? This is a national disgrace. Punishing the innocent does not make the wicked less culpable. Perhaps the United Nations and some of the other states in the European Union can raise objections to this petty witch hunt. This is certainly not what they are spending European cash for in an effort to promote elections, reconciliation and the expanded investments by the French business community.

Perhaps they should reflect on the second part of the Spanish proverb above “A loyal man lives forever but a traitor is soon forgotten”

By Dr. Gary K. Busch

Gary K. Busch is an international trades unionist, an academic, a businessman and a political affairs and business consultant for 40 years, and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa.

The French army (Force Licorne) is fighting in Cote d’Ivoire. Source: panafa.net

UNITED NATIONS, updated — With Cote d’Ivoire’s defiant Laurent Gbagbo surrounded after French and UN military action in Abidjan’s Cocody neighborhood, internal French government documents obtained by Inner City Press and published exclusively today [8/4/11] paint a picture of France’s communications with the UN Mission UNOCI, its analysis of the politics of Guillaume Soro, Liberia and the Malian press, even its recycling of a French diplomat arrested in New York as France’s new general consul in San Francisco.

In the first document, France’s Force Licorne (Unicorn) wrote to the Special Representative of the Secretary General about Gbagbo’s import of heavy weapons. Click here to view. More recently, France is accused of violating the arms embargo by providing and facilitating weapons to the forces of Alassane Ouattara.

The second document is an internal French cable detailing the Financial Organization of the Rebellion, down to a “racket” of shaking down money for taxi licenses.

In the third document, France bemoans the failure of a visit of three African heads of state to Cote d’Ivoire, including Nigeria’s Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki now active in Sudan, complaining that this situation can be prolonged until the international community decided to “impose a solution.”

In the fourth document, France analyzed and critiques South African policy toward Cote d’Ivoire and Gbagbo.

In the fifth document, France analyzes Liberia’s foreign policy as pro-American. More recently, a purported interview of a Ouattara commander describing coordinating with a French citizen working with the UN Mission in Liberia has surfaced.

In the sixth document, France analyzes the “discrete attitude” of the Malian press.

In the largest set of documents published today — there are more — France details its work in the UN Security Council on resolutions concerning the UN mission UNOCI.

One of the French diplomats involved was Romain Serman, who was later arrested by the New York Police Department. See arrest sheet and signed statement, here. Then French Ambassador de la Sabliere, to “avoid a scandal,” sent Serman back to Paris.

But in 2010 he was re-assigned to the US, as general consul in San Francisco. And so it goes.

Update at 1pm, April 8: at the UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky to describe how UNOCI has allowed Licorne to lobby it and attend its meetings, and if other countries have been allowed.

Nesirky said he would not comment on leaked documents, and also directed Inner City Press to ask the (French) chief of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy.

Matthew Lee is a senior reporter at Inner City Press. He can be reached at Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com.

Juppe & Ban Ki-moon on June 7, protection of civilians not assured

Amid reports of attacks on supporters of Laurent Gbagbo by the forces of Alassane Ouattara in Cote d’Ivoire, there appears to have been a hiatus in the “protection of civilians” trumpeted earlier this year by the UN and the French “Force Licorne” or Unicorn.

Last week Inner City Press asked the UN what its mission in Ivory Coast, ONUCI, is doing to protect civilians, and how it responds to reports of the killings of those perceived to support Gbagbo. Transcript below. So far there has been no answer.

On June 7 outside the UN Security Council, where previously France’s Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud spoke at length about the need for a resolution to empower UN and French attack helicopters to “protect civilians,” Inner City Press asked Araud’s boss French foreign minister Alain Juppe what France is doing to protect civilians:

Inner City Press: I want to ask on Côte d’Ivoire, whe[ther] the Force Licorne has a responsibility to protect civilians, even now. There has been a report of Ouattara’s forces engaged in reprisal killings, is Licorne still on the streets to defend people or is it to return to its [base] ?

Alain Juppe: Please don’t mix everything. In Libya we think that we are acting in the framework of resolution 1973 of the Security Council. We are targeting military objectives and we are avoiding the civilian casualties. On Côte d’Ivoire, everybody recognized that our intervention has been successful. We are now supporting the process of national reconciliation engaged by President Ouattara and President Ouattara said that there will not be impunity for any kind of massacres or of casualties made either by one side or the other one.

But the allegations are not only of impunity for killings before Gbagbo was seized, but after. Human rights groups report on killings since then, presumably with ONUCI and Licorne standing by.

Like Juppe, the UN has not answered. From the UN’s June 2 noon briefing transcript:

Inner City Press: there have been at least a number of major NGO [non-governmental organization] reports out about the killing of pro-Gbagbo supporters by Ouattara forces since Gbagbo was put under arrest. There is also an ICG report saying that the Government formed by Ouattara has virtually no members of Gbagbo’s party. So, on both of these two fronts, both the protection of civilians and on the sort of, quote, reconciliation, what does UNOCI [United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire] say? It seems that both of these respected NGOs have said that things are not going well, that the retaliation killings taking place, which presumably UNOCI should be trying to stop — So, what’s the UN’s response to that?

Associate Spokesperson: On human rights violation and abuses, there is the international commission of inquiry. It’s about to report — it was in Côte d’Ivoire, maybe it still is — and it’s about to report to the Human Rights Council in June, that session. So, I can check for the exact date if that’s helpful, but I think it would be that first and then I think the High Commissioner also will have a report during that session, also in June, in Geneva on Côte d’Ivoire. So, that’s the first thing. On the formation of the Government, I don’t really have a comment.

Inner City Press: Just to be clear, and I am talking about what UNOCI does day to day to quote, protect civilians, which is part of its mandate.

Associate Spokesperson: Yeah, yeah.

Inner City Press: Human Rights Watch is saying that since 11 April.. Gbagbo supporters have been killed in the Yopougon neighbourhood. So, I wanted to know… it’s not happening? Is UNOCI trying to stop it? it seems like a very different picture than what UNOCI is saying.

Associate Spokesperson: Well, UNOCI’s mandate includes the protection of civilians, as you know. So, if there are allegations they’ll certainly go and investigate them. They have a human rights division, and it documents human rights abuses and violations. I can check specifically if you want the Yopougon thing, okay. Anyone else?

But in the five days since, the UN has provided no answer. And on June 7, the Spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, Martin Nesirky, rushed in a nine minute noon briefing at exactly the time Alain Juppe was speaking at the Security Council, such that no questions could be asked of the UN. Watch this site.

By Mathew Lee

Matthew Lee is a senior reporter at Inner City Press. He can be reached at Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com.

Outdoor restaurants in Yopougon, usually packed, are deserted. Photo: Alexis Adélé/IRIN

People from ethnic groups seen as pro-Laurent Gbagbo are hiding out, using aliases in public and fearing for their lives, amid attacks by government forces in the main city Abidjan, residents told IRIN.

“It is total and constant insecurity for people from ethnic groups seen as pro-Gbagbo,” said a young man calling himself Toupé.

People from allegedly targeted ethnic groups have started using nicknames, “so when we address one another in public we cannot be identified”, explained another youth known as Pascal Soro.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a 2 June report says forces of President Alassane Ouattara’s government have killed scores of real or perceived backers of Gbagbo since the former president was arrested in April.

“The actions President Ouattara takes or fails to take in the coming weeks will define how seriously he takes this cycle of violence,” Corinne Dufka, HRW senior West Africa researcher, told IRIN.

Residents of the Yopougon District, from where the government army Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI) recently chased Gbagbo militia, told IRIN people from many ethnic groups – particularly Bété and Guéré – are not safe.

“We thought when FRCI came and forced the militia out, there would be security – it has been exactly the opposite,” Toupé said.

Attacks by FRCI are not linked to whether or not one was a Gbagbo militant, residents told IRIN. “It’s enough that you have a name from one of these ethnic groups of the west,” Toupé, from Yopougon, told IRIN from a neighbourhood where he has been hiding since mid-April. “You’re lucky if all you get is a broken arm or leg.”

He lived in the largely pro-Gbagbo Sicogi area of Yopougon. “For them [FRCI], if you’re a youth and you’re from there, you’re with the militia – that’s it, you’re through.”

Toupé said he has no news of his wife and one-year-old child, from whom he was separated when they all fled violence.

Reconciliation impossible?

Both Toupé and Pascal Soro said people back in their neighbourhoods, including friends from the Malinké ethnic group, tell them it is not safe to come back. “For now we’ve got to stay where no one knows us,” Pascal Soro told IRIN.

“We are truly imprisoned in our own country,” said Toupé. “We cannot even speak out. State TV gives the impression all is OK and on track towards reconciliation. Nothing could be further from the truth, but there is no place for opposition on the state airwaves.”

Yopougon residents say reconciliation in the country is impossible in the current environment. “If the new authorities want peace and reconciliation they must put an end to indiscriminate arrests and killings carried out each night on the pretext that the targets are opposition militia,” student Valentin Konet told IRIN.

Dufka said FRCI members suspected of abuses must be held accountable. “Initially the hope was that these were isolated acts by undisciplined elements and resulting from the loose and informal way FRCI was thrown together. The fact that high-level officers, who long held prominent posts in the [former anti-Gbagbo] Forces Nouvelles, are credibly implicated, raises considerable concern.”

HRW is calling on the government to put on administrative leave any FRCI members suspected of violations pending investigation.

FRCI and Ouattara communications officers said the new Ouattara government – announced on 1 June – was just getting installed and officials were not yet ready to comment on the report.

The US is at war in Africa. It has been at war as an integral part of the Cold War. It has had practical experience in African wars. America has been fighting wars in Africa since the 1950s – in Angola, the DRC, Somalia, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, Libya, Djibouti to name but a few counties. In some countries they used US troops, but in most cases the US financed, armed and supervised the support of indigenous forces. In its support of the anti- MPLA forces in Angola, it sent arms and equipment to the UNITA opposition. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Larry Devlin of the CIA was an unofficial branch of Mobutu’s government; the US ran its own air force at WIGMO. US airmen supported the South African forces in Kwando, Fort Doppies and Encana bases in the Caprivi from WIGMO. At these bases one could also find soldiers from Southern Rhodesia (in their DC3s) and German, French, Portuguese and other NATO troops.

One of the largest of these bases was at Wheelus Field, in Libya… Wheelus Air Base was located on the Mediterranean coast, just east of Tripoli, Libya. With its 4,600 Americans, the US Ambassador to Libya once called it “a Little America. During the Korean War, Wheelus was used by the US Strategic Air Command, later becoming a primary training ground for NATO forces. Strategic Air Command bomber deployments to Wheelus began on 16 November 1950. SAC bombers conducted 45-day rotational deployments this staging areas for strikes against the Soviet Union. Wheelus became a vital link in SAC war plans for use as a bomber, tanker refuelling and recon-fighter base. The US left in 1970.

Another giant base was Kagnew Field in Asmara. The base was established in 1943 as an Army radio station, home to the U.S. Army’s 4th Detachment of the Second Signal Service Battalion. Kagnew Station became home for over 5,000 American citizens at a time during its peak years of operation during the 1960s. Kagnew Station operated until April 29, 1977, when the last Americans left Kagnew Station.

However, with the end of the Cold War, the US has found itself fighting a much more difficult and insidious war; the war with Al Qaida. This is much less of a war that involves military might and prowess. It is a war against the spread of drug dealing, illicit diamonds, illicit gold and the sheltering of Salafists (Islamic militants) who use these methods to acquire cash which has sustained the Al Qaida organisation throughout the world. The political dichotomy between the Muslim North in Africa and the Christian/Animist South is not only a religious conflict. It is a conflict between organised international crime and states seeking to maintain their legitimacy.

There are now several ‘narco-states’ in Africa. The first to fall was Guinea-Bissau where scores of Colombian Cartel leaders moved in to virtually take over the state. Every day an estimated one tonne of pure Colombian cocaine is thought to be transiting through the mainland’s mangrove swamps and the chain of islands that make up Guinea-Bissau, most of it en route to Europe. As reported by Johnathan Miller[i]

“Western narcotics and intelligence agencies believe that up to two small twin-engine aircraft carrying up to 800kg of cocaine are landing on airstrips in Guinea- Bissau every night, having crossed the Atlantic from South America. The street value of a tonne of cocaine on the streets of European capitals is roughly £50m.”

Guinea-Bissau’s Interior Minister, Major Baciro Dabo, and the head of the navy, Jose Americo Bubu Na Tchutu, are alleged to be key facilitators of the trade.

This was equally true of Guinea under President Lansana Conte whose wives (and her brother) were shown to be kingpins in the Guinean drug trade. Many in the National Army were compromised and active participants. This drug trade has spread to Senegal, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria. There are very few jails anywhere in the world which are not home to West African ‘drug mules’ tried or awaiting trial or execution. This drug trade is spreading like wildfire in West Africa, offering remuneration to African leaders, generals or warlords well in excess of anything these Africans could hope to earn in normal commerce.

In countries like Nigeria there are several important businessmen, with many legitimate businesses and deep political attachments, who also deal as ‘druggies’ in this international exercise. The authorities know who they are but find it difficult to proceed against them. In West Africa, as in most area of the world, lots of money buys immunity and, often, impunity from the law. The ‘mules’ are picked up and punished but the ‘big men’ go free.

This burgeoning drug business was an offshoot of the political, economic and military connections which were made by Al Qaida in pursuit of their takeover of the “Blood Diamond” business in West Africa.

During the civil wars in Sierra Leone the Revolutionary United Front (‘RUF’) took over the diamond fields in the country; initially at Koon. The diamonds were mined by RUF rebels, who became infamous during Sierra Leone’s civil war for hacking off the arms and legs of civilians and abducting thousands of children and forcing them to fight as combatants. The country’s alluvial diamond fields, some of the richest in the world, were the principal prize in the civil war, and they have been under RUF control for the past four years.[ii] Small packets of diamonds, often wrapped in rags or plastic sheets, were taken by senior RUF commanders across the porous Liberian border to Monrovia, where they were exchanged for briefcases of cash brought by diamond dealers who flew several times a month from Belgium to Monrovia, returning to Pelikaanstraat in Antwerp.

The man in charge was by Ibrahim Bah, a Libyan-trained former Senegalese rebel and the RUF’s principal diamond dealer. After fighting with the Casamance separatist movement in Senegal in the 1970s, Bah trained in Libya under the protection of Col. Moammar Gaddafi. He spent several years in the early 1980s fighting alongside Muslim guerrillas against Soviet forces in Afghanistan where he participated in the creation of Al Qaida. He then left to fight alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon. He returned to West Africa, to Ouagadougou, where he is sheltered and protected by the President, Blaise Campaore. Campaore was already using Burkina Faso as a depot for arms to the RUF, Liberia and the rebels of the Ivory Coast. He took, and takes, his share of the blood diamond money whether they are sold to Al Qaida or Hezbollah.

The involvement of principal figures of Al Qaida in the blood diamond business is well documented.[iii] The Al Qaida and Hezbollah involvement in the illegal trade in diamonds, gold and other gemstones has tied in organised criminal activities with Islamic fundamentalism in the region, provoking a clash between the Islamists and the Christian/Animists. It has sparked civil unrest, as with Boku Haram in Nigeria and created a criminal enterprise which has taken over the Ivory Coast.

With the French-inspired and funded rebellion against the government of Gbagbo in 2001 the country was divided. The legitimate government of Gbagbo ruled in the South but the country was divided by a military line provided by the French Force Licorne and the United Nations peacekeepers. The North was free and protected to get on with its own businesses. It was run by tin pot warlords who drew their strength from their marauding bands of mercenaries, misfits and sociophobes who created little kingdoms of their own which they ran with rapacious style. They paid no taxes, they paid no rents; they paid no duties and they provided no social services. They stole everything they could find and shipped it out, usually via their home base in Burkina Faso.

In Burkina Faso, under the aegis of Blaise Campaore, they were introduced to the buyers from Hezbollah and Al Qaida. Ivory Coast has diamond mines. Illicit diamond mining in the northern part of Ivory Coast still continues and provides a healthy stream of diamonds to Al Qaida, especially Al Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

There are four big mines – Bobi, Diarabala, Seguela and Tortiya. The US sent a CIA team in to discover what was happening, now that Ouattara is notionally President. They attempted to trace the origin of around 300,000 carats produced locally last year and which generated earnings of roughly USD 25 million. The business is mainly controlled by two warlords, Issiaka Ouattara AKA “Wattao” and Herve Toure AKA “Vetcho.” The diamonds are smuggled out mainly through Mali and Guinea before ending up on the international market in Tel Aviv. These warlords are the backbone of the new Ivory Coast Army and tied closely to the Prime Minister, Soro.[iv] With the support of Campaore and the needs of the new Army, it is very unlikely that Soro will heed the call of his feeble President to stop the sale of blood diamonds to Al Qaida or to stop paying Campaore.

This thievery was repeated in the cotton and timber businesses. It was the Lebanese of Hezbollah who provided the motor scooters which the rebel irregulars imported duty-free to the Ivory Coast. Outright theft, as in Ibrahim ‘IB’ Coulibaly, who broke into a warehouse belonging to the United States agri-giant Archer Daniels Midland on the northern outskirts of Abidjan last month and sent at least 3,000 tonnes of cocoa to Ghana, was not a unique event. President Ouattara’s troops killed Coulibaly.

This litany of crime, corruption and the funding of Al Qaida and Hezbollah by the rebels in the Ivory Coast north was well known to everyone. Now they are in charge. Blaise Campaore is still in business. The cause of Al Qaida has been promoted on the basis of a notional anti-Muslim bias by the Gbagbo government. The reach of AQIM is now further south as all of the Ivory Coast is added to its reach.

The question one is bound to ask is what imp of the perverse overtook the US Government to support such a program. The US actively intervened to push the UN to take an active role in the military offensive against Ivory Coast civilians. It encouraged the amoral weasels of France to attack and kill civilians. The US has been in Africa, dealing with Africans since 1945. Agencies like the DEA are fighting a brave fight in trying to suppress the drug trade and the selling of blood diamonds. What perverse instinct of self-destruction has created a US policy which rewards its deadliest enemies and punishes its most loyal allies?

Words cannot express the utter stupidity and self-destructiveness of US policy in allying itself to the rabble of Ouattara and his friends. What government in Africa will ever trust or deal openly with such a maniacal formulation of national interest on the part of the US. The US is at war in Africa. To win, or survive, requires helping one’s friends and punishing one’s enemies. What imp of the perverse can have gotten things so wrong; and so often?

By Dr. Gary K. Busch

[i] Miller, Johnathan, “Drug barons turn Bissau into Africa’s first narco-state”, Independent 18/7/07
[ii] Farah, Douglas, “Al Qaeda Cash Tied to Diamond Trade” Washington Post 2/11/01
[iii] For a good, detailed account see “Global Witness “For a Few Dollar$ More: How al Qaeda moved into the diamond trade” April 2003.
[iv] Africa Miining Intelligence 31/5/11

Gary K. Busch is an international trades unionist, an academic, a businessman and a political affairs and business consultant for 40 years, and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa.

Pro-Quattara military check point.

Report released by Amnesty International charges that armed men fighting for both President Alassane Ouattara and ousted strongman Laurent Gbagbo carried out crimes against civilians. The report charges both sides with targeting their victims by their political affiliation, ethnicity or even names. Reprisal attacks and killings are still being committed by pro-Ouattara forces, six weeks after he came to power vowing peace and reconciliation, Amnesty International warned today. Ouattara, championed by the west during a deadly post-election conflict, has failed to condemn atrocities against real or perceived supporters of ousted president Gbagdo, the human rights group said. Amnesty also criticized the UN mission in Ivory Coast for ignoring pleas for help and for failing to prevent a massacre in the western town of Duékoué. The below video, produced by TV channel France24, does not mention this UN’s failure.

Amnesty’s report, which drew from interviews with hundreds of witnesses, detailed numerous cases where even women and children were targeted for ethnic, political or religious reasons. The report broke the violence into two phases. The first phase occurred in the urban center of Abidjan and was largely perpetrated by Gbagbo’s forces. The violence then moved to the countryside after Ouattara accepted the help of northern rebels, who killed hundreds as they pushed toward Abidjan.

Evidence collected by Amnesty International clearly demonstrate that crimes under international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by all sides. Much more is needed than just a process of truth and reconciliation.

Amnesty International

Violence particularly now targets supporters of Gbagbo. A journalist, who openly supported the Ivorian Popular Front of former President, Sylvain Gagnetaud, has been killed in a suburb of Abidjan, Reporters Without Borders said earlier this week. Gagnetaud was killed two weeks ago in Yopougon, where post-election violence between pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces was common, the group said in a statement posted on its website. The deputy editor and presenter at Radio Yopougon was arrested “during a sweep by pro-Ouattara forces through the Yopougon neighbourhood of Koweit on or around 8 May and was executed soon afterwards along with youths suspected of being militiamen, several different sources say,” the statement said. After Gbagbo’s arrest, Radio Yopougon was attacked and set afire on April 13, the reporters group said. “Gagnetaud had tried to flee Yopougon, where fierce fight was taking place,” it added. “Precise information about the circumstances of his arrest and death is not available.”

We are very disappointed to see that the situation continues to be very tense and delicate for many journalists and that reprisals are becoming more frequent. The ability of the security forces to shed light on Gagnetaud’s murder will be a test for the newly installed authorities. We urge the judicial system to identify and try those who were behind this journalist’s murder in order to end the impunity. We also call on President Ouattara’s government to keep its promises and to create the conditions for a free and independent press.

Reporters Without Borders

French leader Nicolas Sarkozy, right, arrives Saturday in the Ivory Coast capital for President Alassane Ouattara's inauguration. Photo CNN

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s said at a French Army base in Abidjan Saturday that French troops would remain in the Cote d’Ivoire “pour tuoujours” (for ever) while in almost the same breath saying French policy in Africa will change. But that is far from the only neo-colonial double speak in his important speech.

Sarkozy’s rendering of the events in the Cote d’Ivoire was very selective. It is true that victors write the history books but there are limits. For example, he said France will always honnor its defense commitments. If that were true, then France would have intervened against the 2002 coup from the north rather than protect it by attacking Ivorian government troops.

Sarkzoy said the French army’s role is not to intervene in African affairs although that is exactly what he did in the Cote d’Ivoire. France has intervened militarily in its former African colonies more than 40 times since independence. Allassane Ouattara would not be in power today without the French Army. There would have been no war if not for the French. A vote re-count would have been enough. But as Sarkozy said in 2007, for him La France-Afrique is over.

He said France did not take sides in the country which is totally untrue. France fought against President Laurent Gbagbo. Le Canard Enchainé satirical weekly has revealed France trained and equipped the rebels prior to their offensive and that French officers did the planning. Other sources speak of Burkina Faso’s aid to the rebels despite the so-called mediating role of its President Blaise Compoare, the Assassin of Thomas Sankara.

He said the international community was unanimous in supporting the UN resolution which France used to depose President Gbagbo. Also untrue. At least thirty-three nations were present at Laurent Gbagbo’s inauguration last December. The “wise men” of Africa such as Thabo Mbeki and Jerry Rawlings were calling for a vote recount. The UN has yet to release its vote count which Gbagbo’s government did.

Sarkozy said everything was done for the Ivorians to express themselves freely but the former government refused the people’s choice. None of the French sponsored accords were respected by the rebels who never disarmed and used their arms and control of the North to make sure Ouattara came out the winner. Lets not forget Gbagbo respected the accords, going as far as to name the rebel leader, and Compoaré sidekick, Guillaume Soro as his Prime Minister despite the blood on his hands.

Perhaps most importantly is what Sarkozy said will happen now. He has given Alassane Ouattara until July to draw up new trade agreements with the French ambassador because that is when Prime Mnister Laurent Fignon will come to sign them. France will get back the economic position it had before 2004, he said. That was when, after yet another French shooting of pro-Gbagbo supporters, the Ivorian government decided to diversify its foreign investors to the detriment of France and french businesses were targetted by angry protesters.

Sarkozy said the French Defense Minister would arrive within weeks to reorganize the Ivorian Army. This means that the country’s military will be an auxillary force of the French. But in the same breath he spoke of Cote d’Ivoire’s independence and of the people’s choice, forgetting that in the first round, despite the armed rebel presence throughout the north at polling stations, Ouattara only got a little more than 30% of the vote.

Everything Sarkozy said Saturday can only strike fear for the future in the hearts of all those Ivorians who believe Ouattara is France’s puppet and deputy to the other loyal French servant, Blaise Compoaré of Burkina Faso; to all those who believe Laurent gbagbo won the elections and that the UN cautioned Ouattara’s cheating under orders from Paris and Washington.

Sarkozy said “it is the Ivorians who must decide” yet he was dictating the road map for the next three months and determining whose economic interests would be tended to in the years to come.

The words ‘democracy’ and ‘rule of law’ or ‘independence’ in Sarkozy’s mouth ring hollow when compared to the actions of his government.

We have learned in the Arab Spring that there is such a thing as the Arab street. Well, there is also such a thing as the African street. Sarkozy thinks he can write the history of the Cote d’Ivoire now that he has destroyed the anti-French Gbagbo but the last chapter in the book of the Cote d’Ivoire has not been written. I am confident that, although the country is under the boot of the rebel thugs from the Noth who massacred, tortured and raped their way to Abidjan with French air support, the African street will make itself heard and one day France will pay for its neo-colonialist take-over of the Cote d’Ivoire.

By George Kazolias

George Kazolias is an American Journalist based in Paris and a Professor of Global Communications at the American University in Paris. He runs the blog kazodaily.