arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

France, the US and the Uk didn't spend much time on considering whether to have their troops in the Ivory Coast or not. On Sept 21, only two days after some 750 Ivorian army personnel launched a mutiny and took over the cities of Bouake and Korhogo, France already send military reinforcements to Abidjan, the economic capital of RCI. The French 43d BIMA - "43ème Bataillon d'Infanterie de Marine", 600 people - is stationed permanently in Port Bouake at some 15 kilometers from Abidjan, and this due to French-Ivorian agreements signed in....1961-62 which "force France to intervene in case of external agression" ! This time, reinforcements came from other French military bases throughout West Africa.

The mutiny was started by troops likely to be dismissed from the Ivorian army. In 1999 the Ivory Coast saw a coup d'état led by general Robert Guei, who was shot dead by troops loyal to Ivorian government at the start of this new crisis in Thursday, September 19.

As always, the former colonial power France has said it is in RCI only to evacuate French people trapped by the skirmishes. Paris stresses that it will not intervene militarily in the Ivorian conflict. And so-called "observers" note "that the presence of French back-up soldiers may have a calming influence".

American troops came two days later. Some 200 US-soldiers (among them Special Forces) left from Germany on Sept 24 and were allowed to use Accra as a hub by the Ghanaian government. The State Department spokesman said that they were being "prepositioned" to act if necessary. Africa lies within the Area of Responsibility of the European Command of the US Armed Forces which has its headquarters in Germany. On Wednesday at least two American C-130 Hercules airplanes and "a limited number of Special Forces" arrived at RCI's political capital Yamoussoukro.

As always, the US underlined the humanitarian character of their mission. They asked the French to evacuate some 160 US citizens staying at the International Christian Academy in Bouaké, because heavy fighting was going on nearby. This school "is primarily serving the children of missionaries posted throughout West Africa", Washington said. The evacuation by the French was heavily publicised.

One has to ask why the US so quickly wanted to intervene, as none of its nationals were in danger. On Sept 26 Defence Minister Rumsfeld declared : "but there are about 300 official U.S. citizens in that country, about 2,300 other U.S. citizens in that country, the vast majority of whom are safe right now".
Part of the explanation is certainly that the USA has firmly shown its renewed interest for Africa as a back-up-region that is able to supply the world's only super-power with oil and other ressources. In this perspective, any instability in the region is unwelcome. A major proof that Washington wants to crush instability on its own, is the fact that it is starting to build a huge military complex on the islands of Sao Tomé and Principe, just South of Nigeria in the Atlantic Ocean. The agreement with Sao Tomé has been signed at the end of August.

On Wednesday Sept 25, Britain also send in "a small team of military experts...to see if further British intervention is required". British sources at that moment wrote : "it is understood German troops have also been deployed" but no confirmation at all was to be collected from German government sources. Nevertheless, on Thursday Sept 26 CNN's correspondent in the Ivory Coast, Jeff Koinange came with a similar information, saying that German troops were being deployed alongside French, Americans and British. But Berlin kept silent. The next day Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote
that the German government was considering to give military support ("Einsatz unterstützender Komponent...In Frage kamen dafür Spezialkräfte der Bundeswehr").

RCI's neighbours initially acted diplomatically to condemn what soon was to be described as a military coup attempt. But already on Monday Sept 23 Nigeria had sent some 30 soldiers to RCI and another 20 on Wednesday, together with 3 Army-jets. Some confusion surrounded this deployment, because at first (on Wednesday Sept 25) the Nigerian army denied that troops were going to RCI to take part in what now was taking the aspect of a multilateral intervention. Lagos stated that perhaps Nigerian troops on leave from the UN-force in Sierra Leone had landed in Abidjan. Later on Lagos confirmed that troops had been sent officially following the military coup in RCI.

At the end of the week, the heads of state of some 15 members of the West African economic community ECOWAS were to meet to discuss further implication in RCI's problems.

ECOWAS acts after the Ivorian government accused its neighbour Burkina Faso of having dealt with the army coup-plotters. Between the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso tension has been building up for years, because the very large Burkinabè community in RCI has been the victim of politically-linked ethnical and racist campaigns.

Some attention should be payed to a possible German military presence in the Ivory Coast. For decades and as a result of its defeat at the end of World War-2, the German army has been constitutionnaly prohibited to take part in military missions abroad. This changed at the beginning of the nineties and first of all in Eastern Europe.
During the war against Yugoslavia, Germany and its army have been working hard to blow Yugoslavia to pieces. Its subversive involvement was hidden under different kinds of peacekeeping-flags. In 2001, Germany was one of the first Western powers to immediately promise its military support to the American war against the worlds people's movements. That is why from January 2002 on, Germany stationned naval forces in Djibouti as part of "Task Force 150" which has to "break the logistic lines of terrorist organisations".

One major conclusion of the Ivory Coast incident might be that Western powers no longer want tor rely on so-called African Peacekeeping-Units. Since 1996-07, both the US and France have spent quite some energy and money to train African army-units and give them the capacities to intervene whenever an African country'd be in trouble. In reality, Washington and Paris were outsourcing their military interventions without giving away the true military command. Recent events in the Ivory Coast may show a reversal to old practices : the West marches in when its interests are threatened.

Raf Custers

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