Paris, the former colonial power in Ivory Coast, left a legacy of divisions among the population, including between Muslims and Christians, as part of its divide-and-rule tactics. This legacy has remained a source of conflict, and an obstacle to workers and farmers who oppose imperialist domination.

Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, whose base of support is in the largely Christian south, has become increasingly unpopular, particularly because of policies that discriminate against immigrants and residents of the largely Muslim north, where many antigovernment soldiers originate. His regime is confronting an armed revolt by groups in the north and western parts of the country.

The current instability wracking the country began in 1999 when Gen. Robert Guei took power in a military coup. The following year, with Gbagbo running against him, Guei declared himself president after elections in October that were widely viewed as rigged, but he was forced to flee in the wake of mass protests against him. The Supreme Court declared Gbagbo the winner, and he took office on October 26, 2000.

Under Gbagbo’s rule, government and paramilitary forces have waged assaults on immigrants and Muslims in the north. Native-born Ivory Coast workers and farmers who are of northern ethnic groups that are also found in neighboring countries are often required to provide proof of citizenship. Cops have routinely harassed and brutalized residents who are originally from other countries in the region.

With the second-largest economy in West Africa and higher living standards than many other countries in the region, Ivory Coast had been a magnet for immigrants who have come to work in its vast cocoa and coffee plantations. Immigrants make up about 30 percent of the nation’s 16 million people. About 3 million of the 5 million immigrants are from neighboring Burkina Faso. Workers and farmers in Ivory Coast, however, have been devastated by an economic downturn in 1999 and 2000 that was spurred on by falling world cocoa prices and growing political turmoil.  
 
Largest military intervention in Africa
In September 2002, mutinous soldiers launched a failed coup to overthrow Gbagbo during which the former military ruler Guei was killed. In response to the unrest, Paris dispatched 1,000 troops to back the regime in what it described as "logistical support."

Washington also seized on the crisis to seek to gain a greater foothold in a region long dominated by its imperialist rival in Paris. Under the guise of protecting U.S. schoolchildren, Washington sent three military planes carrying 200 troops and equipment to the country. Since then the U.S. troops have been operating out of a base in neighboring Ghana. On February 6 a U.S. military detachment of 20 men arrived at the Abidjan international airport in a U.S. Air Force transport plane. The soldiers were a "military advisory team...to monitor the situation with us," an unnamed U.S. embassy official told the Associated Press.

Some 3,000 French military personnel are now deployed along the front line of the government-held southern region--Paris’s largest intervention since it sent a similar number of troops to Chad in the 1980s.

The territory in the northern half is currently controlled by the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement, the main antigovernment group. The west is occupied by two other opposition factions that have emerged.

The Ivory Coast war has killed more than 1,000 people and uprooted more than 1 million from their homes. The conflict has also paralyzed agricultural production.

In face of the regime’s inability to stanch the revolt, Paris has begun to hedge its bets. The French government is now pressing Gbagbo to accept a power-sharing deal it brokered January 24.

The accord would reportedly guarantee opposition groups appointments to the top posts in the defense and interior ministries, effectively giving them control over the army and police force.

Ivory Coast government and military officials have rejected the power-sharing deal. "These posts cannot go to the rebels," said an adviser to President Gbagbo. "There’s nothing to discuss." Gbagbo drew up his own list of appointees. The Ivory Coast president did not attend the recent Franco-African summit in Paris sponsored by President Jacques Chirac of France.  
 
Massive anti-French protests
The Gbagbo government, tapping the hatred of French colonial and imperialist rule, has mobilized supporters in huge anti-French protests in Abidjan, the largest city. Estimates of the size of the crowd ranged from 100,000 to 300,000. For two weeks demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people in the streets denounced the agreement and accused the French government of imposing the pact. Some of the marches passed by the U.S. embassy, with some demonstrators chanting "U.S.A. U.S.A." and carrying signs reading "Our freedom is in your hands. U.S.A. Save Us from Oppression." At one of the demonstrations some protesters chanted, "Chirac, assassin!"

The international media reported that for three days gangs of youths ransacked French businesses, schools, and homes, the Air France office, the French embassy, and the French Cultural Institute. Thousands stormed the Abidjan airport on January 31 as French citizens were catching flights. French troops intervened as angry demonstrators shouted insults at those fleeing the country.

In response to the protests Paris sent an additional 450 troops to Ivory Coast. "The 450 sends a message," a French Defense Ministry spokesman declared.  
 
French concerns about investments
In a not-too-subtle threat against Ivory Coast officials, Chirac declared February 20 that government-backed death squads were operating in that country. Speaking alongside United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan at the Paris summit, Chirac warned that "all this could end up before the international tribunals," the French daily Le Monde reported.

For the imperialist rivals in Paris and Washington, what is at stake in the Ivory Coast is control of a wealth of natural resources and of a strategic region. The West African country is the largest producer of cocoa beans--some 40 percent of the world’s crop--as well as a major exporter of coffee and palm oil. It also has diamonds, manganese, and rubber, as well as large oil and gas reserves off the coast. An oil refinery in Abidjan and eight oil companies are engaged in distributing and exporting petroleum products.

French capitalists control key sectors of the country’s infrastructure, including electricity, water, telecommunications, port services, and construction. French-owned companies have major financial interests in the cocoa, rubber and timber trades. French troops guard the port in San Pedro where dried cocoa beans and timber are transported in large trucks.

Eyeing this wealth, the U.S. rulers have been seeking greater influence in the region. U.S. officials in Congress and the Pentagon have held discussions on stepping up military exchanges with West African countries and on possibly establishing a military base on the island of Sao Tomé.  
 
 
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