The Ivory Coast government put the death toll at the hands of French forces at 62. The Red Cross estimated that more than 1,000 have been wounded.

Protests appear to have subsided after a week of standoffs between French armored columns and mass demonstrations. Ivorians had taken to the streets in response to the destruction of the country’s air force by French forces November 6 and Paris’s stationing of thousands of its soldiers near the residence of Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.

Bentegeat told French television that “We had to fire warning shots and we could indeed have wounded or killed a few people.” Paris’s scare campaign has been aided by media accounts of “mob unrest” against Europeans in Ivory Coast. “More than 2,000 foreigners—some of whom have been plucked by French helicopters from their besieged homes—have flown out of Abidjan in the last two days,” said a November 12 Reuters news dispatch.

Soon after the outbreak of the conflict the French government decided to evacuate thousands of its 14,000 citizens who live in this country of 17 million. Other imperialist powers have done the same. Harkening back to colonial times, the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Blair in London has even dispatched Nepalese Gurkha troops to guard citizens of the United Kingdom in Ivory Coast.

Some of those evacuated from the country have described the brutality of French forces against the population. “Witnesses said French helicopters fired on demonstrators,” said the Associated Press, which quotes one small businessman from the United States as saying, “Man, we heard of a lot of Ivorian friends dying” at the hands of French troops.

Other evacuees spoke with colonial arrogance. “It’s my country,” Natalie Coppati told the Los Angeles Times while waiting at the Abidjan airport for a flight to France. The Times presented her as one of the evacuees who had “made their lives and fortunes in this West African country.” Her family came to Ivory Coast in 1949, when it was still a colony, and struck it rich in the cocoa and coffee business.

The first week in November the French government increased its troop strength to 5,000 in Ivory Coast after Ivorian planes bombed a French army camp in the opposition-held city of Bouaké in the north. Nine French troops and one U.S. citizen died in the attack. Within hours French fighter planes destroyed most of Ivory Coast’s military aircraft.

Working with the French occupation, the United Nations has maintained 6,240 “peacekeepers” in Ivory Coast. On November 6, the UN Security Council authorized these forces “to use all necessary means to carry out” its instructions.

In September 2002, after a failed coup attempt against the Ivorian government, a civil war began. Thousands have been killed since and more than 1 million people driven from their homes. Paris expanded its military presence in Ivory Coast to 2,500 soldiers to shore up the government, and Washington sent in 200 Special Forces troops.

The New Forces, the principal anti-government militia, accuses the Gbagbo government of repression and discrimination against Muslims and immigrants in the north. After the regime proved incapable of putting down the revolt and securing conditions for continued exploitation of the country’s resources, Paris shifted its stance and has tried to broker a power-sharing arrangement.

The Gbagbo regime reignited the civil war November 4 when it ordered bombing raids against Bouaké and Korhogo. At the same time the government cut off electricity, water, and telephone services in all opposition-held territory. International relief agencies warned that after more than a week of these conditions there was a danger of a cholera outbreak. The BBC reported that these services had been restored November 12.

French imperialism’s domination of the country is based on its control of key sectors of the economy and infrastructure, including electricity, water, and telecommunications. According to the French embassy in Abidjan, 60 percent of the country’s tax revenue comes from French-owned companies.

Washington is closely watching the developments in Ivory Coast, ready to gain from the woes of its rival in Paris as it continues to expand U.S. influence in the region. U.S. corporations have been among the heaviest investors in the growing African oil industry, for example.

The African Union held an emergency summit in Nigeria November 14 in order prevent the Ivorian crisis from threatening neighboring governments in West Africa. Toward the same end South African president Thabo Mbeki is holding meetings with Ivorian opposition groups in Pretoria, but the antigovernment militia New Forces has refused to participate except as part of a discussion on removing Gbagbo from office.  
 
 
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