Africa News Digest
President Mbeki Launches Exceptional War Avoidance Measure
By dispatching South African experts on disarmament to Iraq, to help the Iraqis in this process, South African President Thabo Mbeki has made an exceptional diplomatic move that could prove to be a successful war avoidance.
Some days ago, EIR had been advised by Toby Dodge of the University of Warwick, one of Britain's leading experts on Iraq and an opponent of an Iraq war, that a South African initiative of this sort, were it launched, could be one of the singular diplomatic-political "last-minute, war-avoidance" measures, in a situation that seems to him otherwise to be careening toward war.
According to BBC, Mbeki devoted significant attention to Iraq in his State of the Nation address before Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa on Feb. 14. He said that a team of disarmament experts would be travelling to Iraq to provide advice, based on South Africa's own experience. BBC notes that the UN's Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix has praised South Africa as a model of disarmament, and has urged Iraq to adopts that model.
Mbeki stated: "I'm pleased to inform the honorable members that Iraq has accepted our offer, which we have already discussed with the leadership of the weapons inspectors. We have done all this, because we prefer peace to war.... As South Africans and Africans, we know the pain of war and the immeasurable value of peace." He said that the South African experts were preparing to go "as we speak."
Paris Negotiations on Ivory Coast Created More Disasters
Opposing political forces in Ivory Coast, and neighboring West African leaders, are now dealing with the mess created by the French intervention, which was supposed to return Ivory Coast to peace. While the Paris round table negotiations could have created a turn for the better, half-measures and political bungling by the French resulted in their total failure by any standard. The negotiators, rather than choosing an option for the country and enforcing it, decidedin total disregard of any principles and against any type of logicunder the French influence, that President Gbagbo, whose immediate departure all opponents were demanding, would remain President until the end of his term in 2005, but with considerably limited powers: Gbagbo would rule with a "consensus prime minister" and with ministers of all the political and rebel movements in the Cabinet! Worse, at a summit of West African heads of state held immediately after the round table, Chirac, Kofi Annan, and Gabon's President Omar Bongo, in a private meeting with Gbagbo, imposed on him the distribution of the ministries, including that the defense and interior portfolios would go to the rebels who were trying to overthrow him!
The deal that Gbagbo accepted under pressure in Paris was totally unacceptable for the Ivorian army and for his partisans, who rejected the entire thing and set off tens of thousands of demonstrators against all of the French symbols in the country. In his speech to the nation Feb. 7, Gbagbo took the unusual step of asking forgiveness of his countrymen for the mistakes made in Paris. But it was not primarily he who should be asking forgiveness.
U.S. at Odds With France on Ivory Coast?
Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner and the leadership of the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Africa supported Ivorian President Gbagbo and leaned away from the French interpretation of the Marcoussis accords, in a Feb. 12 hearing of the Subcommittee, on prospects for a peaceful settlement in Ivory Coast.
In opening remarks, Committee chairman Rep. Edward Royce (R-Calif) said that the Marcoussis accords reward the rebels for insurrection; and that a major flaw of the accords is that they take no account of foreign support for the rebellion from Burkina Faso, Liberia, and possibly Libya. Royce added, "We need a backup plan in case Marcoussis fails."
Kansteiner embraced the Marcoussis accords in the broad sense, in his testimony, and said that "Marcoussis did not, however, specify how ministerial portfolios would be distributed." The accords call, he said, for the transfer of "some" powers to the new Prime Minister from the North, Seydou Diarra. (The French view is that "extensive" powers go to the Prime Minister, and the President becomes largely a figurehead.) Kansteiner appeared to support Gbagbo in "his determination to defend the Ivorian Constitution."
Royce asked, What pressure points exist to bring the rebels to accept a settlement? Kansteiner said only that the rebels could not move further south so long as the French held the ceasefire line. He did not address the possibility of northern secession.
Ranking Subcommittee member Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said he had discovered to his dismay that some people in the State Department favored the rebels. "I would like to see the U.S. more involved" in Ivory Coast, but not to the advantage of the rebels and not militarily, he said.
Fallout from Iraq War Opposition Colors U.S./French Relations
Meanwhile, in the French daily Le Parisien, on Feb. 5, special correspondent in Abidjan Philippe Duval, argues that the U.S. is letting the French twist in the wind in Ivory Coast and may come in on the side of President Gbagbo in due course. Because France seeks to obstruct American plans for an Iraq war, Duval writes, the Americans, with some relish, are making no special effort to help their ally out of the mess in Ivory Coast.
Duval points out that the U.S. demanded Jan. 31 that President Gbagbo apply the Marcoussis accords without delay, but then on Feb. 3, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer appeared to reverse this, speaking of "flexibility in the application of the accords"sounding like President Gbagbo. All the while, Washington maintained the appearance of supporting France by applauding President Chirac's actions.
Duval continues, "Even though it has troops in neighboring Ghana, the U.S. has no intention of intervening militarily. In revenge, it is using reliable forms of pressure on friendly intermediaries such as Ghana or Nigeria. The two Anglophone countries, which, at the outset of the crisis, offered to help Gbagbo, redoubled their efforts after some days of activity. That is not to say that they are looking for a quick solution. Because time is on the side of the Americans. The Americans, without saying anythingor nearly soare profiting from the anti-French spite that is taking over the population. The demonstrators Jan. 1 were chanting, 'USA .... USA' and hooting Chirac and Villepin."
Duval turns to "Bush's Anxieties," and writes, "Ivory Coast is rich. And there is oil in the Gulf of Guinea. The Hesitation Waltz of Francewhich, after having insisted on the 'legitimacy of the Ivorian government' wound up conceding the defense and interior ministries to the rebelsupsets the Americans. They fear the cards are going to be dealt anew, against their interests.... The recent collusions of Liberia and Burkina Faso with al-Qaeda emissaries, recently denounced by Western services, puts them in the camp of the terrorist menace. But Liberia and Burkina Faso are precisely the two countries that the Abidjan government accuses of having encouraged the rebellion."
French Report Claims de Villepin Offered Resignation
Le Canard Enchainé, the French weekly, claimed on Feb. 5 that French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepinunder fire from left and right over his handling of Ivory Coast crisistendered his resignation to President Jacques Chirac, "to take responsibility for France's 'failure' " in the management of the Ivory Coast crisis. If true, it may have been one of those offered resignations that are not meant to be accepted.
In a commentary in Le Figaro Feb. 7, "Dominique de Villepin Under the Fire of Criticism," author Anne Fulda says, "[O]n the left as on the right, in the National Assembly and even in the government," critics are saying [such things as], "This time, he has exploded in flight".... "The flamboyant Foreign Minister has put a match to powder in Ivory Coast." But those nearest to de Villepin remain confident and say that "contrary to certain rumors, [he] has not offered his resignation to Jacques Chirac," and that Chirac, in any case, continues to have confidence in him.
Northern Rebels in Ivory Coast Threaten Secession
Ivory Coast's rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, the MPCI Secretary General, responded to President Gbagbo's Feb. 7 address according to Le Nouvel Observateur Feb. 10, with the following, "Gbagbo is saying to the nation clearly that he has no need of us. He had better not push us to the point that we organize the autonomy of our zones.... If he has no need of us, we have no need of him."
In addressing the nation, President Gbagbo said that 90% of the value of production and 82% of the population are found in the southern zone controlled by the government, while the rebels control 60% of the territory, Le Nouvel Observateur notes.
Soro said that "France had taken the risk of peace [that is, of achieving a ceasefire], it must now take the risk of imposing the application of Marcoussis, and impose Marcoussis, which means pulling its troops back from the front lines."
Death Squads an Issue in Ivory Coast Crisis
Ivory Coast death squads make it difficult for Gbagbo's government to rise above the level of the rebels. President Laurent Gbagbo, according to Le Monde, has used death squads against rebels, since the beginning of the conflict under the influence of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, an American Pentecostal church of British-Israelite origins, into which his wife Simone has brought him. Simone Gbagbo is the leader of the parliamentary group of her husband's ruling party.
A UN investigation "compiled information to the effect that the death squads are made up of elements close to the government, the Presidential Guard, and a tribal militia of the President's ethnic group. Names were provided," according to its report of Jan. 24, by the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, who led the mission to Ivory Coast Dec. 23-29, 2002.
When Gbagbo and his ministers are asked about them, they deny government involvement, but do not make any specific accusations, and do not arrest anyone. Under pressure of healthy public opinion, the government has opened inquiries into the deaths of two or three of the most prominent victims.
Extrajudicial and politically targetted executions are by no means limited to the south of the country, according to the UN report. It says, "Many executions of gendarmes and police officers in Abidjan, Bouake, and Korhogo, when the MPCI combatants advanced into these towns, were reported.... [T]he national armed forces of Cote d'Ivoire based in Daloa informed the mission of the existence of blacklists of people to be executed circulating in the areas controlled by the MPCI combatants."
More broadly, the human rights picture on both sides is very ugly, and includes heavy recruitment of child soldiers on the rebel side, according to the UN report.
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