Mr. Dampha,

My initial reaction to Barnaby Phillips' report aired yesterday was similar
to yours.  However, I am willing to give Gbagbo's government which is barely
a week old a chance to get to know his way around the bureacracy he has
inherited.  Certainly, there are many old hands of the former Bedie and Guei
regimes still around. How long they will remain in Gbagbo's regime is any
body's guess. The moment of truth will be the December legislative
elections.  Should Ouattara's party and the PDCI win the majority of seats
as many political pundits believe, then Gbagbo will be left with little
choice but to compromise in one form or another, including a re-run. Why
force a re-run now, with all the dangers associated with this option, when
all the major players seem to be moving toward the middle ground, including
Ouattara who is seen as the main victim of a scewed electoral process? The
stakes are high: not only for CI but for the entire West Africa region.

Sidi Sanneh


>From: Dampha Kebba <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Ivory Coast: Reflections on people power
>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 16:08:39 EST
>
>See below an article I culled from the BBC. I thought it might interest
>some
>of you. Of particular interest to me was the depiction of the hypocrites
>that seem to survive the turmoil, so far. Since am not in Abidjan, I will
>defer to Mr. Sanneh and others who seem to think that Gbagbo should be
>allowed to benefit from this fiasco. The same shenanigans that led to the
>demise of Bedie and Guei will also destroy Gbagbo. I hope I am wrong, for
>the sake of the ordinary Ivorians. If we all agree that the October
>elections are flawed, then the fair thing to do is to call a re-run.
>Otherwise, we are just postponing the inevitable. I heard one of Gbagbo's
>supporters on BBC the other day saying that the Outtarra myth was just
>Western propaganda and that Ouattarra is not that popular in Ivory Coast.
>If
>that is the case, Gbagbo should not fear elections.
>KB
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>By Barnaby Phillips in Abidjan
>The very best and the very worst of humanity were so vividly on display in
>the main Ivorian city, Abidjan, this past week that I shall never forget
>it.
>
>When growing tensions finally exploded, I spent much of my time, crouched
>by
>the window of the BBC office, so conveniently located in the very centre of
>the city.
>
>We watched in awe as the crowds marched towards the soldiers on the streets
>below.
>
>Sometimes the soldiers fired over their heads, but sometimes they fired
>right into their ranks - live ammunition.
>
>The crowds would fall as each volley was fired, wait a moment, and then
>rise
>and carry on walking.
>
>Except that we could see that after each volley, not everyone got up - a
>few
>just lay still.
>
>It was this courage that carried the crowds forward, right to the gates of
>the presidential palace, and forced military leader General Robert Guei
>into
>an ignominious and hurried departure.
>
>Reality
>
>The following day, with the general gone, and the real winner of the
>elections, Laurent Gbagbo, ready to be sworn in as president, we were
>confronted with a much uglier and more complicated reality.
>
>Now we were out on the streets, driving through neighbourhoods devoid of
>all
>signs of life except for the ominous sight of gangs of young men guarding
>each junction ahead.
>
>They carried clubs, and their faces were covered in war paint, and they
>would order us to stop.
>
>These were many of the same youths who had defied the bullets the day
>before
>- now they were hunting down supporters of Laurent Gbagbo's great rival,
>Alassane Ouattara, who had enraged them with his call for new elections.
>
>"We are patriots and intellectuals, fighting a noble cause" one man said to
>me, as he checked whether passing vehicles were carrying anyone from the
>north of the country, which is Mr Ouattara's power-base.
>
>Any northerner discovered was lucky to be stripped naked and beaten -
>dozens
>were clubbed to death.
>
>Africa's Milosevic?
>
>Typically African you might say - that the heroism of a Belgrade-style
>people's uprising should degenerate so rapidly into that grim but familiar
>scenario of a vicious ethnic conflict.
>
>Well, perhaps, although there are plenty of people in Africa who will argue
>that if the Balkan wars weren't tribal, then what on earth were they?
>
>I'm not quite sure whether General Robert Guei is Africa's Milosevic, as
>some of the banners held up by the crowd suggested.
>
>The two men share a lust for power, which made them utterly indifferent to
>the disastrous consequences of their actions for their respective
>countries.
>
>But General Guei never really seemed like a man in control.
>
>The evening before he was overthrown, we gathered in the presidential
>palace
>for an extraordinary press conference.
>
>Just an hour earlier, the military had forcibly dissolved the electoral
>commission, which was giving out results suggesting that General Guei had
>lost.
>
>Pushing his luck
>
>This was more then he could take - he accused the commission of
>incompetence, and produced his own set of results, which gave him victory.
>
>It was outrageous, and the general had pushed his luck too far.
>
>Outside the palace central Abidjan was already deserted, as people rushed
>home, fearing the worst.
>
>Across the river, in the poorer suburbs, the barricades were already going
>up.
>
>But in the palace, the General was thanking the people for their wise
>selection, and promising to do the job to the best of his modest abilities.
>
>The crowd of cronies and sycophants sang the national anthem, and the
>General left the room.
>
>He's not been seen in public since.
>
>Plus ca change
>
>I marvelled at the stupidity of his closest supporters, and wondered what
>would happen to them in the tumultuous hours that were bound to follow.
>
>In fact, it was me who was being naïve.
>
>Two days later, in that same palace, the world had turned upside down, and
>yet nothing had changed.
>
>Laurent Gbagbo, for years seen as little more than a rabble-rouser off the
>street, was being sworn in as the new president.
>
>His wife could not hold back her tears.
>
>And there, in the room, were many of the same men, their faces beaming with
>smiles, who had stood beside General Guei two nights earlier.
>
>The impossibly suave Armenian, who has somehow made himself indispensable
>to
>everyone who rules Ivory Coast. And Brigadier-General Mattius Due, who had
>quickly transformed himself from hard-man in the military junta, to army
>chief-of-staff, serving a democratic government.
>
>And perhaps that is the real lesson of all revolutions, be they in Africa
>or
>in Yugoslavia.
>
>For all the gun-shots, smoke and drama, the really powerful people remain
>discreetly in the background, and, once the crowds have dispersed, quickly
>pick up where they left off.
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
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