An interesting site on the role of France in the Ivory Coast...

[Lancer]

[Spiffor]

On topic:

The French intervention in Ivory Coast has strongly to do with two things:

1. Keep order in the world's 1st exporter of Cocoa. Which has been the shopping window of our neocolonial empire for decades, incidentally.
2. Avoid a new Rwanda, which was a serious possibility.

Those are the reason we have 4000 troops there in the first place (since late 2002 IIRC, i.e. two whole years before the near-war of last november). The reason why we attacked the loyalist air force and occupied Abijan was because the loyalists have pushed their luck, and were breaking the cease fire our troops were enforcing. Abijan also ran the risk of being overrun by young looyalist maximalists, that would have been a great risk for French citizens there.

What the Monde Diplo (a very left wing source, if I may add ) won't say is that the French intervention in Ivory Coast is not the old brand of neocolonialism, only more blatant. For France, it's a first, and a step in the right direction. Let me explain:

- We used to know and bribe pretty much every African leader, and thus most of them were sympathetic to France (strong personal networks). Here, Gbagbo is an ideologue, that wants Ivory Coast real independence. Save for Congo's Kabila 8who wasn't an ideologue, but a whore of another country), we never encountered such a thing in our neocolonial past.

- We used to install the African leaders we wanted, and to back them with direct military intervention. Had we been in the old days, we'd have occupied Abijan as soon as the operation had begun, and we'd have replaced Gbagbo with whatever pawn was convenient.
- Instead, we pushed for negociations between the two sides. We attempted to take the demands of both sides into account, to work on a tolerable compromise. We also use the help of the African Union in maintaning the demarcation line.

- As candid as it can seem, I think a strong reason for the intervention is a moral one. After the Rwandan genocide, it seems there has been a real feeling of guilt and disgust that swept through the French leadership. Of course, the fact we sold weapons to a regime that had prepared the genocide for years had something to do with it. IMO, many diplomats and leaders couldn't accept the idea of a genocide happening in the former shopping window of our empire.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Spiffor
On topic:

The French intervention in Ivory Coast has strongly to do with two things:

1. Keep order in the world's 1st exporter of Cocoa. Which has been the shopping window of our neocolonial empire for decades, incidentally.
2. Avoid a new Rwanda, which was a serious possibility.

Replace,

Cocoa -> Oil
Rwanda -> North Korea

and you are basically justifying US intervention in Iraq

[Lancer]

Spif, thanks for the excellent explanation

Why would the left wing Monde Diplo be so openly critical?

[Spiffor]

Re: Re: An interesting site on the role of France in the Ivory Coast...

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Ivorian "governemnt" is run by a brutal military dictator who has lost control over much of the country. The French negotiated a cease fire between the government and the rebels which the government alost immdediately violated by massacring civilians in a raid on rebel held areas. The French peace keepers intervined and the government forces started shooting at the French soldiers so the French responded by bombing the **** out of most of the government buildings and military sites. Pretty reasonable really.

Now the government backers hate the French and claim they have sided with the rebels.

As much as I oppose Gbagbo, much of this post is false:

1. Laurent Gbagbo was democratically elected. His background is one of a civilian politician (he learned with the French Socialists), and not of a military leader poised on getting power. Laurent Gbagbo can be brutal, but I don't think he is significantly more brutal than any other African leader. The real risk of genocide doesn't really come from him, it comes from his supporters, many of them are blinded by a jingoistic fury.

2. The cease fire has been upheld for months. During the last one year and a half (when the compromise was signed), there were rebel leaders in the joint government for most of the time. Last november saw a gambit of Gbagbo's: he thought he could scare France off Ivory Coast, by attacking a French base (thus showing the French they could die too), and by letting his loyalists nearly riot in the streets of Abijan. The plan failed, but it wasn't entirely unreasonable.

3. The government backers hate the French, mostly because they see France as rearing its nose in matters they consider to be only theirs (neocolonialism). Many think they could win a definitive victory against the rebels (let's call them "the north", which would be more accurate), if their hands weren't tied by France.
The reason is, as usual in African politics, maximalism. There is very little culture of compromise in African countries, and this is the reason why so many civil wars have occured. Heck, as recently as this week, each of the candidates in the Togo election declared themselves president!

This is why it is so hard to find a workable compromise, because nobody wants to compromise. I think the Rebels have now come to back France (it wasn't always the case), because they see they have got more out of the agreement than they could have fought for. The loyalists hate the agreement because they feel shafted (their position in the agreement doesn't mirror their perceived strength), and because it's being enforced by the hated neocolonial France.

The situation is complex.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lancer
Why would the left wing Monde Diplo be so openly critical?

Le Monde Diplomatique is originally a French newspaper. Obviously, in France, the question about whether you like France or not (and defend or attack whatever it does) is not exactly the same as in the US

Le Monde Diplo opposes colonialism, and perceives the French intervention in Ivory Coast to be neocolonial (something I disagree with - for neocolonialism, see our behaviour in Togo, it's much more clear-cut). Thus, it criticizes it on idoelogical grounds. In such a journal, it matters little which nation is doing the bad thing. What matters is the bad thing in itself, which is judged on moral grounds.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Master Zen
and you are basically justifying US intervention in Iraq

Actually, if the war in Iraq hadn't been such a quagmire afterwards, and a frightening PR hit, it would have been a rather sound policy (no matter how immoral): no world leader wants a rogue with nukes, and you can only prevent it before they get nukes (which is why an attack on Iran would be a sound policy as far as the US is concerned). As for oil, I can understand that they want to take their oil in a friendly government, rather than in a Saudi Arabia that uses its oil money to finance radical Islam

[Lancer]

"Le Monde Diplo opposes colonialism, and perceives the French intervention in Ivory Coast to be neocolonial (something I disagree with - for neocolonialism, see our behaviour in Togo, it's much more clear-cut). Thus, it criticizes it on idoelogical grounds. In such a journal, it matters little which nation is doing the bad thing. What matters is the bad thing in itself, which is judged on moral grounds."

Spif, believe it or not I too occasionally disagree with the left also. Nice we have this in common.

[KrazyHorse]

Iraq wasn't getting nukes any time in the near future. The idea of invading Iraq to fend off their nuclear program is laughable on its face.

[KrazyHorse]

Which is why the Iraq war was most certainly not a sound policy from the US' point of view.

It's much closer to being justifiable on humanitarian grounds. I think that the costs outweigh the benefits in this instance, but it's certainly not clear cut.

Either way, Iraq is much closer to being a moral war than it is to being a smart war for the US.

[Lancer]

You can't seem to discuss anything but Iraq KH.

[KrazyHorse]

Though it wouldn't have sold as well in the US as did the scare tactics, portraying the Iraq war as humanitarian (and pro-democratic) in nature ahead of time would have scored the US some points in the middle east, in my opinion. They're doing it now, but they're getting less credit than they would have if they'd preceded the war with that justification. Most particularly among the type of people who need to be convinced that the US is looking for democratic reform in the middle east, that the US will be a friend to Arab democracies, and that the US is not simply a hegemonic power who is uninterested in the will of the people.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Lancer
You can't seem to discuss anything but Iraq KH.

Because French intervention in Ivory Coast is a much less interesting question. It has fewer long-range consequences, is more manifestly justified etc. I already made a statement to this effect.

I have a feeling that the type of people opposed to that intervention are the type of people who are opposed to any intervention anywhere in the world.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm also pointing out that this humanitarian wars do not provide a black and white standard, in response to Zen's posts.

Though the same type of justification can be used in the two cases, in one the numbers clearly swing in favour of intervention, while in the other they do not, in addition the fact that the long-term political consequences are much more severe in one than the other.

[Frankychan]

Bah! Oh please......the ENTIRE friggin continent of Africa has been the rest of the worlds b****. Any resource you want? Sure, we'll supply it. The blood diamonds, the coltan for our cellphonese, every thing is being exploited from Africa.

Ther are a hell of a lot of atrocities committed in Africa (g'dammned I'll call it fricken GENOCIDE) but in the UN 'genocide' is a taboo term because it carries a lot more responsibility than not calling it what it really is. The Hutu/Tutsi (sp?) rebellion? I'll bet you dime to dollar that if this was going on in Europe there would be the fricken Hague action on this.

But AFAIK, the African continent is seen as the world's mineral resource, despite all the people's suffering there.





Anyway, carry on...