.png)
.jpg)
Two years after he took power in Ivory Coast, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara's efforts to pacify the country continue to be undermined by persistent unrest -- some of it perpetrated by elements of the president's support base. Several recent attacks have been attributed to supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was extradited to the International Criminal Court after contested elections in 2010, and Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party is boycotting upcoming regional and municipal elections.
But on April 12, protesters wearing army uniforms -- reportedly former members of a militia that fought to remove Gbagbo in 2011 -- disrupted traffic on the country's main north-south highway in the city of Bouake to demand payment for military service and integration into the government. The incidents illustrate the breadth of discontent and the diversity of security risks in the fractured country. The president faces no immediate threat to his hold on power, but the lack of reconciliation in Ivory Coast -- especially its southern regions -- portends continued instability.
Ivory Coast has been deeply divided and continually beset with security challenges in recent decades and erupted into civil war in 2002. In December 2010, Ouattara and his Rally of the Republicans party defeated Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front in national elections, but Gbagbo refused to concede power, citing vote-tallying disputes and accusing the opposition of voter fraud, especially in the northern regions of the country that at the time were occupied by an anti-Gbagbo militia called the New Forces. Under the command of Guillaume Soro and Ibrahim Coulibaly, the New Forces essentially made the northern half of Ivory Coast off-limits to the Gbagbo-led government, which received most of its support from ethnic Betes in southern and southwestern Ivory Coast.
As the electoral standoff wore on, the country's civil war resumed. In early 2011, the New Forces fought a series of battles against government forces, moving southward from bases in Bouake, Yamoussoukro (the official capital) and other central and northern Ivorian cities. The New Forces received major support from the French military, which maintains a permanent deployment in the France's former colony and deployed attack helicopters to counter Gbagbo's heavy weaponry and armor. Rebel militias captured Abidjan, the commercial and administrative capital, in April 2011, and with support from French special forces, they arrested Gbagbo at the Ivorian presidential palace.
Attacks and Ethnic Divides
Since taking office, Ouattara's regime has refashioned the New Forces as the Ivorian military -- now called the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast. Soro, the militia's commander, became defense minister and later prime minister. Still, the government has faced frequent attacks, supposedly by Gbagbo loyalists, in Abidjan, other parts of southeastern Ivory Coast and west along the Liberian border. The attacks have targeted primarily government security patrols and outposts, such as an assault on a police station on the night of April 8 in Abidjan's Yopougon neighborhood.
For Ouattara, the protest by uniformed soldiers in Bouake highlights the risks inherent in the emergence of ethnic issues, whether among those who oppose him or otherwise. Though the New Forces represented ethnic groups throughout northern Ivory Coast, the militia was internally divided into two main factions along distinct ethnic lines. Soro, the former group's political leader, comes from the Senoufo ethnic group, which makes up roughly 10 percent of the country's population and is found in far-northern Ivory Coast. Coulibaly, the former military commander, drew his support from the Kouya clan of the Malinkes, an ethnic group native to north-central Ivory Coast, including Bouake.
Soro has continued his rise to political prominence -- he is currently president of the National Assembly, and he recently accompanied Ouattara on a visit to France. But Coulibaly was killed soon after Ouattara took office in 2011, likely by Soro's forces. The protest in Bouake may stem in part from lingering resentment of Soro and indicates that Ouattara's efforts to rehabilitate ex-combatants have been unsuccessful.
At this point, the persistent insecurity does not threaten to oust the Ouattara regime, and a broader rebellion has yet to mobilize on the scale of what occurred in Ivory Coast a decade ago. But the government administration has proved unable to prevent hit-and-run attacks by small militia cells in Abidjan and elsewhere in southern and southwestern Ivory Coast. This has not led to a major withdrawal of foreign investment, but it has hindered an economic recovery in what was once West Africa's leading agro-industrial power. The lack of economic confidence and coordination has worsened to the point that, on April 10, the Ivorian parliament granted Ouattara the power to make economic decisions by unilateral decree -- a consolidation of power that will probably not improve economic coordination.
The country's regional and municipal elections on April 21 will not deliver widespread peace and good governance. France has said it will use its military contingent, numbering some 450 personnel, in Abidjan and to help secure the vote, but the tensions in Ivory Coast cannot be resolved by conducting training exercises and maintaining a permanent presence in the country. In addition to the boycott by Gbagbo's party, little reconciliation activity is occurring between the current and previous governments. Gbagbo remains at The Hague facing prosecution for crimes allegedly committed during his regime, and other members of his former government could still face arrest by Ouattara officials.
Moreover, the Ouattara government still must pacify its own support base to prevent new sources of strife from emerging. In Bouake, for example, negotiators from the local government responded to the protest with cash payments, though the degree of patronage extended is still unclear. Regardless, Ivory Coast will remain essentially unstable as long as the deep political strains in the southern regions remain unresolved.
Courtesy : Stratfor (www.stratfor.com)