Côte D’Ivoire: Ethnic Nepotism Under Alassane Dramane Ouattara

By Gaha Bi Loùkou, Tata Kôkôtrè and Océane Siloué

This document is the result of a field study conducted by a multidisciplinary group of men and women whose common point is the profound engagement to Côte d'Ivoire, the requirement for objectivity and the commitment to justice. This group is called "Group of Patriotic Investigators." The collective work of this group has been made under the supervision of Bi Gaha Loùkou, Tata Kôkôtrè and Océane Siloué.
The nature of the facts observed and reported in this paper on the Ivorian political landscape has often required the investigators to get into the skin of the leaders, officials, members, and supporters of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in particular, but also of the citizens supposedly close to ex-President Laurent Gbagbo in general. Those are the expiatory victims of a policy of ethnic cleansing. The main actors of this landscape are the National Congress of the Resistance and Democracy (CNRD) and the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) on one hand, and the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP including the RDR and PDCI as main actors) on the other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664189485

Gaha Bi Loùkou

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Copyright © 2021 by Gaha Bi Loùkou, Tata Kôkôtrè and Océane Siloué.

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Rev. date: 09/23/2021

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Collection: States, Powers and Societies

Under the supervision of Michel Galy

CONTENTS

Remarks

Introduction

Foreword

Chapter 1    Statement regarding the issue and the question of methodology

Chapter 2    The origins of the ethnic nepotism: a planned hegemonic policy

Chapter 3    The North and Northerners: demographic, political and socio-economic aspects

Chapter 4    Ouattara’s segregationist policy and its consequences

Chapter 5    The Justice system under Ouattara: an instrument of ethnic nepotism

Chapter 6    What can be done against ethnic cleansing?

Conclusion

Bibliography

REMARKS

This document is the result of a field study conducted by a multidisciplinary group of men and women whose common point is the profound engagement to Côte d’Ivoire, the requirement for objectivity and the commitment to justice. This group is called Group of Patriotic Investigators. The collective work of this group has been made under the supervision of Bi Gaha Loùkou, Tata Kôkôtrè and Océane Siloué.

The nature of the facts observed and reported in this paper on the Ivorian political landscape has often required the investigators to get into the skin of the leaders, officials, members, and supporters of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in particular, but also of the citizens supposedly close to ex-President Laurent Gbagbo in general. Those are the expiatory victims of a policy of ethnic cleansing. The main actors of this landscape are the National Congress of the Resistance and Democracy (CNRD) and the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) on one hand, and the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP including the RDR and PDCI as main actors) on the other.

INTRODUCTION

From April 11, 2011 to January 25, 2012, supporters of Laurent Gbagbo have been constantly questioning the real motives of the repression that fell upon them, and continues to fall on them in almost total indifference of the international community, threatening the economic survival and the spiritual standing of Côte d’Ivoire as a whole. On Wednesday January 25, 2012 the oppressed Ivorians had the answer to their anguished questions. Indeed, that day, during his first state visit to France, President Alassane Dramane Ouattara answered a question from Vincent Hugueux, a reporter from the newspaper L’Express, about the promotion of the people from the Northern region of Cote d’Ivoire, from where Ouattara allegedly is:

It is a simple ethnic readjustment. Under Gbagbo, northern communities, estimated at 40% of the population were excluded from positions of responsibility. Regarding senior officials of the army, I had to negotiate with the officers of the former Forces Nouvelles [FN, former armed rebellion], who wanted to occupy all positions. And I managed to impose this balance in the military hierarchy to the level of command: the number 1 from the FN, flanked by a No. 2 from the old regular army. All ranks combined, there are 12% of Northerners in the police force, 15% in the gendarmerie and 40% in the army ...In the light if this, one cannot blame me for anything.

1. This statement by the Ivorian head of State expresses bigotry and ethnic bias against the Ivorian community. It also reveals the practices and methods of ethnic cleansing through the experience of governance of this Head of State. And the Front Populaire Ivoirien (Ivorian Popular Front, FPI) could not have been indifferent to such practices. Former ruling party committed to democracy, the FPI has worked to strengthen cohesion and national unity despite and against the rebellion of September 19, 2002. The FPI had a duty and responsibility to respond to such defamatory and dangerous allegations. These allegations are false, and even dangerous because they come from the Head of State himself who now appears as a tribal chief warring against a large segment of the people he is supposed to govern. By doing so, he fails, in all circumstances, to be the guarantor of the unity of the nation under the Constitution.

2-To carry out this work, the investigators took certain precautions necessitated by the requirement of reliability and authenticity of data collected as part of this response. Their premise is that no one can fight effectively against other truths with lies. In this sense, investigators have relied on three (3) sources of verifiable information.

The first source of information exploited by investigators takes into account the National Archives (the list of 38 governments formed from 30 April 1959 to 13 March 2012), the reports of the General Directorate of Territory Administration, Census results of the General Population and Housing (1998), and the book "La Cote d’Ivoire en chiffres¹ (Côte d’Ivoire by the numbers).

The investigators then used the national and foreign press, electronic publications, and reports by some international NGOs (International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc..).

Finally, the third source of information consists of records of meetings that the FPI had with the new authorities, delegations of the Security Council of the European Union, the African Union, ECOWAS, and Organizations of Human Rights. This set of information allowed investigators to take stock of the ongoing abuses since April 11, 2011, as well as the short-and long-term ethnic cleansing of neo-Nazi type against the Gbagbo camp, within the framework of a simple ethnic nepotism (Sic).

Based on data collected rigorously, it was possible to deconstruct and expose, in a retrospective and prospective double angle, the segregationist policies at work in Côte d’Ivoire. This report is structured around six (6) chapters:

- Chapter I: Problem statement and methods

- Chapter II: The Origins of the ethnic nepotism: A hegemonic and planned policy.

- Chapter III: The North and northerners: demographic, political and socioeconomic aspects.

- Chapter IV: Ouattara’s segregationist policies and their aftermath

- Chapter V: The judiciary under Ouattara: an instrument of the ethnic nepotism policy.

- Chapter VI: Facing the ethnic cleansing, what should we do?

3-How many people comprise the Northern region of côte d’Ivoire? Were they really marginalized by the various regimes, including the regime of Laurent Gbagbo?

The investigations show that Côte d’Ivoire is an ethnic mosaic consisting of five (5) cultural areas: Akan (31.1%), Gur (13%), Northern Mande (12.2%), South Mande (7. 4%) and Kroo (9.4%). By 1960, the country was structured around six (6) Regions called Initial or Historical Regions:

i. The south is not opposed nor is it binding to the geographic South because it includes both Akan and Kroo;

ii. The Mid-West (Kroo, South Mandé, Northern Mandé);

iii. The East (Akan, Gur);

iv. The Center (Akan, Gur);

v. The North (Northern Mandé, Gur) and

vi. The West (South Mande, Kru).

It was much later (1980 - 1990) that the various efforts of administration and decentralization have increased the number of regions from 6 to19. Contrary to the allegations of Mr. Ouattara, the Ivorian North (populated by northern Mande and Gur) represents 25.22% of the national population, far from the 40% announced on 25 January 2012. Then, why is the policy of ethnic nepotism based on false pretenses? And especially why would a President lead a movement of vengeance for the benefit of his ethnic group? The answers to these questions can be found primarily in the concept of "Ivoirité" (ivorianness) if we are to believe some prevalent opinions.

Even under that angle, the current ethnic nepotism is in no way a response to the concept of Ivoirité. Indeed, the project of ethnic nepotism goes back to the early 1990s. It must be remembered that at that time, Mr. Alassane Dramane Ouattara had legal disputes about his nationality. Vying to succeed late President Houphouët-Boigny, Ouattara was able to unite around him and his personal ambitions the community of his Muslim brothers in the Northern part of the country. This movement led to the publication of a charter known as the Charter of the North, a scathing ethnocentric document written in 1991, a time when the battle of succession to Houphouët-Boigny started. This charter sheds a harsh light on the strategy of conquest of power from the very beginning, based on the exploitation of tribal oppositions capable of leading to Civil War. This strategy is that of Alassane Dramane Ouattara (said journalist Theophile Kouamouo). Linking ethnic nepotism and the concept of ivoirité is therefore disingenuous because the source of the ethnic nepotism as a mode of political governance under Ouattara began in 1991, whereas the concept of Ivoirité is not in itself ignoble or infamous.

The Ivoirité concept wants indeed to claim a specific cultural personality that is the perfect product of intelligent fusion of traditions and modernity. Moreover, the Ivoirité concept as social and political project is neither an isolated concept in the world nor an exclusionist approach. Indeed, from the semantic point of view, the concept of Ivorianness is close in meaning to words such as Frenchness, Arabism, the Sénégalité or even American Way of Life. Unfortunately, he was led astray by Ouattara’s political party, the RDR (Rassemblement Des Republicains) and its allies who have overused it opportunistically and for political ends.

4 - Regarding the marginalization of northerners under President Laurent Gbagbo, the facts, including those of previous regimes, contradict by all means the charges lead by Alassane Ouattara.

✓ Under Félix Houphouët-Boigny (April 1959 - November 1993), the northerners have occupied the second position in the successive governments (22.25 ° / °);

✓ Under Henri Konan Bédié, the father of the anti-northerner concept of ivoirité (December 1993 - December 1999) they occupied the same second place (24.49%);

✓ Under Robert Guei (December 1999 - October 2000), they occupied the third position (25.35%) after the Akan (38.03%) and the Kroo (29.58%). Here, the Northerners have increased their presence in the successive governments from 22.25% (under Félix Houphouët-Boigny), 24.49% (under Henri Konan Bedie) to 25.39% under Robert Guei;

✓ Under Laurent Gbagbo (October 2000 - April 2011) who is blamed by Alassane Ouattara for marginalizing the Northerners, the numbers match the trend observed since the beginning, with a dazzling breakthrough of the Malinke (Mande North) who occupy the first place (62 nominations) before the Baoulé (58 nominations) and the Bete (51 appointments) of all 21 ethnic groups represented in the governments of Laurent Gbagbo.

✓ While under Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Henri Konan Bedie and Robert Guei, the Northerners were represented by three (3) ethnic groups (respectively Malinke, Senufo and Tagbana; Malinke, Senufo and Tagbana, Malinke, Senufo and Lobi), under Laurent Gbagbo, there are four (4) ethnic entities representing the North (Malinke, Senufo, Tagbana and Djimini). It is thus clear that Gbagbo is the one who integrated the Northerners the most, contrary to the claims of Alassane Ouattara.

✓ More significantly, along with Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Laurent Gbagbo is the Ivorian Head of State who got the largest number of grassroots communities involved in national politics: 22 by Félix Houphouët-Boigny in 33 years of power; 21 by Laurent Gbagbo in 10 years of power; 18 by Henri Konan Bedie in 6 years as the head of the State; 17 by Robert Guei in 1-year of power. It is therefore no coincidence that the results of the first round of presidential elections in 2010 have Laurent Gbagbo as the most transethnic leader of the country (see map # 6).

✓ Moreover, of all regions of the country, the North is one that has received the most from the State of Côte d’Ivoire, in term of political, financial and cultural support, specifically in the context of the policy of reducing regional disparities. In these reports, Laurent Gbagbo has significantly worked to promote the North, while the country was split in two by a rebellion designed and conducted by Northerners including Guillaume Soro, Soumaila Bakayoko, Ibrahima Coulibaly (aka IB) and Koné Zakaria, Wattao, etc.. on behalf of Alassane Ouattara himself, according to a public and voluntary confession made by Koné Zakaria during a meeting.

5 - This clearly shows that Ouattara and his administration are in a logic of unjustified and unjustifiable revenge, and the RDR-state has all the traits of a segregationist and totalitarian system. That means a monoethnic army, an executive power in the hands of one tribe, the decline of civil and democratic liberties; a judiciary formatted to harass the defeated of April 11, 2011 and the silencing the independent press.

Having registered his governance in a logic of ethnocentric hegemony and exclusion, Ouattara ends up convincing even his diehard supporters of the despotic character of his regime, as in the days of the one-party system. The ethnic nepotism is thus shown through the grabbing of all the state institutions by the RDR, political party of which Ouattara is still the president. Indeed, the RDR has managed to alienate the silence of the PDCI-RDA in exchange for positions of responsibility including the Prime Ministry:

• The Presidency of the Republic has become a heritage for Northerners after the dismissal of over 2,000 agents, all ethnic groups combined, who served from Houphouët-Boigny to Laurent Gbagbo.

• If one believes the PDCI-RDA, the main ally of the RDR within the RHDP (Rassemblement des Houphouetistes pour le Dialogue et la Paix), the National Assembly and the National Army are neither national nor republican because of their roots in the tribal North and to the sole benefits of the Northerners.

• Civic and democratic freedoms and, more generally, the rule of law is almost declining for more than a year under Ouattara’s power and, all this happening under the apathetic and episodic reaction of the international community, the United States, France, the United Nations,