Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Ivory Coast Dilemma

Nothing and no one is going to chase Mr. Gbagbo from his "presidential" position in the south of the Ivory Coast. And, the same can be said of Mr. Outtara in the north. Each man represents a political , a regional and an almost ethnic constituency. They have both worked to unify the country and both have succeeded in that today, Ivory Coast is trying to be a democratic state.
The leaders in the West African Union acknowledge this, all the while trying to convince Gbagbo to step down and leave the country.
And, goodness knows, Laurent Gbagbo is not perfect. He has tried to repress the opposition and make the north irrelevant. But, he spent time in prison while he was fighting to democratize Ivory Coast, albeit in his personal understanding of the word. Perhaps he and his followers do not want to take the chance that their hard fought progress will degenerate into another civil war.
At least for now, the army agrees with Mr. Gbagbo and that makes any invasion by surrounding African nations extremely unlikely.
Europe and the UN are bringing their full powers to bear in an effort to make Mr. Outtara president. Their words and deeds won't succeed either, not as long as Gbabgo has a friend like Sierra Leone on his side to fund his fight.
And just today, it was announced that Roland Dumas and Jacques Vergès, two enormously well-known French lawyers, are going to Ivory Coast this weekend to help Mr. Gbagbo.
Vergès is known for his defense of Algerian "freedom fighter-terrorists" who were alleged to have had the untidy idea that bombing and killing French supporters of continuing a colonial Algeria would help their cause. Vergès defended them, but also others, including Palestinians, who wanted to be independent of foreign control. He is also recognized for his defense of notorious people who had difficulty finding legal counsel - Carlos, Klaus Barby, Tarek Aziz and a Khmer Rouge leader, among others. In  the process, Vergès made a lot of important political enemies in France and a lot of permanent friends in the Middle East and China.
Roland Dumas is a former French Foreign Minister, whose father was a resistance fighter killed by the Nazis. Dumas was, himself, interned by the Nazis in 1942 but escaped and joined the French resistance. Dumas was active politically, as a Socialist and friend of President Mitterrand, who appointed him Minister. Roland Dumas was later tried and somewhat "lightly" convicted of bribing countries in order to obtain contracts for a large French company. The conviction was later overturned.
These two lawyers have apparently offered their services to Laurent Gbagbo, and before you say, "so what...they're just like him," consider that these two men, between them, can cover the globe with their political networks of friends who are indebted to them for many reasons. Mr. Gbabgo has chosen his advisors rather astutely.
But, with all this noted, today on Swiss radio I heard an Ivory Coast citizen who lives in Geneva speaking about the situation in his country. He said he would not comment because he has family in Ivory Coast and whichever side he favored, the other side would seek retribution against them. He added, with rather more conviction, that the United Nations does not have the right to tell any country on earth who won an election.

No comments:

Post a Comment