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I admit that I am an Africa buff – a quality I developed when I was a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) teacher in Uganda at the age of 19. But that was during the tense post-colonial period. There was a perpetual state of emergency, but I never heard or saw the sound of angry gunfire.
Today, even the initial love affair with the continent is filled with images of war. Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, southern Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and now Côte d’Ivoire. Cities echo with the sound of gunfire; corpses lie on the roadsides of villages; trucks loaded with ragged soldiers, loaded with machine gun bullets, speed by, brandishing huge, unwieldy weapons.
The civil war in Côte d’Ivoire seemed to indicate an incurable disease; it seemed to indicate that there was an indispensable thread of violence in the evolution of African history.
However, ten years ago, Ivory Coastas we like to call it, was a haven of peace and prosperity in West Africa. But it was this prosperity, built on cocoa exports and other things, that became part of the country’s downfall; part of the flashpoint between the north and the south. The standard of living far exceeded that of surrounding countries, attracting neighbors from some of the poorest countries in the world, such as Mali, Burkina Faso and other countries. The south began to think that northerners were not real Ivorians. The now-defeated former president Lauren Barber He is one of the populist politicians in the south who are demanding action to protect the Ivorian identity. Northerners are beginning to suffer discrimination.
In 2002, the two sides went to war. Northern soldiers mutinied and marched into prosperous Abidjan. They nearly took over the country. They were stopped by French, the former colonial power. The United Nations sent 9,000 troops to garrison. Last year’s election was supposed to heal the rift. Former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, who had been barred from running for president because of suspicion that his parents were from neighboring Burkina Faso, was allowed to run, and he defeated incumbent President Gbagbo, a former history professor, 54% to 46%. The rest is recent history – Gbagbo trapped in a bunker, Ouattara at the gates.
read more: UN confirms evidence of massacre
The United Nations and the African Union are strikingly active in supporting the winner of the election. But the UN is also investigating war crimes by both participants in the presidential election — massacres occurred on both sides.
Did the UN initiative on Libya in some way influence or inspire the UN operation in Côte d’Ivoire? What influence did France exert? What role did wealthy cocoa brokers play in financing one side or the other? Were the antics of local forces exacerbated by drugs? How will this all end?
How powerless we, the onlookers, felt. How devastated we felt as these images of war became emblematic of Africa in 2011. Yet I had the privilege of knowing firsthand that there was indeed another Africa, one full of hope and achievement, but it was quickly overshadowed, however often only briefly, by the inhumane acts that raged on our screens every night.
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