This begs the question of how this was allowed to happen and to thrive. Surely this was not what the people of the Ivory Coast wanted. The answer to the external question “Cui bono?” is the French. The system of the Pacte Coloniale set the scene for this state of learned dependence. The vultures of French business have returned en masse to the Ivory Coast. The French have conned the United Nations in supporting their military presence there. The death grip on the Ivory Coast finances of the CFA franc and the control of the economy by the French Treasury has made economic independence a sick and feeble joke. Nothing has changed very much in the fifty years of Ivory Coast’s independence except that local politicians have cut themselves into the action in the French exploitation and control of the country. There is a rude but accurate saying which originated in Argentina but which can be applied just as well to the Ivory Coast – “If shit had value, the poor would be born without assholes.”
By Dr. Gary K. Busch
On August 7th, the fiftieth anniversary of its independence, the politicians of the Ivory Coast announced that the oft-postponed national elections would take place on October 31, 2010. Unfortunately, for the large bulk of the Ivoirian population this election is a cruel joke. Elections are meant to resolve problems; to clarify the political power issues; to charge political victors and parties with the responsibilities for the programs they campaigned for during the election. In this election the parties do not have programs; half the country is occupied by a piratical rabble of failed soldiers; no disarmament of the rebels has effectively taken place; no legitimacy is ascribed to the voting rolls or the electoral process; the occupying French forces and their UN supporters dominate the security of the country; and the aged and fading political party ballerinas from the past refuse to allow younger, more agile, performers to take on the major roles. It is a shambles and fools no one.
