To Professor Bangura:
Smearing Laurent Gbagbo is un-Panafrican
At a June 18th 2012, conference, in Rockville, Maryland, organized by The Revival of Panafricanism Forum, you first acknowledged (claimed) that you were an earlier supporter of Laurent Gbagbo for his struggle for democracy in the Ivory Coast. You observed that Laurent Gbagbo was a true Panafricanist in the earlier stage of his political career. Then to justify why you had a change of heart, you repeated unsubstantiated accusations against him previously written in a biased and disingenuous opinion, titled “Laurent Gbagbo’s “One Dozen Major Sins””and posted in the Sunday 20 February 2011 edition of the patriotic Vanguard, a Sierra Leone online news portal.
My main contentions with your analysis and positions are that:
1- Although you are an expert o resolutions of conflicts, which you taught at prestigious peace institutes such as the American University’s International Peace and Conflict Resolution, did beat the drums of war during the 2010-2012 electoral impasse in Ivory Coast by advocating military intervention instead of a recount of votes. Though you rightly condemned the NATO military intervention and bombing of Libya, you curiously call it a double-standard because the West did not intervene in Ivory Coast instead.
We all opposed the bombing of Libya and the Western actions against Khadafy because we all knew that it was only motivated by the attempt to control the oil of Libya. But, Khadafy is no saint. He has formed and supported most of the rebel movements which have caused havoc and destruction in our sub-region included the United Revolutionary Front’s Leadership. Foday Sankoh, who committed War crimes and crimes against humanity in your native country was formed and supported by Khadafy. Yet, you disregarded these facts and look at the greater impact on NATO intervention on Africa as a whole. Why are you failing to see that France and others intervention in Ivory Coast even through proxies like Ouattara’s is no different than the case of Libya? Isn’t it the same Nicolas Sarkozy and the same Obama who lent support to Ouattara and went after Gbagbo?
You also advocated that Nigeria should have bombed Ivory Coast, but since they failed to do so France did nothing wrong by dropping bombs on Africans in Abidjan.
If in the US, as in the case of Bush versus Gore, they did not resolve electoral disputes through war, why does it make any sense to anyone who claim to be for African unity to think it is OK when one side ask for recount , that it is ok to simply go to war to impose the other side?
I was very amused when I read some of your criticism against US based Ghanaian scholar Professor George uncle-Tom Ayitteh’s assertions that slavery and colonization are not to be blamed for the conditions of black and African people. Ironically, you embrace the same attitude of denial of western imperialist interference when it comes to the Ivorian crisis when you know well that France has manufactured the Ivorian crisis and targeted President Gbagbo while promoting Ouattara to serve their colonial interest.
I find it quiet bizarre that, you, a self-professed Pan-Africanist who also claims to be the descendant, of Bai Bureh, (the legendary Temne chief, hero and leader of the indigenous resistance against British colonialism in your native Sierra Leone) shrewdly echoed the same colonialist propaganda spread by Western mainstream media about the Ivory Coast. And you sided with Alassane Ouattara, the agent of French re-colonization of not just Ivory Coast but the entire West African sub-region.
People of Mali who supported him mainly for tribalistic reasons, are now crying and calling him a traitor because of his involvement in the destabilization of their country and his recent threat as the Head of ECOWAS( Economic Community of West African States) to impose medicine and other embargo on that country.
You even admitted at the conference that you supported Ouattara because you had hoped that he would turn things around. Oh really? Those expectations were based on what? You are a scholar on African affairs and you have 4 PH’Ds, you had extensively travelled countless times all over Ivory Coast and acquainted with officials there, therefore you are not an ignorant person on the political history of that country.
So, how come you display such naivety about Mister Ouattara, who you are surely aware, had displayed dictatorial tendencies during his tenure of the Premiership in the last Houphouet Boigny government?
You praise Gbagbo for his struggle for democracy against Houphouet, but who do you think was the Prime-Minister of Houphouet who really was persecuting Gbagbo, the civil society, labor movements, student activists and other branch of the society demanding democratic reform? Ouattara was. Did you not know that Ouattara had then, jailed Laurent Gbagbo, his wife Simone Gbagbo, his son Michel Gbagbo, Union leaders, student activist, opposition leaders, journalists etc while he was Houphouet’s Prime-Minister?
And do you not know why that most of the demands which were not just for political reform but also against the afflictions that the austerity measures of the IMF Structural Adjustment programs implemented by Ouattara caused to the most vulnerable elements of the Ivorian society?
So you a self-proclaimed Panafricanist and a very educated man, who wrote at least 50 books, had hoped that Ouattara who sold most of the Ivory Coast to French corporations through structural adjustment programs’ privatization policies would turn things around? Your wish did come through because he really did turn things around in the negative way though, by ending democracy, the rule of law, human rights and all the freedoms that Ivorian gained as a result of Laurent Gbagbo struggle.
The whole crisis in Ivory Coast which started by a French-backed failed coup attempt against Laurent Gbagbo turned rebellion was only the result of France attempt to recolonize Ivory Coast by removing Gbagbo from power in order to impose , their own stooge, Alassane Ouattara. An African scholar and Panafricanist who failed to understand that is either ignorant of the facts, simply or disingenuous.
2- You gratuitously accused Gbagbo of having killed, Africans, his countrymen and French. You never give any fact of when, where and how. Off course these accusations are false, and part of the smear campaign waged by France and its colonial allies to vilify President Gbagbo. I will discuss the issues of the deaths of pro-Ouattara supporters during the crisis and explain how it is not correct to impute them to Laurent Gbagbo, while on the other end, it is evident that Ouattara and his henchmen purposely massacred pro-Gbagbo supporters are still massacring Ivorians even more today under Ouattara’s rule than before.
I find it quite disturbing that you supported Ouattara against Gbagbo, though the government Ouattara led as Houphouet Boigny Prime-Minister, fully supported and assisted the Revolutionary United Front, the rebellious army led by Foday Sankoh and supported by Charles Taylor, both charged and found guilty of crime against humanity in Sierra Leone, your country of origin.
I refuse to believe that you were not aware that arms that travelled from Burkina Faso, to Sierra Leone via Liberia transited through Danane in Western Ivory Coast to the Liberian border under the escort of Ivorian regular army during Ouattara’s tenure of the Premiership in Ivory Coast? This practice that continued under Konan Bedie and was interrupted or ended should I say under Gbagbo.
Do not tell me Sir, you who were involved in humanitarian work in Bouake, in Central Ivory Coast that you did not know that Commanders were involved with Ouattara’s armed rebellion when it first started. Commandant Mosquito, the famous Sierra Leonean rebel Leader who oversaw the cutting of limbs of your countrymen, wasn’t he based in Bouake?
In case you didn’t know here are few comments on commandant Mosquito, in Wikipedia: “Samuel "Sam" "Mosquito" Bockarie (October 2, 1964 − May 5, 2003) was a leading member of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. Bockarie was infamous during the Sierra Leone Civil War for his brutal tactics, which included amputation, mutilation, and rape.....
After fleeing Sierra Leone in 2000, Bockarie joined with Taylor's Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) in Liberia, eventually moving to the Ivory Coast, where he participated in the rebellion led by Guillaume Soro in connection with the Gbatala base headed by Charles Taylor.
......On 3 March 2003, Sam Bockarie was indicted for crimes against humanity, violation of the Geneva Convention and violation of international humanitarian law. During this time, Bockarie commanded his troops to attack civilian populations who he felt were supporting the government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, including the use of mutilation and sexual violence. These attacks brought to the world the horrific images of children with missing arms and legs. He was also accused of recruiting child soldiers and abducting people to fight with him, and of attacking UN peacekeepers working under UNAMSIL.
These horrific acts of savagery perpetrated on your people by the allies of those you supported, makes me wonder why would you support Ouattara and his murderers and have high expectations of them?
It may be a surprise to you to read in the news about the ongoing genocide in Duekoue by Ouattara’ forces, but to us who observed that evil man from the start, it is just a logical continuation of the same destruction these kind of people caused in Liberia, Sierra Leone and now Ivory Coast.
You said that you were in Ouagadougou when the discussion of military intervention in Ivory Coast by ECOWAS was being held. Now, you cannot tell me that you were not aware that Blaise Compaore whose hands are covered of the blood of your people supported militarily the rebel groups of Charles Taylor, Foday Sankoh and Alassane Ouattara , which murdered hundreds of thousands of Africans in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast?
One last word, the Ivoirite issue:
Politically motivated inter-ethnics incidents are common in Africa, as one can currently witness in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians, or in your own country Sierra Leone, between the Mende and the Temne during the recent civil war there, or between the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi, or between the Kikuyu and the Luo in Kenya or between the Malinke and the Soussou in Guinea.
In the case of Ivory Coast, Mister Ouattara and his current ally former President Henry Konan Bedie, introduced such a conflict between the Northerners and the rest of the country’s ethnic populations. Ouattara started injected ethnic hatred in his quest for power by publicly stated that “ It is because I am a Muslim and a Northerner that they don’t want me to run for President”. But the true reason why Ivorians had issue with his interest in the presidency was that he was a citizen of Burkina Faso all his childhood and adult life until Houphouet Boigny publicly gave him the Ivorian nationality in a TV broadcast ceremony.
As in most country in the world, the US included, a citizen of another country is not allowed to run for the highest office in his new country of adoption. This is the case in the US for former government of California, Harold Shwartznegger or even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who were not naturally born citizens of that United States, a constitutional requirement for eligibility for the US Presidency. Northerners, who were already disgruntled by the perception given by Ouattara assertion that he was being discriminated because of his religion and his region of origin, were pushed further to the edge by Henry Konan Bedie, Ivoirite xenophobic propaganda according to which his Akan ethnic group was pure Ivorian and northerners especially were not pure bread Ivorians.
It is very nauseating to attribute to Laurent Gbagbo, Ivoirite, when it is obvious that he opposed it and even show solidarity with Ouattara, by refusing to run for President in support of the rejection of his candidacy by Bedie.
What make such a false claim so sickening is that there has been a deceitful amalgamation of Ivoirite with real genuine immigration, indigenous rights and national sovereignty issues in Ivory Coast, which were raised under Gbagbo’s term.
Ivory Coast being home to a disproportionate number of citizens of neighboring countries, the issue of who has the right to run for president or simply vote in Ivory Coast was raised when citizens of neighboring countries wanted to be able to vote in Ivory Coast. To say that only Ivorians can vote was by no means the same as promoting ivoirite but a question of national sovereignty. The law in the same neighboring country, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, were basically the same as far as the requirement of citizenship to be able to vote or that the candidate for President be a citizen of their country who never was a citizen of another country or whose parents were themselves citizens of that country.
So, your claim that Gbagbo engaged in Ivorite is preposterous. Alassane Ouattara as someone in the Q and A brought to your attention was as Prime Minister of Houphouet Boigny the first one to impose a permit of residency in Ivory Coast for none Ivorian citizens of neighboring countries including his own country of origin, Burkina Faso although members of the ECOWAS community were allowed to move and live freely without passport or any other resident permit from one country to another in their Union.
It is true that Alassane Ouattara has nothing to do with “La Charte du Nord”, a document circulated in Mosques during his Premiership, and which asserted that it was time for Northerners to rule Ivory Coast. Ouattara then, sent army troops in Mosques during prayer service to repress proponent of the “ Charte du Nord”. Though today he is the beneficiary of such tribalist and exclusionist concept. Ouattara today has engaged in his own tribalism and exclusion policy with his own concept of RATTRAPAGE.
Contrary to what you said at the conference to a question that was put to you on the issue, RATTRAPAGE is the full implementation of the exclusionist and tribalist idea that it is the time for the Northerners to rule Ivory Coast as Ouattara clearly expressed during an interview with a French TV station during a recent visit to France.
Today 90 percent of Ouattara nominations in his government, administration and army are northerners and Muslims in a country where leaders were always careful not to exclude others in nominations in cabinet positions, the administration and the Army.
Today ethnic cleansing, ethnic based killings and exclusions are the common plight of ethnic groups accused of being supporters of Laurent Gbagbo. The Guéré are paying a heavy price. Ouattara is bringing in everyday, truckloads of Burkinabe citizens from Burkina Faso to the Western part of the Ivory Coast to occupy the land, farms and villages of the Guéré People. One of Ouattara’s Burkinabe Warlord, Amade Oueremi, who Matt Wells of Human Rights cited in his presentation at the Rockville conference, is still ruling supreme on Mt Peko, in the Duekoue area where he and his Burkinabe kin are mass murdering the Guere people and chasing them off their ancestral land. The UN , France and Ouattara’s government who have armed forces in the area are not oblivious to what is occurring in the West of Ivory Coast.
We Panafricans know what is going on in Ivory Coast, the same that is going on in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and other parts of Africa where imperialists who seek to recolonize our continent and have our nations and ancestral lands run and owned by western corporations are creating these conflicts to impose their proxies like Ouattara. It is sad that African scholars like you are pretending not to understand what is going on.
We support Gbagbo because he dared say no to France and in him we see an African Leader who standing to imperialism while his adversary, Alassane Ouattara is willing to be the boy of the colonizers. In one the rare interview Laurent Gbagbo gave to an French journalist of African descent, he said that he knew the day he say no to Chirac invitation to all former French colonies o send troops to parade to French Independence day, that was his end.
Leo Gnawa, Ivorian Patriot and organizer for the Ivorian non-violent Resistance
