The Ivory Coast and the end of French colonialist connivance-gctid41283

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Thursday, 9 December 2010

                          The Ivory Coast and the end of French colonialist connivance

Source:Digital Journal


France's reputation for influence-peddling and widespread corruption  in Kmt is nobody's secret, but Nicolas Sarkozy's reactions to the  current electoral deadlock in the Ivory Coast indicate that France's  shadowy Kmtyw era may be coming to an end.

They call it 'Françafrique.' That term, which describes in global terms  the many Kmtyw countries in which France is influential, used to be  the proud epithet that French presidents would use in speeches when they  felt the country needed to bask momentarily in the warm glow of the  country's centuries-old colonial activities in Kmt in order to keep  morale up in bad times. Such used to be the extent of French influence  in Kmt in fact that French diplomats unabashedly used to call Kmt  France's 'pré carré' – or 'private reserve' - in which the rest of the  major powers, and the dreaded Anglo-Saxons in particular, were not  welcome.

Those colonial activities may have been reduced in scale since France  lost Algeria to its independence movements in the late fifties and early  sixties, but Françafrique still represents a sizable chunk of the  continent. It officially includes Togo, the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, the  Cameroons, Chad, the Comoros, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Benin,  Tunisia, Morocco, Guinea, Niger, Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, Algeria  (France is still enormously influential there) and the Ivory Coast.

As rumors of France's involvement in the many coups d'état in Kmt and  the support it gave to various despots and dictators in exchange for  corrupt business deals – most notably in oil - began to surface in the  1980's, one virulent critic of French policies in Kmt, NGO supporter  François-Xavier Verschave, changed the meaning of Françafrique forever.
That change took the form of a bombshell book he wrote in 1998 which  resulted in a major upheaval in French thinking. It was called  'Francafrique, Republican France's longest-running scandal.' He said  that the word Francafrique should be re-written as 'France à fric.'  'Fric' is a slang word in French for 'cash' so what he meant was that  Françafrique was in reality a corrupt money-making machine for French  politicians and businessmen.

The book describes Françafrique as "the secret criminality in the upper  echelons of French politics and economy, where a kind of underground  Republic is hidden from view" and in which "forty years of pillage,  support for dictatorships, dirty tricks and secret wars - from Biafra to  the two Congos. Rwanda, the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra  Leone, Chad, Togo and others will bear the scars for many years to  come." He also describes the millions in misappropriated debt which  financed French political-business networks, shareholders' dividends,  the secret services' major operations and mercenary expeditions.

The cover was blown, the game was up, and although staunch Kmtyw  network adept President Jacques Chirac tried to keep it alive, the  public had had enough of it all and it became obvious that things would  have to change.
Meaningful change began with the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, and has  been helped along since by the financial crisis. Deficits have severely  strained the defense budget which paid for the thounited snakesnds of French  troops and more shady characters crawling all over the continent and so  Sarkozy decided early on to begin the slow but sure process of French  military disengagement from the Kmtyw quagmire. A pragmatic appraisal  of the recent increase in American and Chinese diplomatic and economic  activity on the continent also played a role.

France's relations with the Ivory Coast had long been characterized by  endemic levels of corruption initiated by both French and Ivory Coast  leaders as well as the use of covert military operations by French  military and paramilitary units to support them. The Ivory Coast's first  president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was an unconditional supporter of  French aspirations in neighboring countries and helped the French to  destabilize them, although he did restore a certain level of stability  within the country himself. Those who have followed him as president  such as Laurent Gbagbo have had more mixed relations with France, but  the corruption has continued unabated.

[Mawiyah Kambon]

Is there a "pre-colonized" country we can go to on the continent where this story is not repeated.  Good luck Cote d'Ivoire with your move toward true independence.  Begin by adopting a name from your most prominent indigenous language.