Recently, I read an article that had a turn of phrase that I thought to be quite comical. In essence it stated that people in fact do exist on the African continent between the borders of South Africa and the edge of the Sahara. It made me chuckle at first but then I realized something sad. The looming civil war in Ivory Coast, which had been headline news for about a week, had completely slipped my mind. Despite the fact that the country was less than a decade out of their most recent conflict, tens of thousands were fleeing, and two man claimed the presidency it had disappeared from both my radar and that of the international press and world governments.
Meanwhile, the Arab protests of North Africa took center stage, beginning with the overthrow of President (read dictator) Ben Ali of Tunisia. That was followed by the over through of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, a rebel movement in Libya, and mass protests in virtually every Arab nation across the region. All the while, Ivory Coast had disappeared from the news. Even Nelson Mandela's hospitalization in Johannesburg had made more air time than the brewing conflict in west Africa. As a student of the Middle East, my attention had completely been taken up by the rise of protest movements in the Arab world. But recently I've managed to tear myself away and reexamine the events taking place in Ivory Coast.
There is a civil war looming in West Africa. Once again, for the second time in less than a decade, the nation of Ivory Coast is descending into chaos brought on by the greed of a power hungry man and his pathetic cronies. On November 28th, 2010, Ivorians went to the polls to choose a new president. After four days of debate and counting, Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner by the Independent Election Commission. The Ivorian Constitutional Council, however, decided to disregard their reports and declared Gbagbo the winner. The country has been experience violence and economic since Laurent Gbagbo was once again sworn in as president of the Ivory Coast.
Since the end of November 2010, Laurent Gbagbo has been waging violence against his own citizens with the help of private militias and gangs of thugs. All the while, the internationally recognized president of Ivory Coast has been under virtual house arrest in an Abidjan hotel. Tens of thousands of refugees have been fleeing their homes for neighboring countries, gangs roam freely around the cities, and the UN peacekeeping force is basically making sure Alassane Ouattara remains alive in his virtual prison.
At the risk of sounding like a broken conspiracy record, the only thing that Libya has that Ivory Coast hasn't is vast oil reserves. Or, for that matter, oil reserves in general. Why has the global community, so soon after the Libyan uprising has been raging for only a brief few weeks, been so willing to make declarations and draw up combat plans against Ghaddafi when for months now Laurent Gbagbo's "troops" have created a refugee crisis for its neighbors? It wasn't until the week of March 6th that the UN decided to throw a token reinforcement at the peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast.
In the eyes of the world's most powerful nations, the majority of sub-Saharan African simply has nothing of worth to offer. Perhaps if oil or something other precious resource was plentiful beneath Ivorian soil, the global community would've assisted and there would be a peace by now. Unfortunately, that isn't the case, and the country only appears to be sliding further and further into another war with itself.
