Ivory Coast: The French Retake the Colony

I was never impressed by the way Laurent Gbagbo was kicked out of power. My main reason was that it was the French who did it. That just left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Then someone asked me what was really going on in Ivory Coast, I simply went by the usual rhetoric. Ouattara had won, Gbagbo had decided he wasn’t going anywhere and it was the business as usual in African politics.

Then I had a closer look. Google helps with that. Suddenly a lot of uncomfortable details started to make the light of day. The election itself was not as simple as it sounded.

Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma:

I have shown on the Senate floor how they took the margin of victory that went to Ouattara… what precincts they stole that vote at and how they miscalculated it. How is it statistically possible for the primary election for Gbagbo to have received thousands and thousands of votes in that northern part of Cote d’Ivoire and then, in the run-off, he got zero? Statistically, that is impossible.

There certainly was a lot more going on. The French were taking an active interest and the sub-text was not pleasing. A French puppet had always been running the Ivory Coast until Gbagbo came in. Gbagbo stood up to the French which is why they didn’t fancy him much, and which is why they were so against him.

Gary K. Busch,  US citizen, Former Professor and Head of Department at the University of Hawaii, Current Professor at Webster University (UK) [December 17, 2010]

France arms the rebels and puts them in UN uniforms in Côte d’Ivoire…

All their weapons were supplied at the hotel by France and the UN who are acting like they know nothing about nothing. Some of the rebels were dressed in UN uniform.

The UN of course turned the other way as the Ivory Coast was raped and pillaged. But what about the rest of Africa. They cheered and claimed victory  over another ‘dictator’. Well, that is the ones the ones who had been reading the bile being disseminated my Western media.

But history will record this: Africans watched and cheered as a country was colonised. Disturbing but true. Even as the rebels, backed massacred and raped thousands, there were people who were willing to sell souls alongside their birthright.

As it stands, the French have installed their puppet. They run the currency. They have oversight of the Central Bank. They run the economy. And the locals? They get nothing.

Gbagbo is no angel and he has many faults. The question is, has he been sacrificed for 30 pieces of silver? The French have had their way but has Africa had hers? A western force has just invaded a sovereign African country and taken out a leader to resolve a dispute.What stops them from doing the same elsewhere across Africa.

Will Africa say anything then?

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