Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and for whom the bell tolls

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

January 28, 2011

I guess the upheaval in Tunisia must have sent a message to some leaders in Africa. Listening to them respond to the crises in the Ivory Coast seems to indicate that they are aware of what is at stake but not why it is so.

Start with Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and his effusions on the Ivory Coast.

His support for Gbagbo is apparent. Museveni, for reasons that may astound many who know his history, is asking for a recount of the Ivorian vote.

He seems to have forgotten his encounter with Idi Amin.  I am wondering now why Yoweri kicked Idi out of Uganda; not that Gbagbo is Idi Amin.

Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper quotes Museveni as saying “Uganda differs with the U.N. and the international community on Ivory Coast…”

That being the case, one may ask why?

The UN decision was for Gbagbo to accept the 2010 election result in the Ivory Coast and to make way for his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, to become the new president.

Gbagbo, of course, claiming fraud, has yet to accept the election result.  And on his decision, Museveni has squarely pitched his camp.

Some other African leaders also seem to want to keep Gbagbo in power.  But they are doing so in the guise of a benefit of the doubt stance that allows dialogue between the parties for the recount to be done rather than accepting the result of the last election.

These leaders seem to be unwary of the unrest in the street and the possibility that the stall in implementing the election result will exacerbate the violence.

But why start recount for an election result that the UN commissioners’ decision has made unnecessary and you would have a ready answer from Museveni and these other leaders.

It is the sovereignty excuse, they will scramble to answer.  

Ask how much sovereignty was there in the divided Ivory Coast when the warring parties themselves requested for a UN intervention in 2003, and these leaders would have no answer.

To ask for a recount now, one must first consider the UN as a dishonest broker and accept a Gbagbo’s demand to supervise the recount that will follow as competent and fair.

But to ask Gbagbo to supervise his own transition, either into or out of office in a highly divided polity like the Ivory Coast, is an order that the opposition party would not accept.  

The AU, some say, could help break the impasse.  But where was the AU back in 2003 when the trouble started?

Not surprisingly, the AU’s wish now is to give Gbagbo enough time to recover. So, dialogue has become the means to avoid force in implementing the election result; an action that the AU claims has sovereignty implications.   

To avoid this sovereignty issue, I would have loved to have heard from the AU or Museveni a proposal that offers a peaceful ctransition, even after a recount, but bars Gbagbo from continuing to remain as the president.

But who will be daft enough to think that Gbagbo, Museveni, and his other enablers would accept this high-minded proposal as a valid prescription?

The lie that only a dialogues could produce peace for the Ivory Coast must be exposed. A dialogue has its potential problems.  The obvious one being it could become interminable.   

Saddam Hussein had numerous dialogues with the UN.  But he didn't give in to the WMD inspection requests.  In the end, a military force had to be used.

The Ivory Coast had its chance for dialogue.  It was this dialogue that produced the election of 2010 that got Gbagbo into power.

This dialogue was half-baked because it did not take care of future presidential transition problems.  And this is the failure that has produced the current situation facing the Ivory Coast today.

To propose this late that the current election result is ignored is to propose that Gbagbo is kept in power.  Gbagbo continuing as president is the problem.

Museveni is up for re-election in Uganda this year, his fourth term since he came to power in January of 1986, after ousting Idi Amin.  Disregarding the UN’s decision by supporting Gbagbo is now the safe bet to keeping his ambition on track in Uganda.

Should he win by nefarious means in Uganda in the next election, there will be no institution, the UN included, to challenge Museveni's supremacy over the elections' result in Uganda, as Gbagbo seeks to do in the Ivory Coast.

It should be recalled that Museveni has been in power for some 25 years. He came as a citizen soldier and a model patriot. But once in, he no longer sounds like the man he wrote about in his epic biography, "Sowing the Mustard Seed."

Eighteen years ago, in an address to the AU, Museveni deplored African leaders who hung on to power.

When asked by a BBC correspondent in a recent interview why the description in the UN didn’t fit him, Museveni cleverly responded that it did not apply to leaders who were constitutionally elected and were in power legally.

On this legality, Museveni has claimed four elections and is ready for a fifth one.

As to why he would accept to succeed himself over and over again, Museveni said it was because of the difficult challenges facing Uganda now. 

This assumes that no other Ugandan is fit to rule now.  Given that Museveni is mortal, this argument is useless.  At the same time, it is a slap in the face of the average Ugandan.

The same argument applies to our old doyen of interminable rule, the honorable Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose reign of longevity Museveni would probably like to surpass.

The big egos of the two presidents are noted, a patently ridiculous posture in the face of today’s realities.  While their nations struggle for solutions, they stand in the way of progress.

But these long-serving leaders are seen elsewhere as selfish men who have no sympathy for or confidence in their fellow citizens.  They share no joy in the ability of their populations to carry on in self-governance without them.

The same Museveni’s attitude may be affecting President Atta Mills of Ghana’s decision. 

Though a newcomer to the presidential longevity scene, he is also for dialogue on the Ivory Coast situation.  He does not want Ghana to interfere for reasons of sovereignty.  Atta-Mills has his re-election plans for 2012 in mind.

Those in Ghana who are for caution by raising the fear of war next door should remember how the NDC regained power in 2009.

Had Kufuor pulled a Gbagbo in Ghana in 2008, would the NDC then have preferred dialogue instead of force to regain power?

Even so, the issue in the Ivory Coast is not about force and violence as has been framed by Gbagbo’s supporters. It is about enforcing the result of an election, which took place after a series of dialogues for a peaceful transition. 

Any force used would be means to end the interminable dialogues and to put in place the result of a legitimate election that had already happened.

To avoid intervention, Gbagbo must step down.  

If leaders like Museveni would read events in Tunisia right, they could be advising each other as to how to put their interminable egos in check.  Countries like the Ivory Coast can then pull back from the brink of war.  Gbagbo must step down.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, January 28, 2011

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