Country Profile: The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire

Côte d'Ivoire, pronounced "coat-div-whar"

History
Pre Colonial 
Historians have a hard time pinning down the first inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire (also known as Ivory Coast). What we do know is that West Africa had a plethora of emerging and declining empires, most notably the The Ashanti Empire, the Mali Empire, Songhai Empire, Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Ashanti Kingdom. Islam was brought to western Africa by North African traders in the 11th century. This became a widely accepted and practiced religion on many parts of the region, including what is contemporary northern Côte d'Ivoire which by the 14th centruy was ruled by the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire emerged from 14th-16th century followed by regional warfare which forced many people to move south to a natural boundary, a rain forest. This allowed people to avoid military and political conflicts as they began to make a living in villages by hunting and farming. 

More states and empires rose and fell throughout the ensuing centuries. The Juula (also Dyula or Dioula) established the Muslim Kong Empire in the early 18th century. The became the center for crafts and agriculture but were ultimately brought down because of conflics over ethnic and religious diversity. The Abron Kingdom of Jaman expanded to Bondoukou, a north eastern city in present day Côte d'Ivoire. Bondoukou and Kong (another northern city) became major centers of commerce and Islam, people came from all over West Africa to study at the Quranic schools there. Other Akan groups (an ethnic group in present day southern Ghana and adjacent parts of Côte d'Ivoire) fled the Ashanti Kingdom and established the Baoulé (ou Baule) Kingdom in Sakasso (a district in central Côte d'Ivoire), which is known for its remarkable blending of Akan and local traditions, and two Angi kingdoms called Indénié and Sanwi (both in the south easten part of the country). These kingdoms eventually split into smaller chiefdoms. But despite this breakup, its important to note that the Baoulé strongly resisted French colonization and subjugation.

Colonial
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to make their way down the West coast of Africa followed by the French, both of whom came in search of slaves and ivory. However, because of its relative isolation, Côte d'Ivoire suffered much less from the slave trade than other countries in the region

Treaties were signed between France and many coastal chiefs which permitted them to begin building trading posts and forts in the 1830s. Establishing this early presence and infrastructure was critical in securing the exploitation of country's natural resources during and after the Scramble for Africa.

Then ensued the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884–85, when a bunch of rich white men sat down together and drew lines on a map of places they had never been putting claim on what was "rightfully theirs". To quickly show the absurdity of the way this continent was split up - I found a map that has national boarders in black and a variety of different colors to show the countless ethnic groups across the continent - something that was not taken into consideration when stealing and claiming this land. Another map I included shows colonial rule by western power.



As I already mentioned, there was much resistance against French imperialism, even in places that had previously singed treaties. One of the most notable leaders of the resistance was Samori Touré. Although his mother was captured and forced into the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, he went on to found and lead the Wassoulou Empire, an Islamic empire that was in present-day south-eastern Guinea, north-eastern Sierra Leone, some of Mali and parts of northern Côte d'Ivoire. He was eventually captured by the French 1898 and deported. Sekou Toure, Guinea's first president, was his great-grandson. I found this ancient New York Times article from 1898 on his capture. This makes me think of the quote I saw for the first time inside the walls of Fort Prinzenstein which was used in the slave trade in Keta, Ghana:

In addition to imposing several head taxes that were met with strong opposition from the Ivorian people, France also launched several "pacification" campaigns in attempts to completely conquer the people and force them to assimilate through divide-and-conquer tactics aimed at the educated elite. During World War II, 40,000 Ivorians were forced to fight for the French army.


Post Colonial
Eventually, after years of subjugation, the French finally released its tight grip on their colonies, including Côte d'Ivoire. On August 7th, 1960, the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire was born under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny who held power until his death in 1993. As president, it's said that Felix led many unifying actions between other African countries and focused on cooperation, and economic/political policies. However, he was seen as more conservative than many other African presidents during that time, meaning that he didn't have an anti-western stance and still let France meddle in their affairs. He opposed many great revolutionary leaders such as the late Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and President Olympio of Togo – both assassinated by their successors with French support.

After Felix's death, Henri Konan Bédié, his deputy, became president. In 1999, Côte d'Ivoire experienced its first coup-d'etat by a former army commander named Robert Guéï, An economic downturn followed, and Guéï was defeated in the 2000 presidential elections. At first, Guéï refused to accept the results but after mass protests, he stepped down and allowed Laurent Gbagbo to step in as president. This is when things started to, as one may say, go down hill.

After a few years of disputes and mediocre attempts at power negotiations between President Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters and followers of his main opponent Alessandre Ouattara (mostly Muslims from the north), the first civil war broke out in September of 2002 with an attempted coup led by northern army officers. More details and background here. These officers and theyr supporters gained control of the northern half of the country and the country plummeted into a 5-year civil war. Some say that the national football (American soccer) team actually played a huge role in securing a temporary truce when it qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup as it brought opposing parties together. I think this speaks volumes to how important football is for so many Africans.

In 2007, President Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro (essentially the leader of the opposition) signed a peace agreement, the Ouagadougou Agreement, that but Soro as the Prime Minister. They also decided to hold fresh elections which were delayed until October 2010, 5 years after Gbagbo's term of office was supposed to have expired.

Alassane Ouattara had won the second round of elections against Gbagbo with 54% but these results were invalidated by the Constitutional Council (CC) who then named Gbagbo as the rightful victor and swore him in as the President in December of that year. Naturally, violence clashes erupted across the country despite the rhetoric of "reunification".  About 3,000 lost their lives in the violence that followed until Gbagbo was captured in April 2011. He is now being tried for crimes against humanity at the Hague. Here is a little article explaining more that is coincidentally written by my old Wolof and French professor from University of Florida Gainesville.

There is still ongoing peacebuilding work happening throughout the country. The first peaceful presidential election in more than two decades took place in 2015. Ouattara was re-elected with over 80% of the vote. The next elections will be held in 2020 and already have people talking. There is no clear successor that has emerged and the Ivorian constitution states there is a two term limit. Legislative elections were held in Dec 2016

Legislative elections recently took place (Dec 2016) and saw a very large number of independent candidates although the main party, The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) and the party of President Ouattara, won the majority and most of the key figures kept or won their seats. As the new government was to take over, the new Constitution was being voted on and the President was preparing to appoint the President of Parliament, the Vice President and the Prime Minister - an unexpected (or maybe expected - depending on who you ask) mutiny took over several towns and cities in the country for several days demanding back pay. Things have since quieted down but only time will tell...

Government

Since we are all caught up on a brief history of CI (Côte d'Ivoire), I will attempt to explain the interworkof the government here, how things are supposed to work there.

Yamoussoukro, affectionately known as Yakro for short has been the official capital since 1983 but the bigger and busier Abidjan is the commercial and administrative center. The country's legal system observes a civil law system based on the French civil code. Similar to the US, Côte d'Ivoire has a legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

Under the executive branch, the head of government (aka the Prime Minister) and members of the cabinet (aka the Council of Ministers) are all appointed by the president himself. The legislative branch is comprised of a 255 member National Assembly (elected by popular vote for 5-year terms). These were the elections from December 2016 I mentioned earlier. There is a Supreme Court which consists of four chambers: Judicial, Audit, Constitutional, and Administrative. Audit Chamber for financial cases, Constitutional Chamber for judicial review cases, and Administrative Chamber for civil cases. There is no limit to the number of members and judges are appointed for life (by the Superior Council of the Magistratur)

Economy

Like many countries that were colonized by the French, Côte d'Ivoire uses the West African FCFA franc which is currently at 621 FCFA to 1 USD. This is good for Americans that travel there because its went up the last few years from just under 500 to $1 meaning, we get more bang for our buck! The ountries average real GDP growth is one of the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate averaging 8.5% annually from 2012 - 2015. This growth is mostly driven by agriculture, services, industry, increased domestic demand, and rising investment. Real GDP growth is projected to reach 7.8% and 8% for 2016 and 2017 respectively.

During the turmoil in the late 1990's and early 2000's mentioned above, the African Development Bank (AFB) had moved their headquarters from Abidjan to Tunis, Tunisia but in 2014, after seeing years of political stability and a promising economic market, they moved back.

Côte d'Ivoire has not only Africa's fastest growing economy but it is also the worlds largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans! In addition, it also significantly produces and exports palm oil and coffee. Although nearly 70% of the population engages in agricultural activities its not surprisingly that oil and gas production have become more important than agricultural activities due to its higher revenues. Côte d'Ivoire has a large amount of offshore oil and gas production, enough to provide natural gas to fuel electricity exports in Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Ghana.

Sadly, even with all of this great economic improvement, successful and peaceful political transitions, and expanding market opportunities - coacoa farmers are in a financial crisis (affecting more than 1/4 of the population), ex-military members participated in a mutiny earlier this year (another article here), and nearly HALF the population is living below the poverty line. A 2002 study estimates that at least 650,000 children are involved in the cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire - that is to say - child labor, much of which is reportedly forced child labor. So, although it appears the country is moving in the right direct and has a bright future, there are still many aspects that can be improved upon.

Culture

Like many other African countries whos boarders were decided by greedy clueless white men, Côte d'Ivoire is quite ethnically and religiously diverse with over 60 different ethnic groups. And although the official language is French, there are over 60 languages spoken in the country.

According to the CIA Word Factbook, 38.6% of the population is Muslim and 32.8% are Christian. I also saw other cites stating 27% and 34%, and 40% and 45% respectively. Alas, the exact religious make up is clearly a contended topic. Regardless of the exact number, I was plesently surprised to see double digets for ingigenous beliefs - something that I've rarely seen (only Togo and Benin, that I am aware of, pass this number). Makes me think that maybe their resistance to the French colonial powers had something to do with their grip on traditional and indigenous beliefs.

As I said, there are indeed over 60 ethnic groups but this number is sometimes reduced to seven different clusters that share several common cultural and historical characteristics. This can then be redued again to four major cultural regions: the East Atlantic (primarily Akan), West Atlantic (primarily Kru), Voltaic, and Mandé. These are all very different traditionally, cultural, etc. The four major branches of the Niger-Congo language are spoken among Ivoirians, including the Kwa, Atlantic, Mande, and Voltaic which all correspond to the four cultural regions previously mentioned. I was surprised to read that no single African language is spoken by a majority of the population. Which is contrary to many other countries I've lived in and research.

In my opinion, one of the most recent and internationally known cultural aspects of Côte d'Ivoire is their famous dace, Coupé Décalé which was actually banned in Cameroon while I was living there.

Military

Geography

12 districts and 2 autonomous districts*; Abidjan*, Bas-Sassandra, Comoe, Denguele, Goh-Djiboua, Lacs, Lagunes, Montagnes, Sassandra-Marahoue, Savanes, Vallee du Bandama, Woroba, Yamoussoukro*, Zanzan



Extra
CIA World Factbook
Insight on Conflict