Abidjan — An historic page has been turned in the history of Cote d'Ivoire. It was a short, bloody and devastating chapter for a nation that, until 24 December 1999, had been the most stable in west Africa.
"If we start on the road to multipartism," said the late President Felix Houphouet Boigny, who was of Baoule ethnicity , "there will be a Baoule party, a Bete party, and we don't want any of that. What we want first and foremost is to be Ivorians! That's why we are so attached to the one-party system. In our constitution, we have said that there will be several political parties when conditions are right. Right now they are not."
That declaration by President Houphouet was made on October 14, 1985. But the same question could be asked of Cote d'Ivoire now. It seems that the successors of 'Le Vieux', the old man, the pet name used by everyone, have not emulated Houphouet's rejection of dangerously divisive tactics.
His immediate successor and the man he hand picked, Henri Konan Bedie, who was ousted in last Christmas eve's coup, played the tribal card and introduced the controversial policy of 'Ivoirite' or 'Ivorian-ness,' which shattered the perhaps fragile serenity of a country that prided itself on being multi-ethnic and multicultural and home to many religions and peoples.
Whatever Africa's oldest president at the time said in private, in public and in government policy, ethnicity was not an issue for Houphouet, who encouraged immigrants from neighbouring countries to settle in Cote d'Ivoire, work in the cocoa and coffee plantations, and help his nation to prosper. It did.
Many of those who crossed their frontiers to make their homes in the west African eldorado were part of the same ethnic groups found within the borders of Cote d'Ivoire, and relations were generally cordial and harmonious. Houphouet's broad acceptance of dual nationality was useful to him, because these nominal foreigners had the right to vote and he was the only candidate.
In his six years as president, Bedie succeeded in undoing most of what the former president had built with the assistance of those immigrants - hailing from then-Upper Volta (present day Burkina Faso), Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Niger, Nigeria and Ghana, among other countries. Economic problems contributed to the nation's difficulties under Houphouet's successor. But the unravelling of Cote d'Ivoire will be Henri Konan Bedie's lamentable legacy.
The military general who replaced Bedie, Robert Guei, also indulged in the unfortunate pastime of dividing the nation and peoples of Cote d'Ivoire. He got his come uppance on Wednesday, October 25, when "people power" drove him out of the presidency after he proclaimed himself the winner of the October 22 election.
"No exclusion. Nobody feels put aside. Nobody feels tribalized." That is how Cote d'Ivoire's best known musician, the reggae star Alpha Blondy, put it. He said he had greeted the December 1999 coup with relief, because he thought General Guei would return to Houphouet's policy of no ethnicity.
Houphouet kept a handle on the situation, making sure ethnic, religious and political tensions were under control. He also had the military under control. Critics say the political and economic power base was clearly, but discreetly, with his own Baoule tribe. But Houphouet never trumpeted this domination and was careful to represent all ethnicities and religions in his governments.
By marginalising an estimated forty percent of the population, mainly Muslims from the north, both Bedie and Guei fostered the ideology of Ivoirite for short-term political advantage, which backfired. Many here say it has separated 'pure Ivorians' from 'the others', who include immigrants and their descendants, and has sown a seed of mutual discontent, fear and loathing that will be difficult to erase.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The new president, Laurent Gbagbo, 55, says he hopes to turn back the clock. In his acceptance speech, after being sworn into office on Thursday, he said he did not recognise the Cote d'Ivoire of his youth and pledged to unite his compatriots and rebuild his country.
But the discovery of between forty and fifty bodies, piled up in a field on the outskirts of Abidjan just one day after his inauguration, was an unsettling start to the Gbagbo presidency. The dead men had their hands tied and had been shot, their shoes lined up in neat rows.
Following as it did the death of hundreds of civilians in clashes - first with the security forces - which degenerated on Thursday into confrontations between rival civilian political supporters, Ivorians are hoping that the spectre of civil war, which has blighted a number of their regional neighbours, will not be their fate.
