On a continent that absorbs 75 percent of the world's UN peacekeeping forces and budgets and 75 percent of the UN Security Council's time, Ivory Coast's violent downward spiral threatens hard-won gains achieved after West Africa's devastating civil wars of the 1990s.
If Ivory Coast, West Africa's economic powerhouse and the world's top cocoa producer, returns to civil war, everyone from the nation's newly peaceful neighbors to the world's chocolate lovers will feel the pain.
Many hold one man responsible -- President Laurent Gbagbo. His fate after the unparalleled violence this week stands to determine his nation's fate as well.
On Tuesday, South African President Thabo Mbeki flew in to launch African peace efforts amid deadly rampages that erupted when France destroyed the country's tiny air force. That move was in response to an airstrike that killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker.
The violence has killed at least 27 people and wounded 900 others, including seven killed Tuesday when French troops opened fire as thousands of Gbagbo's supporters massed outside a makeshift evacuation center.
If turmoil continues, chocolate lovers will probably feel the effect on prices by Christmas. The violence has shut down cocoa exports in the world's top producer since Saturday, closing ports that ship 40 percent of the world's raw material for chocolate.
Ivory Coast's neighbors felt the effect immediately -- with 5,000 Ivory Coast refugees fleeing into neighboring Liberia, and Guinea massing troops at its border for fear of cross-border unrest.
As Ivory Coast appeared poised on the brink of full-scale war, however, fellow West Africans across the border were enjoying the fruits of peace.
The first 500 of 300,000 displaced Liberians still living in camps for war-displaced people in Liberia boarded buses, heading home this week after 14 years of vicious civil conflicts in their country.
"When I get back home, I will start to make gardens to survive, and then make blocks to rebuild what once was my small but decent house," said one refugee, 62-year-old Momo Perry.
It took an unprecedented commitment by the international community, and the world's largest deployments of peacekeepers, to get refugees like Perry home.
In 2002, British, UN and West African armies crushed a vicious Liberia-backed insurgency in Sierra Leone. The next year, US, UN and West African forces and Liberian rebels routed the chief promulgator of West Africa's wars, warlord Charles Taylor in Liberia.
Today, 75 percent of the world's 62,000 UN peacekeeping troops are trying to secure recent peace deals across Africa, and US$2.9 billion of the UN's US$3.9 billion peacekeeping budgets are spent here.
With up to 10 percent of the world's oil reserves in West Africa, the United States and others increasingly are saying they have a strategic interest in Africa.
More than half the world's total of peacekeepers, 32,402 of them, are based in Taylor's old stomping grounds -- Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast itself, divided by civil war since September 2002.
With Taylor pushed into exile in Nigeria, Gbagbo is looking like the biggest current challenge to peace. The risk: war that again would mobilize idled fighters and arms traffickers across West Africa.
Similar street protests to those seen this week's brought Gbagbo to power in 2000, during an aborted vote count following presidential elections that were meant to restore civilian rule after a 1999 coup -- the country's first-ever.
Although muggy and malarial, Ivory Coast has since independence from France in 1960 stood as the most prosperous country in West Africa. Abidjan won the title "The Paris of Africa" for its nightlife and its boutiques.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
RSS