We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident

Dr. Gary K. Busch

The time for change is coming in the Ivory Coast. I was reminded of my feelings a few years ago when I was a guest in that troubled country. Perhaps it is a good time to repeat my conclusions written after my visit in 2006.

It was with a great deal of pride that I heard the voice of Thomas Jefferson echoing through the conference hall in Abidjan this weekend where I attended a conference on the need to review and reject the Colonial Pact of 1961 which institutionalised a system of neo-colonial dominance by France of its African colonies, despite their notional freedom and independence.

The pact, which includes sections (inter alia) on administration, justice, security and defence, transport, communications, health brought about the creation of institutions controlled by France to enforce their will in francophone Africa. The French created a system of ‘Co-operation’ to administer their ex-colonies and built a military presence of over one thousand bases to make sure that there was no resistance to this neo-colonial endeavour. There were French nationals sent to work in the African ministries, to provide a parallel French service to the indigenous civil service; French officers to train, deploy and command African troops; and, most importantly, the installation of a system of control of the African economies by holding the national wealth of each francophone country in French banks. French nationals assigned to Africa administered a common currency, the French African Community franc (CFA) and established trade, tariff and interest rate rules for the African states. This was provided for in the French Constitution of 1958. Discussions were held from 1958 to 1961 as various aspects of these controls were agreed. In April 1961, these colonial agreements were codified in a blanket Pact; a Colonial Pact which operates in francophone Africa until today.

The francophone states never have been able to establish an economic policy which is open to international competition. Precedence is reserved for France. The educational system is a mirror of the French curriculum. Small African children take exams on the ‘departements’ of France. The French have the first option on the purchase of raw materials from francophone Africa and a monopoly on the transport and insurance systems. The difference from colonialism is that there is an African Head of State and an African Cabinet of Ministers. France, French companies and French civil servants are all over the francophone states like a blanket. The first corollary is that others, the non-French, are excluded from the African market or are treated as unwanted competitors. Second corollary is that the value-added to the production of goods from African raw materials is reserved for processing in France. There is little investment in any area beyond the acquisition of raw materials.

This continued colonisation of Africa by the French has been made possible by the collaboration of African politicians with the French in perpetuating colonialism under a different name. As a general rule, with some notable exceptions, the African elites which were raised up by the French to be their leadership cadre in francophone Africa are estranged from their people. 

There is a special tribe of Africans which cuts across the barriers of language or culture. In East Africa this tribe is called the “Wabenzi” (‘the people of the Mercedes-Benz’). It is a powerful tribe in French Africa and unites presidents, legislators, judges and officers in a caste of francophone unity and collaboration. The French regularly steal two million francs from the country and return one hundred thousand to the Wabenzi and they are happy. After all, many are illiterate or semi-educated thugs who have been able to attract the attention of the French and are duly rewarded and elevated to positions of power. Power in Africa is an upward-looking process, as rewards come from the top. That is why elections are never viewed with anticipation; only bad things can happen with them. It is too dangerous to allow the victims to have a voice. A coup is cheaper and more easily controlled; especially since the French officers and staff administer the armies.

Throughout French-speaking Africa there has been a resistance to the prima facie colonial system, from time to time, but this resistance has been met with a harsh application of French power. When Sekou Toure’s Guinea voted against adapting such a pact with the French and opted for immediate independence the French, as they had promised, left Guinea. They took with them the toilets, the showers, the desks, the typewriters, the light bulbs and anything else they could think of as ‘the French contribution to raising up these savages”. Then they continued to threaten Guinea with coups and sanctions until the Soviet Union became their benefactors. The current model of resistance to the perils of francophonie is to be found among the democrats and patriots of the Ivory Coast.

After years of paternalism under the rule of Houphouet-Boigny, the Ivory Coast was gradually plunged into chaos, misrule and the military coup by General Robert Guei. The forces of democracy rallied to elect Gbagbo to the Presidency. He won in a democratic election and took his oath of office as the President. He was not one of the Wabenzi; he was a scholar and historian who had spent years in exile and jail for his beliefs. When he took office, his new broom began to sweep away some of the French cobwebs. He did not follow an anti-French policy; he merely allowed the economy to be opened up to allow competition from countries other than France. The French reacted by supporting a clumsy attempt at a putsch by disaffected, disloyal soldiers who had been engaged by Guei as Praetorian Guard. When their attempt failed they fled to the North where the French supplied them with new weapons, logistical support and a supply of mercenaries from Burkina Faso, as well as from among the human refuse of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

These rebels have succeeded, with French help, in establishing their terrorist control of the North of the country. They have closed the schools; the hospitals don’t work; there are no public services; there is little to eat and nowhere to work. The only money is made by bringing in motorbikes without paying tax and selling them throughout West Africa. They have no electric generating capacity; no major cash crops except cotton which they smuggle to Burkina Faso. They have announced that they are creating an Islamic state in the North, with a view to installing Sharia Law. The only schools which operate are the madrassahs, the Koranic schools which are attracting fundamentalists from all over Saharan Africa. In all of this, they are supported by the French.

The French are there wearing two hats. On the one hand they claim they are there as part of the military clauses in the Colonial Pact which gives them the right to intervene, station troops and operate independently of the government which is supposed to be their host. They are also there because the United Nations has created a peacekeeping force for Ivory Coast and the French military presence has become subsumed in the military mission. In fact the French control the United Nations forces. 

There is a stalemate in the political reconciliation in the Ivory Coast. Shortly after the putsch was seen to be inconclusive, the French invited the parties to France where they signed the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement. This is a woeful agreement which forced concessions from the Gbagbo Government which it accepted as a road to peace. This included protecting the status quo of the forces, putting in a ‘neutral’ prime minister and allowing the rebels to have cabinet seats. Against the wishes of many of the citizens Gbagbo agreed in the hope that these concessions would force the rebels to fulfil their side of the bargain; to disarm. They have steadfastly resolved to avoid disarmament. The concessions made by Gbagbo are seen as excessive in non-francophone Africa. It is impossible to conceive that the Federal Government of Nigeria would have allowed the territory of Biafra to remain in the hands of the Biafrans and that they would take into the Nigerian Cabinet military officers from Biafra; all in the name of compromise suggested by the ‘international community.’ Perhaps, since the French were the main backers of Biafra, this had a familiar ring and attraction.

But this is not just a story of political manoeuvring. It is a story of horror and violence by the French against the people of the Ivory Coast. This is a war by France against the Ivory Coast. Throughout history, French colonial endeavours have been marked with great acts of violence, brutality and horror. After the defeat of General Rochambeau in Haiti, the French carried on a policy of violence and disruption which lasted for years. In nearby Guadeloupe, having freed the slaves and established a successful autonomous colony the French re-instituted slavery and colonial rule and killed thousands of black Guadeloupe freemen. The French army systematically used torture and murder in Algeria against its opponents. This was confirmed by the 92-year old general Jacques Massu, who in 1957 was in charge of the notorious "Paras" (10th Parachute Division), and his deputy, the 82-year old general Paul Aussaresses, then director of the French secret service in Algiers. There were over forty thousand people killed by the French and the pieds noirs settlers in one weekend in Algeria (where both Chirac and Le Pen served in the French military). Violence and destruction have characterised French colonial and post-colonial rule in Africa.

On the 6th, 7th and 8th of November 2004, when the U.S. was celebrating the re-election of George Bush, the French moved against the Ivory Coast. Angered by an air attack by the fledgling Ivory Coast Air Force on the rebels being sheltered by the French and which the French say killed some of their soldiers, the French received orders directly from Jacques Chirac to destroy the Ivory Coast aircraft and to march on the capital Abidjan. They came in tanks and armoured personnel carriers and took over the national airport. The citizens rushed to protect their president from a French coup-de-etat. They crossed the bridge towards the presidency. French helicopter gunships flew over each end of the bridge shooting unarmed civilians trapped on the bridge. Hundreds were wounded and some died. The following day the French moved up against the Presidency. They established themselves at the Hotel Ivoire, a large hotel with a tower leading to the road the presidency nearby. The French came in tanks and APCs; with machine guns and snipers placed on the upper floors of the hotel. The unarmed civilians, men and women and children, demonstrated there. The French gave the order to fire on these unarmed civilians. Sixty-nine were killed and 2,200 injured. Finally the French withdrew.

These acts of brutality were filmed and have been circulated throughout the internet and have been made into films. The latest is “La Victoire Aux Mains Nues” (victory with their bare hands) by Sidiki Baraka. These brutal acts are denied by the French despite contemporary evidence.

The people of the Ivory Coast have been mobilized by these horrors.

That is one reason why it was so startling to hear, albeit in French, the moving words of the Declaration of Independence being pronounced so sincerely by Mamadou Koulibaly, the President of the National Assembly... “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” The list of offences by King George against the thirteen colonies are almost an identical list of offences by the French against the Ivory Coast. It is now time to alter or abolish the French rule.

When I was a boy in school we had to memorise the beginning paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. It was no chore. In our classes, then, were the new immigrants from a war-torn Europe. They had arrived in their numbers and took their places in our school classrooms. It was a source of great pride to us second, third and fourth-generation Americans to see the new students learning the English of their adopted land from the stirring words of Jefferson; learning about the universality of justice and human rights; and pledging, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence …” to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” I was reminded of this when I heard these paragraphs being read. But I couldn’t tell them the rest of the story.

The Declaration of Independence which we read every Fourth of July, was the outcome of a process of rebellion and revolt against the tyranny of the British Occupation. The start of the open rebellion was the 5th of March 1770 in Boston where tensions were high because the restrictions on free trade were felt the hardest there. The occupying British forces were attacking some colonials at King Street, near the Town Hall. A large burly man heard the noise and gathered his friends and ran to the scene. He rushed to the front and confronted the soldiers. When the soldiers made ready to shoot him he struck the soldier on the arm. The soldier shot him twice. Four other men were killed, and six others were wounded. The next day, his body was taken to Faneuil Hall, and two days later, all the businesses were closed for his and the other victims' funeral. This event is known as the Boston Massacre. The first blow in the war against colonial occupation was struck by this man and he was the first victim. The British soldiers were placed on trial for the murders, and the charge stated that they had been attacked "with force and arms, feloniously, willfully, and of malice aforethought." The soldier who had attacked him was found not guilty.

This man who stood up for liberty was Crispus Attucks, a black slave. He had tried to buy his freedom when he was young but his master refused. He ran away to become a harpooner on a whaling ship. There was a price of ten British pounds on his head so, for many years, he had stayed clear of Boston. His father was a slave from West Africa. Many slaves fought for the independence of the thirteen colonies in the Revolutionary War. In 1770, one-fifth of the population was African-American. Most were slaves, so they had nothing to lose by joining up. Anything that could free them from degradation and suffering was worth doing. So they joined local and state militias. They were openly accepted in the Continental Army. African-Americans fought during the opening salvos at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. 

I was reminded of this when I heard the Declaration being read. I remembered the outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord; the “Shot Heard Around the World”, 19th of April 1775. I was reminded of the attack on innocent civilians on the Old North Bridge and the indiscriminate shooting by the British. I thought of the attacks by the French on the bridge in Abidjan; the “Shot Heard By Nobody Around the World”. Many more died in Abidjan and no one seems to take note of this brutality.

It ill behooves the United States to allow these colonial excesses to continue. In 1898 William Jennings Bryant announced that he regretfully agreed that it would be wrong for the U.S. to allow full civil rights and public education for the newly-acquired territory of the Philippines. He said, “If we do so, they may learn English and read our Constitution and mock us for our inconstancy”.

The French are operating under a United Nations Mandate in the Ivory Coast. They are committing these acts in the name of the United Nations. Twice the United States has voted in favour of the establishment and renewal of the mandate. This extension expires on the 4th of May this year. It is wrong for the U.S. to vote to allow a further extension of the French mandate. The U.S. must insist that the price of the renewal of the U.N. mandate will depend on the withdrawal of the French from the occupying forces. The French have already stated their willingness to leave; so let it be done.

If the U.S. cannot understand that there is a hunger, a yearning among the people of Africa to be free of their colonial masters than it has no further claim to the Declaration of Independence. The principle stated there is clear, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”