Foto da Flickr

Article by Alessandro Polvani
Translation by Chris Mckee

With the majority of the European powers understandably occupied with recent events in Libya, or in following with apprehension the latest news from Japan, another massive humanitarian crisis is currently unravelling in the Ivory Coast, one that has already resulted in 400,000 refugees. It seems that this is happening with the utmost indifference on behalf of Europe. In fact, the press conference given last Thursday by the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, specifically devoted
to the topic, was barely even reported by the media.
 

The ineffectiveness of the decision-making process, and the fact that fundamental questions are being asked of the Council, have resulted, in this case as in others where the diplomatic agenda is dominated by a handful of events that have seemingly monopolized the attention of the general public, a sort of ambivalence in relation to the other events that are also taking place in the world. At the same time, the various news channels and information services, seem to focus more on the events that have managed to grab the attention of the wider public, in an effort to maximise the number of given viewers and readers. Unfortunately, the effect of this so-called 'infotainment‘ (information entertainment) process is that a large proportion of international affairs are excluded from the programming.
 

President Houphouët-Boigny, the ‘homme fort’ backed by the French government, imposed a completely dictatorial regime from 1960 to 1994 in the country. His death, in 1994, provided the Ivory Coast with the opportunity to make a democratic choice for the first time in its history.

Laurent Gbagbo, the leader of the Ivorian Popular Front, has led the country uninterruptedly from 2000, following an electoral process that was widely accused of corruption, and which was generally condemned by the international community.

The country is divided by a political fault-line which opposes the Christian south, loyal to Gbagbo, to the Muslim north where, after a failed coup d'etat in 2002, the opponents of the regime entered into a bloody conflict in which France intervened with interposing force, giving general support to the northern faction. The agreements which brought about the end of the civil war established a date for new presidential elections, which has been repeatedly pushed back until the end of October 2010.

The effect of these elections was to reopen these healing old wounds: while the north claimed victory for the former Prime Minister Outtara, recognised as the victor by the rest of the international community and by independent bodies, the south claimed that these elections were fraudulent and criticised the fact that the international community sided with the rebels. Their position was supported by the observations of the Ivorian Constitutional Court, a court largely composed of pro-government supporters, proclaiming Gbagbo as their president and inciting a degree of ethnic hatred through the means of mass communication.

In our opinion, this incitation to racial hatred highlights why the differences between the north and south of the country must be closely monitored by the international community, and also by the EU, which this week has appeared to be preoccupied by the gravity of events taking place elsewhere. Of course, these events remain extremely important, but at the same time they must not divert our attention away from the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding before our eyes in the Ivory Coast, in which an early intervention could ultimately prove to be crucial.