Why do Ivorians demand the release of Laurent Gbagbo?

This paper was first presented at the Open Forum of the National Congress of Resistance and Democracy (CNRD), held on Saturday, October 26, 2013 in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast. It exposes the thoughts of a great majority of Ivorians and Africans and friends of Africa and the Ivory Coast on the peace and reconciliation process in Ivory Coast. It also demonstrates that the debate on Laurent Gbagbo is not obsolete but constitutes the first step toward a renewed and appeased political climate.

INTRODUCTION: THE RELEVANCE OF THE TOPIC

The debate about the crisis in the Ivory Coast took a new dimension on April 11, 2011, when French and UN forces, backing the troops of the Armed Forces of the New Forces of Mr. Alassane Ouattara, bombed the presidential palace and arrested Laurent Gbagbo, who the Constitutional Council declared winner of the 2010 presidential election. He was sworn into office on the Ivorian Constitution on December 4, 2010 in the palace of the presidency of the Republic. First detained in Korhogo (north of the Ivory Coast) in degrading conditions [1], Laurent Gbagbo was then transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, on November 30, 2011. Since that date, his freedom or detention, depending on whether one is a supporter of Laurent Gbagbo or a supporter of Alassane Ouattara, has been a recurrent question in the Ivorian political discourse and, above all, in the quest for reconciliation and durable peace.

Indeed, since November 30, 2011, the name of Laurent Gbagbo has been mentioned daily either to underline the injustice he is undergoing, or to claim that he deserves to be kept away from the Ivory Coast; or to argue that the process of national reconciliation cannot succeed without him, or to stress that he is the symbol of the struggle for sovereignty in the Ivory Coast and Africa.

It is almost impossible to count how many times the name of Laurent Gbagbo, his photographs, and his speeches, etc. are used in news websites or in social media such as Facebook. How many Ivorians and Africans do use Laurent Gbagbo’s photographs for their Facebook profiles? How many are they that have formed online communities [2] to pay tribute to Laurent Gbagbo and demand his freedom? Who does not remember how social and professional activities were frozen, first on December 5, 2011, when Laurent Gbagbo was arraigned before Judge Sylvia de Gurmendi, and second in February 2013, during his preliminary trial at The Hague? The particularity of this trial is that those who demand the release of Laurent Gbagbo have developed a rhetoric that is contrary to what the ICC and the detractors of Laurent Gbagbo say. In fact, while the ones speak of a ‘trial of confirmation of charges’, the others, who are abusively called pro-Gbagbos, prefer the expression: ‘trial of confirmation or trial of reversal of charges.’ This counter-expression illustrates the determination of the Ivorians, Africans, and those who want total freedom for ‘Seplou’ [3].

In North America, many followed the February 2013 trial on the internet and by telephones, missing no opportunities to comment on the performance of Laurent Gbagbo’s counsels. The content of these comments must be analyzed for future reference, if it has not yet been done already. But the first observation is that the comments express, in a certain way, the hopes to see Laurent Gbagbo walk out of the Scheveningen prison. What about the recurring rallies of the Diaspora in North America? The White House, the US Congress, the headquarters of the UN in New York, the Constitutional Center in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, just to mention a few places, were the venues of multiple rallies to denounce the abuses, the illegitimacy, and the hypocrisy of the regime of Alassane Ouattara and to demand, with explanations, the liberation of more than 700 [4] political prisoners including Laurent Gbagbo. Also, during their meetings with world ambassadors to the United States [5], US lawmakers, representatives of human rights organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch), or during TV and radio interviews, at conferences, or while participating to debates on the Ivory Coast, the Diaspora made the freedom of President Laurent Gbagbo the focal point of their demands.

Therefore, it is with energies renewed almost daily, with a faith and with a firm conviction that the patriots, sovereigns, and panafricanists [6] have demanded the release of Laurent Gbagbo. Individually or collectively through their organizations, they have successfully kept the case of Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivorian and the world’s collective memory and continued to demand the latter’s freedom. It is important to note that the circle of those who demand freedom for Laurent Gbagbo has enlarged to even include some supporters of Mr. Alassane Ouattara, who are lately disappointed with his policies. The latter have used venues, for instance the ‘JacquesRogerShow’, a highly appraised podcast radio show in the West African French-speaking Diaspora, to air their discontent.

Why should Laurent Gbagbo be freed? The Committee of Actions for the Ivory Coast in the USA (C.A.C.I-USA) offers valid answers to this question. The first part of this text consists of a description of the committee. The second part discusses the methodology of the text. The third part exposes in detail and with examples the reasons why Ivorians and Africans are convinced that Laurent Gbagbo must be freed.

I. C.A.C.I-USA: A coalition of forces and movements of the Diaspora in the USA for social justice

The Committee of Actions for the Ivory Coast (C.A.C.I – USA) is a registered coalition of individuals, movements, and organizations of the Diaspora in North America. It comprises Ivoirians, Africans, Caribbeans, African Americans, and Whites, who mobilized since the aftermath of the 2010 presidential election, when the international community refused to acknowledge Laurent Gbagbo’s victory as declared by the Ivorian Constitutional Council. According to their visions for the Ivory Coast, for Africa, and for the world, the members of the C.A.C.I-USA identify as patriots, or sovereigns, or panafricans.

The patriots are the Ivorians and the friends of the Ivory Coast who identify with ‘La Majorité Présidentielle’ [7] and the groups, which have mobilized for the country since the rebellion broke out in 2002 [8]. The patriots are opposed to the erosion of Ivorian particularities, to the liquidation of lands and citizenship to foreign nationals. They reject the decade-old argument that Ivorians are xenophobic. The sovereigns believe in the freedom of nations to choose their own institutions and their leaders. They believe in the respect of the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of the member states, as stipulated in the charters of the UN, the African Union and other international organizations. They defend Africa’s independence. The panafricans emphasize the cultural and the political unity of all Black people in the world. They believe that this unity is primordial for Africa’s freedom. They are convinced that the crisis of the Ivory Coast is a crisis of pan-Africanism. They believe in the philosophies and actions of George Padmore, Nkrumah, W.E.B Dubois and leaders including Robert Mugabe, Julius Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral, Samora Machel, Nelson Mandela and Thomas Sankara. The pan-Africans believe that Laurent Gbagbo has demonstrated the characteristics of a Pan-African, who sees a slap given to any African as a blow given to all the descendants of Africa in Africa, in America, in the Caribbeans, and in Europe.

The CACI-USA was founded on May 13, 2012 in Silver Springs, MD, from the willingness of political actors and human rights activists, to 1) denounce the unconstitutional character of Mr. Alassane Ouattara’s regime, 2) fustigate the tragic role that the international community played in the Ivorian crisis, 3) keep the US administration, human rights organizations, organizations for the defense of democracy, and foreign diplomats informed of the situation in the Ivory Coast, and 4) provide humanitarian relief to Ivorian IDPs and refugees and asylum seekers in Ghana and Togo.

Since its inception, the CACI-USA is advised by Ambassador Kokora Pascal [9], former ambassador of the Ivory Coast to the US. Ambassador Kokora is well known in the Ivory Coast for his pioneering role in the struggle for multipartyism, social justice and human rights. In 1986, during the peak of the one-party system and the one-person dictatorial rule of Houphouet-Boigny, he gathered some faculty members of the University of Abidjan and proposed the foundation of a league for the defense of human rights. In 1987, the idea became a reality. The Ivorian League for Human Rights (LIDHO) was established with Law Professor René Degni Segui as its first Secretary General [10].

The CACI-USA works with the forces of democracy of which the FPI and the CNRD are the spears. The CACI-USA believes that the hope of a reconciled Ivory Coast, prosperous, and freed from the yoke of ‘Françafrique’ (the name of the paternalistic and unbecoming relations between France and its former African colonies) rests on these two organizations. The CACI-USA declares that the release of President Laurent Gbagbo and the denouncement of the illegitimate regime of Mr. Alassane Ouattara is the must-go-through door to establish a republican dialogue and a new beginning for the Ivory Coast. The CACI-USA partners with ANSWER Coalition and the December 12 Movement, two US-registered organizations which fight against US imperialism.

II. OUR METHODOLOGY

Kwame Nkrumah wrote: ‘Action without thought is empty. Thought without action is blind.’ In the light of this statement, we think that demanding the liberation of Laurent Gbagbo and the multiple rallies in the Diaspora illustrate a thought, an ideology, a state of mind, a conviction, and a vision.

The conclusions presented in this position paper combine the analyses of Ivorian and African scholars in the United State, the actions of the Diaspora, the messages and slogans that they use during rallies. It is certain that these conclusions can be similar to the reasons that other actors and organizations advance. For us, such similarities confirm the unanimity that surrounds Laurent Gbagbo and the fact that the many who demand his liberation are convinced of the worth of his fight for true democracy in the Ivory Coast and in Africa.

III. WHY DOES THE DIASPORA IN NORTH AMERICA DEMAND THE RELEASE OF LAURENT GBAGBO?

According to the CACI-USA, the reasons why Laurent Gbagbo should be freed are multiple, complementary, and equivalent. There is not a single reason that is stronger or weaker than another. All the reasons boost the energies of the patriots, sovereigns, and the Pan-Africans.

a) To make the Constitution matter in the political debate

In March 2009 in Ghana, Mr. Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, whose election in November 2008 was qualified by Laurent Gbagbo as a victory of the democratic ideal [11], said: ‘Africa needs strong institutions but not strong leaders’ [12]. As a true American citizen, President Obama made his prescription on the US political system in which the Constitution is a respected compass. But before President Obama made his speech, Laurent Gbagbo already understood, theorized, and implemented the truth that social justice (democracy) goes along with the respect of the Constitution. During his tenure, the Ivory Coast had a true constitutional awakening, some measurable dimensions of which are: the refusal to oversee the Council of magistrates although the constitution allowed him to, the allocation of public funds to major and significant political parties to ensure their independence from the governing powers, the ban of any laws against journalists, effective decentralization, the existence of an independent election commission to organize free and fair elections, the establishment of a constitutional Council to make sure that all laws and treaties agree with the constitution, the constant reference to the constitution to guide political debates, etc. In fact, it is under Laurent Gbagbo that the people of the Ivory Coast felt the gains of the 1980s and 1990s movements for democratization.

The Constitutional Council’s ruling on December 2, 2010, which declared Laurent Gbagbo the winner of the presidential election of November 2010, is a strong aspect of this constitutional awakening, inasmuch as the ruling was similar to the US Supreme Court’s 2000 decision in the electoral dispute between Mr. George Bush and Mr. Al Gore. If we agree with President Obama’s prescription, the respect of the ruling of the Constitutional Council would have strengthened the Ivorian institutions because the strength of an institution is predicated on the legality of its decisions and on the citizens’ respect thereof. As long as the legal ruling of the Constitutional Council was slashed down by some Ivorian political actors (the RDR, the PDCI, the UDPCI, and the rebel forces) and by the NATO forces backed by the UN, as long as it was decided to bomb the presidential palace and to arrest Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivory Coast fell back into the constitutional lethargy in which it was engulfed for four decades from 1960 to 2000. The arrest of Laurent Gbagbo took the Ivory Coast out of its constitutional order. It also suppressed the Constitution from the Ivorian political debate.

The Constitution is the foundation of a free, transparent and peaceful political system. To free Laurent Gbagbo would return the nation to constitutional legality, to the rule of the law, and to the constitutionality of the Ivorian institutions.

b) TO RESOLVE THE DISPUTE OVER THE RESULTS OF THE 2010 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Who is the true winner of the presidential election of 2010? This question often recurs when Laurent Gbagbo speaks. But he is not the only one to raise it. The patriots, the sovereigns, and the panafricans ask the same question because they have the right to know what the ballot boxes said in the evening of November 28, 2010. Our conviction is that the detailed results that Mr. N’dré Yao Paul [13] read and the ruling of the Ivorian Constitutional Council are correct. Therefore, we demand that Laurent Gbagbo be freed.

However, because the France-UN-New forces coalition waged a war, it is good to recount the ballot and to ask why Mr. Youssouf Bakayoko (the President of the Independent Election Commission) said what he said at the ‘Hôtel du Golf’ on December 2, 2010. It is also good to ask about the results that Mr. Choi, the Special representative of the UN Secretary General, used to certify that the declarations of Mr. Youssouf Bakayoko were correct. It is mandatory for the Ivorians, voters or non-voters, to know the results of this election 90% of the budget of which they contributed. An electoral victory is established by numbers of votes and not by the power of the gun. Until now, no website including the website of the Independent Electoral Commission, no documentation offers the details of the results of the run-off of the 2010 Ivorian presidential election. The unavailability of such results infringes upon the freedom of information, the principle of legitimacy, and the right of the people of the Ivory Coast to choose their own leaders. It also impedes academic research on voting patterns and voting behaviors in the Ivory Coast.

Yet, the answer to the question: ‘Who won the presidential election?’ requires the presence of all the political actors, hence the obligation to free Laurent Gbagbo, the candidate that the ‘Majorité Présidentielle’ endorsed.

c) TO CLAIM THE COUNTRY’S SOVEREIGNTY

One of the stakes of the 2010 presidential election was the sovereignty of the Ivory Coast. Of the 14 contestants in the first round and of the two in the run-off, Laurent Gbagbo was the only candidate whose plan of actions [14] underlined the autonomy of the country, its sovereignty, its desire to break away from the colonizing structures of the Françafrique and to diversify its economic partners. He was the only candidate who demanded the end of the cooperation and defense agreements that the Ivory Coast signed with France in April 1961. As a matter of fact, under his tenure, the relationship between the Ivory Coast and France was more of equality than it was of domination. The Diaspora endorsed Laurent Gbagbo for President in 2010 because they agreed with his vision of independence.

Therefore, by casting their votes for him, the Ivorians of the Diaspora unambiguously reasserted their adherence to sovereignty. They reasserted this option again on March 30, 2011 in front of the UN headquarters, when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1975 and when, with the support of the French and UN troops, the Pro-Ouattara forces attacked the regular army of the Ivory Coast, the troops committed to defend the Republic and the institutions of a sovereign state. Today, an icon of this sovereignty is imprisoned at The Hague where Laurent Gbagbo is detained. The enormous difficulty that the regime of Mr. Alassane Ouattara is experiencing in its search for acceptance by the Ivorians and the obvious failure of the national reconciliation process are, in part, caused by the imprisonment of the sovereignty of the Ivory Coast. What is more, reconciliation is taboo because the regime in power is not only illegitimate, but also, it is headed by a political actor who has no legal and legitimate right to contest an election in the Ivory Coast.

Therefore, there is an overdose of humiliation in the incarceration of Laurent Gbagbo. The circumstances of his arrest, the images broadcast in the world showing him and his spouse, Simone Gbagbo [15] ridiculous and exhibited as trophies of war, increased the pain of the patriots, sovereigns, and the Pan-Africans. A humiliated and degraded nation has no other choice than to fight. To demand the liberation of Laurent Gbagbo is rhetoric of anti-colonialism and autonomy. His liberation would be a psychological victory and a boost for the forces of democracy.

d) TO SERVE THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE

For whoever has followed the evolution of Ivorian politics since at least the 1980s, it is inacceptable that Laurent Gbagbo is at The Hague for unproved crimes against humanity at the end of a ten-year crisis instigated by the same person who sent him to jail in February 1992. For anyone who followed how pro-Ouattara warlords started the rebellion in September 2002, for anyone who followed the abuses, mutilations, deaths, the burning down of entire villages in the western part of the Ivory Coast (Guitrozon, Doké, Petit Duékoué, etc.), for whoever heard of the summary executions of gendarmes made prisoners of war, for whoever read or heard about how the rebel forces broke into the safes of the Central Bank of West African States and how they established a parallel fiscal and custom administration in the areas under their control since 2002, for whoever knows who started the war after the 2010 election, it is unthinkable and unfair that Laurent Gbagbo is at The Hague. His release would repair this injustice.

Is it acceptable that those who maimed the country, but who the nation forgave for the sake of reconciliation, turn around to jail the same people who forgave their sins? Can the patriots and the sovereigns, who were very disgruntled when Laurent Gbagbo granted the rebels their demands, for instance the use of Article 48 of the Constitution to allow Mr. Alassane Ouattara to contest the presidential election, the appointment of Soro Guillaume, rebel leader first as Minister of State and then as Prime Minister, the appointment of rebels who could barely read as ministers, accept to see him in jail? In which society is unrighteousness condoned over righteousness?

It is because the patriots, the sovereigns and the Pan-Africans cannot reconcile these questions that they coined the expression: ‘NO GBAGBO, NO PEACE’, which concentrates aspects of the problem and the solution of the Ivorian crisis. The Diaspora wants justice to be served to honor the victims and the families of the victims of the crisis. The Diaspora wants the truth to come out to ensure durable peace in the Ivory Coast.

e) TO RESOLVE THE CRISIS

Is it possible one day to end the crisis of the Ivory Coast? We believe it is possible although the social fracture is very deep. The resolution of the crisis is a challenge that the sons and daughters of the Ivory Coast are capable to hold up to. But this resolution has some requirements. In fact, the interest of the nation, which all the national and international political actors refer to, requires the active participation of Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivorian political debate. The rationale is simple: having made the Ivorians swallow ‘sour pills’, the rebels and their sponsors in power should swallow the ‘sweet pill that the return of Laurent Gbagbo to the Ivorian political scene represents.’ This return is another dimension of justice and reparation of the wrongs that the pro-Ouattara rebels have caused the country. Since 2002, the rebels have done nothing to make peace and reconciliation possible. Only Laurent Gbagbo, as Mr. Thabo Mbeki, former head of state of South Africa and former mediator of the crisis admitted, implemented his share of the resolutions and peace agreements.

Laurent Gbagbo’s strong inclination to peace even at the costly price of humiliation, his charisma, his adulation by the majority of the patriots, sovereigns, and Pan-Africans, and the hopes that the latter see in him are great assets for the Ivory Coast. Laurent Gbagbo is the key to the resolution of the crisis. The work of reconciliation is the onus of he/she who is wronged. In other words, the oppressed, more than the oppressor, can eliminate injustice according to Paolo Freire, Martin Luther King, and Albert Memmi [16]. The Ivorian patriots and sovereigns are the victims of the crisis [17]. They are the ones who France attacked in September 2002, November 2004, and March-April 2011. They are the oppressed and the core of the solutions they propose to end the crisis is the release of Laurent Gbagbo. The CACI-USA supports this position vehemently.

Nowadays, Laurent Gbagbo is for the Ivory Coast what Hugo Chavez was for a large majority of Venezuelans, what General Giap was for Vietnam, what George Washington, John Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan were for the Americans. In the course of its history, a nation develops some institutions and has leaders who strengthen these institutions by the bond between them and the people. Laurent Gbagbo is one of those leaders because he laid down his life as the grain of wheat, which should die for the petals of happiness to blossom for the multitude. Like Asar, the main character in Osiris Rising of Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah, Laurent Gbagbo did not flee the country when he was attacked. As a commander-in-chief, he preserved the existence of the state. He gave hope to the poor, to the deprived, and to the afflicted during the horror of the rebellion.The sovereigns see him as the new symbol of Africa’s independence. The panafricans say he is the new icon of Black people’s world liberation movement. For all that he represents, the CACI-USA demands his freedom.

f) TO PROTEST AGAINST THE ICC

The CACI-USA is convinced that Laurent Gbagbo’s arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a political decision that perpetuates France’s maneuvers to keep the Ivory Coast in her sphere of influence. The truth is that Laurent Gbagbo’s philosophy and actions seriously threatened France’s geo-strategic interests and hegemony in Africa. It is because of these interests that NATO supported France-initiated UN Resolution 1975, the ultimate goal of which was to defeat and kill Laurent Gbagbo. President Obama’s YouTube address of April 5, 2011, Hillary Clinton’s letter to Laurent Gbagbo, and finally President Nicholas Sarkozy’s injunction to Laurent Gbagbo to leave power within 48 hours, did not stop the latter from claiming that Mr. Alassane Ouattara did not win the presidential election. For the powers of the West, Laurent Gbagbo’s attitude was the utmost insult. For instance, Lanny Davis, the US lawyer that the government of Laurent Gbagbo hired, abandoned the case because Laurent Gbagbo had refused to speak to President Obama on the phone. Laurent Gbagbo’s attitude was ‘inacceptable’. That is why France and its allies used extreme violence against him.

Laurent Gbagbo resisted. The NATO failed to eliminate him physically. They ordered him to the ICC to keep him away from the Ivory Coast and to show other African leaders what could befall them if they oppose the geo-strategic interests of the powers of neoliberalism. After two years in detention, it is clear that the charges levied against Laurent Gbagbo are weak. The pre-Trial chamber has not confirmed them. It is also evident that African leaders speak out against the ICC’s Africa-oriented racism and unfairness [18]. The release of Laurent Gbagbo would end the substantiated accusations that the ICC is the new instrument of Western domination. Ending his trial at The Hague would dignify Africa. It will be a victory of sovereignty, a victory of justice over injustice, a victory of democracy over oligarchy and parallel channels.

CONCLUSION

This paper has exposed the reasons of the Diaspora’s inflexible demand for the release of Laurent Gbagbo from the ICC. We started with the Ivorian Constitution because the rule of law is indispensable and because Laurent Gbagbo’s greatest contribution to Ivorian politics was the respect of the Ivorian Constitution. During his tenure from 2000 to 2010, the Ivory Coast started the construction of a modern state, which gives men, women and children equal access to education, health, and economic opportunities. The April 11, 2011 arrest of Laurent Gbagbo interrupted this project. Only his release would restart the construction of this independent, equitable, and hospitable piece of land known as the Ivory Coast, our only and beloved country.

END NOTES

1. Laurent Gbagbo described the conditions in which he was detained on December 5, 2010, when he was arraigned before judges of the pre-trial Chamber I of the ICC. See archived videos on www.youtube.com
2. These groups continue to grow. « Un mot d’amour Gbagbo, » is one of these pages and online communities.
3. Seplou is one of the nicknames of Laurent Gbagbo. It is not new in the Ivorian political landscape to see political leaders or heads of states with nicknames borrowed from their traditions to illustrate their personality traits.
4. In a very recent interview, the President of the Ivory Coast chapter of Amnesty International, Ms. Nathalie Kouadio Yao, indicated that from April 2011 to October 24, 2013, the day of her interview with l’Inter, an Ivorian daily newspaper, there were 742 detainees including 41 youths all of them detained without due process for 2 years and six months.
5. In the USA, the CACI-USA met with African, European, and South-American chancelleries to expose on the origins of the Ivorian crisis and the injustice that the detention of Laurent Gbagbo represents.
6. These three terms give us an idea of the different categories of Ivorians, Africans, and African-Americans who got involved to demand the release of Laurent Gbagbo.
7. “La Majorité Présidentielle” is the coalition of more than ten political parties and civil society organizations, which endorsed the candidacy of Laurent Gbagbo for the 2010 elections.
8. The first rallies of the Ivorians in the USA started two weeks after the rebellion broke out in 2002. The UN headquarters, the embassy of France, for instance, were the sites of these rallies.
9. In 1987, Ambassador Kokora was sacked from the University of Abidjan and expelled from the Ivory Coast. He sought asylum in the United States and served at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
10. The Ivorian League of Human Rights (LIDHO) was created on March 21, 1987 according to Law 60-375 of September 21, 1960 at the moment when the PDCI-RDA of Houphouet-Boigny was the only party allowed to operate.
11. « Barack Obama ou la force de l’idéal démocratique » is the title of the text that Laurent Gbagbo contributed to the African political discourse on the relevance of Obama’s election. The text was distributed in January 2009.
12. See the speech President Obama made on the floor the Ghanaian parliament during this historical visit in March 2009. This speech of the first bi-racial president of the United States triggered hopes that the US African agenda would change for an increase and much better relationships between the US and Africa.
13. At the time of the election, Mr. Yao N’dré Paul was the Chairman of the Ivorian Constitutional Council.
14. See Laurent Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire : Bâtir la Paix sur la démocratie et la prospérité, Abidjan : NEI, 2009.
15. Simone Gbagbo is still under custody in the northern part of the Ivory Coast. The conditions of her detention are unknown. The regime of Alassane Ouattara has objected to the ICC’s request of her transfer to The Hague.
16. Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, USA: Continuum, 1992; Albert Memmi, The colonizer and the colonized, Boston, Beacon Press, 1965.
17. This thought does not obliterate the responsibilities that the patriots share in the crisis. However, there is an aggressor and a victim who reacts to the aggression he undergoes. The new forces and Ouattara who are now in power are the aggressors and the Ivorians are the victims.
18. The debate took its full course during the celebration of the AU’s 50th anniversary in Addis-Ababa in May 2013.

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