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From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Wed Jan 12 2011 - 16:14:59 EST
Call to ECOWAS « Your people are in danger. Don’t be tricked into war! »
http://www.foram-forum-mali.org/index.php/non-classe/call-to-ecowas/
The unusual and novel situation of two “Presidents” and “two governments”
heading the single country of Ivory Coast is certainly cause for concern.
But what is even more worrisome is the unanimity of opinion among leaders of
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the rest of the
“international community” on the sanctions to be imposed on President
Laurent Gbagbo, including the option of using force if he refuses to hand
over power to Alassane Dramane Ouattara.
Will ECOWAS really follow through on this threat, and openly assume the role
of the strong arm of collective imperialism that hides behind the pompous
and misleading name of “international community”?
Peace in Ivory Coast, and indeed throughout Africa, depends on the lucidity,
solidarity and political courage shown by our leaders in a globalized unjust
and violent world.
We wish to remind African heads of state that they are being tricked about
who is the enemy and what war is being fought. The following is a list of
reasons that explain why they are doing so, and it applies to nearly all our
countries:
*1 – The notorious failure of the electoral system*
Ten years ago, in the Bamako Declaration on Democracy, Human Rights and
Freedoms, dated 3 November 2000, the ministers and heads of delegations of
governments of countries that share French as a common language made note,
in addition to “undeniable achievements”, of weaknesses and failures that
today have taken on alarming proportions. These include “the return of
conflicts, disruption of democratic processes, genocide and massacres,
serious violations of human rights, persistence of behaviours that impede
the development of democratic culture, the lack of independence of certain
institutions as well as social, financial and economic constraints, all of
which cause public disenchantment with democracy.”
Can a failed electoral system ever be used to justify a military
intervention in Ivory Coast?
*2 – The traps of the neoliberal system*
This ill-adapted electoral system that is cruelly dependent on foreign
“expertise” and financing serves an economic model that has been
particularly disastrous in Africa. It is synonymous with the pillaging of
the continent’s wealth and resources, endemic unemployment, poverty,
injustice, corruption and violence. The rates of economic growth praised by
the “international community” don’t do anything to improve the situation of
the vast majority of Africans.
So in the name of which vision for a better future should ECOWAS get
involved in a military intervention in Ivory Coast?
*3 – The “democracies” of minorities*
The enthusiasm and hopes that the first elections elicited are long gone, as
shown by the feeble rates of voter participation in presidential elections,
generally less than 50 percent (except in countries in crisis, such as
Guinea and Ivory Coast, where the people stroke their illusion that their
vote will bring peace).
Instead of playing the role of gendarme that the “international community”
has conferred on ECOWAS, at risk of discrediting it, shouldn’t West African
leaders first seek to restore to democracy a meaning that reconciles their
citizens with politics?
*4 – Serious political regressions*
The post-colonial state that wanted to be sovereign has become a ward state,
a pupil of the Bretton Woods Institutions. The ward state is forced to
liberalize its economy and privatize everything, and then to try to manage
the tragic social consequences that result from those economic policies. The
unpopularity of the democratically elected governments has a great deal to
do with the restrictive and often misguided reforms introduced by the World
Bank and the Internatioal Monetary Fund (IMF)², who then wash their hands
and accept no responsibility when the populations rise up against their
governments.
Is it really necessary for ECOWAS, in the name of a democracy that the
financiers at the World Bank and IMF trample underfoot, to add still more to
the injustice and the suffering of the Ivorian people?
*5 – Depoliticizing, personalizing and adding the ethnic factor*
To be “for” Mr. So and So, or “against” Mr. So and So – these are the
simplistic terms of the discount democracy that is served up to lesser
peoples, which is what we are in the imaginations of the Western powers.
And, unfortunately, it works.
Few and far betwen are the political actors who take the time and effort to
help the electorate understand what is at stake and the external interests —
economic, oil, mining, geopolitical and military — that shape the destiny of
our continent.
Is it at all surprising that voters, uninformed about these real issues,
turn instead to other criteria, such as ethnicity or religion?
*6 – The imposture of the “international community”*
We’ve never heard so much talk about the “international community” in Africa
as we have these past few weeks. Ordinary citizens are asking themselves,
“What is this international community?”
The answer is that it’s a dangerous construct that emerged after the end of
the cold war, which pretends to be a defender of international law. But its
demands vary depending on the location and the circumstances. Its members
are, among others, the United Nations Security Council, an undemocratic
institution whose resolutions are ignored by the State of Israel, which is
protected by the United States. Another member is the United States of
America that invaded Iraq in the name of weapons of mass destruction that
did not exist. Another is the European Union (EU) whose interests are clear
in the self-serving Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that it imposes
on the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Another member of the
“international community” is France, whose crimes are brilliantly
illustrated in the documentary by Patrick Benquet, *La Françafrique*. Two
more members of this “international community” are the World Bank and IMF,
which, in a different world from the one we live in, would be taken before
the international court for crimes against Africa.
As for the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS, their way of acting is a
reflection of the countries that comprise them; timid and financially
dependent, they are obliged to listen more to the superpowers and the
Bretton Woods institutions than to their own people, and they are more and
more, distraugthed and in danger.
Is it necessary to add the tragic consequences of military violence to the
already immeasurable harm caused by economic sanctions in Ivory Coast?
*7 – Instrumentalisation of the suffering and distress of Africans*
Ivorian and African voters are, in sum, collateral victims of the economic
war that rages worldwide. The poverty that the dominant economic model
imposes on them, and their suffering, are exploited by the electoral
process, the so-called “transparent”, “fair” and “democratic” elections,
which, as we’ve already noted, do not respond to the voters’ rightful quest
for dignity.
*8 – The opacity of the issues and what is at stake*
No one could believe for even an instant that the French president, author
of the denigrating speech in Dakar about “the African”, has the slightest
concern for African people and African democracy. The former colonial power
needs, above all, to protect its interests in Ivory Coast, which, today
like the day after its independence, serves as France’s anchor and
trampoline in the region.
As for the United States of America, a major factor in their response to
events in Ivory Coast is their considerable interest in the oil that exists
in the Gulf of Guinea.
Can there be any co-existence between these master plans that suppress
democracy and the democracy that the African people are crying for with all
their voices?
*9 – The systematic crisis of capitalism*
Africa’s leaders are victims of dishonest “win-win” rhetoric that pretends
that everyone can win with neoliberal globalization, of which the failure is
already evident. So they are also striving to fit into the prefabricated
mould of “accelerated growth”, “good governance” and “democracy”, etc.
History is in the process of writing itself, in blood and in tears, in Ivory
Coast. It is not a serious political or even institutional crisis, whose
resolution depends only on Ivorians. It is one of those low-grade wars that
the cynical world order has imposed on oppressed people, all the while
swearing only that the intention is to ensure “democracy” and “human rights”
and “freedoms”.
*10 – The crisis of global leadership and the question of ethics*
Given the structural and systemic crisis of globalized capitalism, there is
no heaven-sent man for Ivory Coast, even if it might have been possible to
believe the contrary with the election of Barrack Obama in the United
States. The American president and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy,
who apparently have all the answers when it comes to democracy in Africa,
are confronted with enormous difficulties in their own countries, and all of
those are related to the sinful nature of the economic system that Africans
are adopting, without their knowledge. The deregulation of our economies,
unfair competition and above all, the marginalization of the State in the
name of economic growth and competitivity are all options devoid of ethics.
The actual world order doesn’t need an Alassane Dramane Ouattara any more
than it needs a Laurent Gbagbo; its only interest is wealth and resources
and control of Ivory Coast with its geo-strategic position in West Africa.
*We hope that by delineating this cruel situation, which is not a secret to
anyone, we will contribute to dispassionate the debate and inspire the
protagonists of the Ivorian crisis, and all African political
decision-makers, to rethink the situation with lucidity and with political
maturity.*
Declaration
Given this unprecedented offensive of the “international community” against
a sovereign state in the name of democracy, and given the
instrumentalisation of ECOWAS, we express:
- - *Our solidarity* with our wounded brothers and sisters of Ivory
Coast, who are the true losers in this kind of formal, dictatorial and
contentious “democracy” that the Western powers are imposing by using
financial blackmail and corruption.
- - *Our profound disagreement* with the use of force against a
sovereign state without regard for human lives, social cohesion and peace,
already seriously abused.
- - *Our conviction* that the “international community” is nothing
but a coalition of powers and interests that make their own laws through the
UN Security Council, financial institutions and other tools at their
disposition.
- - *Our disapproval* of the alignment of the African Union and
ECOWAS on the compromising and dangerous positions they are taking on Ivory
Coast.
- - *Our indignation* in the face of the arrogant and unabashed
interference of the United Nations that oversteps its role in the Ivory
Coast, and in the face of the pressure and sanctions, among them the
scandalous ones imposed by the World Bank and the IMF, who forget that they
have considerable responsibility for the tragic situation in Africa.
- - *Our consternation* in the face of the violation of the
political rights of Africans, who should be the only judges of the state of
their countries and the conduct of their leaders, and in the face of the way
the African electorate is treated like children by a system that makes
elections become an end in itself.
- - *Our revulsion* at the way the world’s powers select their
favourite leaders in our countries, particularly the way France and the
United States invert their roles in the Ivory Coast, setting themselves up
as saviours and peace-makers, when in fact they are the makers of war.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, to cite only a few recent cases, have been
turned into veritable quagmires that prove that democracy is not something
that can be exported.
- - *Our distrust* of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that
ignores the fact that the victims of pre- and post-election violence are
first and foremost, the men and women that the system, of which it is one of
the tools, millions of whom are starved, excluded and slowly killed every
day.
- - *Our conviction* that the time has come for profound reform of
the United Nations system, which social movements have been calling for, and
that this reform is not just in terms of representation of the African
continent, but also of its ethics.
- - *Our conviction* that the dramatic situation in Ivory Coast
justifies an immediate re-evaluation of democratic practises in Africa.
- - *Our determination* to raise awareness of these issues,
especially among women and youth, so that their votes can influence economic
policies that are the causes of unemployment, famine and exile.
- - *Our desire* to make the World Social Forum (WSF) of Dakar, from
the 6th to 11th February 2011, the place where rich ideas will be
exchanged to produce alternatives to destructive and globalized capitalism.
*No one should die in Ivory Coast, or elsewhere in Africa, in the name of a
discredited democracy, distorted because it was conceived, financed and
judged from the outside by financial powers in search of “reliable” leaders.
*
**
*So, an end to the interference, arrogance and humiliation! Every people
will rise up, will resist and will free themselves by examining their own
history and their own experiences of injustice and humiliation. *
**
*Let us hope that the suffering and injustices inflicted on the people of
Africa serve as a catalyst in the emergence of democratic, peaceful and
humanistic values and institutions here and around the world.*
Have signed…
- Aminata Dramane TRAORE (Forum pour un Autre Mali)
- Demba Moussa DEMBELE (Forum Africain des Alternatives)
- Samir AMIN (Forum du Tiers-Monde)
- Jean ZIEGLER (Vice-President of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human
Rights Council)
- Mme Erika ZIEGLER
- Pr Jean Bosco KONARE (Enseignant)
- Ray LEMA (Artiste musicien)
- Cati BENAÏNOUS
- Ismaël DIABATE (Artiste peintre)
- Bernard FOUNOU (Forum du Tiers-monde)
- Nathalie M’Dela MOUNIER ( Ecrivain)
- Antonia REIS (Interprète)
- Clariste SOH-MOUBE (Centre Amadou Hampâté Bâ)
- Mohamed EL BECHIR BEN ABDALLAH (Président de la Coordination des
Partants Volontaires à la Retraite- CPVR)
- Borry KANTE (au nom de toute la CPVR – 5666 adhérents)
- Taoufik BEN ABDALLAH (Enda Tiers-Monde)
- Patrick Anges GOGOGNON (Étudiant, candidat à la Maitrise en bioéthique,
Université de Montréal)
- Hamidou MAGASSA (CERNES)
- Abdoulaye NIANG, Ph.D (President & Founder The Niang Abdoulaye
Foundation)
- Karine BALLON ( Documentaliste)
- Kakadou N’DIAYE (Universitaire)
- Joel MARSEILLE (Enseignant)
- Mme Chantal CAMPOS (Marchand d’Art)
- Pierre LERAY(Éducateur retraité)
- Mme Annouk LE FLOCH (Bibliothécaire)
- Jacques ROCHARD (Enseignant retraité)
- Mme Madeleine ROCHARD (Enseignante retraitée)
- Mme Albertine COURTIADE (Professeur retraitée)
- Latévi Georges LAWSON-BODY (Enseignant chercheur)
- Tcherno Hamadou BOULAMA ( Journaliste)
- Jean Prosper BOULADA (Traducteur-Interprète)
- Me Abdoulaye SANGARE (Avocat)
- Claire MALBOS (Artiste)
- Boubacar COULIBALY (FORAM)
- Ousmane AMION GUINDO (Ingénieur d’agriculture)
- Mme Edwige KOUASSI
- Narcisse ZAHIBO (Enseignant-chercheur)
- Christian BENATREAU (chargé de mission)
- Benoni Benjamin ECKONGO (Ingénieur en radioélectricité)
- Bernard MASSART (Professeur)
- Jean Pierre LECOMTE
- Emmanuel Isidore BOCCO (Enseignant)
- Dr Nathalie CALLEDE
- Bruno ELLA-ONDO (Géopolitologue)
- Kokouvi Edem N’TSOUKPOE (Doctorant)
- Jacqueline PIRROTINA
- Brou Narcisse GODRIN-KOUADIO (Ingénieur Télécoms)
- Cloclo RENOU
- Mme Nora PETTEX (Traductrice)
- Orphé ADOM (Manager)
- Stephane MALBOS (Navigant retraité)
- Mme Lydie ROY (Référente famille)
- Olivier VILAIN (Journaliste)
- Mouloud MAHROUG (EDF)
- Hervé BORDERAN (Informaticien)
- Faustin ZE ONDO (Cadre)
- René BEAUCHAMP
- André LENDOYE
- Sette DIOP (Chercheur)
- Hervé AYRAULT (Artiste)
- Pr. Mbuyi KABUNDA(Directeur de l´Observatoire d´Études sur les Réalités
Sociales Africaines AM/FCM Madrid)
- Edwige HAUBEKY
- Désiré Roch BIY-NZE (Ingénieur en informatique)
- Fausto GIUDICE (Traducteur)
- G. TENE-SOP (Ecologue)
- Abdoulaye DIALLO (Tisserand)
- Luis Fernando BASURTO-CARILLO (enseignant, syndicaliste)
- Jean-Paul ELY
- Pierre RANJEVA ( Ancien ambassadeur de Madagascar en retraite)
- Annick THEBIA-MELSAN (Diplomate)
- Pare HARANA (Enseignant)
- Jean-Yves Peillard
- Philippe KOUHON ( journaliste, expert en communication)
- Mme Geneviève MASSON (Retraitée)
- Jean MASSON (Retraité)
- Ngolo TRAORE (Ingénieur électronicien)
- Mme Annie DALBAN (Retraitée)
- Aliou DRAME (Cadre)
- Jocelyn Louis N’GOMA (Association Jeunesse Solidaire d’Owendo)
- Mme Mariam KRIZOUA (Gestionnaire)
- Thierry MARTIN (Technicien CHR)
- Malick CISSE ( IvoireVérité Team)
- Christian BAILLY-GRADVAUX ( Informaticien – Photographe)
- Bernard CLEMENT (Altermondialiste)
- Marie-Line CLEMENT (Altermondialiste)
- Emmanuel SEMANOU (Ress.Ass)
- Ginette HESS SKANDRANI (Ecologiste)
- Victor OUATTAO BAOZA (Comptable)
- Denis TIERBO (Homme de Dieu)
- Joseph CANDOL (Électronicien Télécoms)
- Pierre BOURREAU (Enseignant-Chercheur)
- Yves COSSIC (Philosophe)
- Mme Daniel TARRANE (Retraitée);
- Pierre GORSE (Agent administratif)
- Mme Gisèle MONTAUBRIC (Enseignante)
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