Black power, white rule in Ivory Coast

Press, 27 May 1981, Page 13

Black power, white rule in Ivory Coast

I By

XAN SMILEY

1 ; Abidjan, Ivory Coast French whites snap at tiow-serving black waiters md get away with it. Yet .his is black Africa: Abidjan, he capital of Ivory Coast: The country is black-ruled jut mainly.white-run, and of ill sub-Saharan ex-colonial economies, it is resoundingly :he most successful. The question that assails ;he newcomer, especially if iccustomed to other parts of slack Africa, is: do the Ivoriins really like the continued white power? In spite of a few dissenting voices from the university and the junior technocracy, the answer is yes. They like the economic benefits. At the top, beside and fractionally below President Felix Houphouet-Boigny and the hugely rich black political elite, are between 50,000 and 60,000 French people, another 10,000 Europeans and — a stratum below — 100.000 Lebanese, the equivalent of East Africa’s Asians 20 years ago. At the bottom are at least 2 million black foreigners from poor nearby States who do much of the dirty work for the 5 million Ivorians, and are now the victims of a wave of vicious xenophobia — not, however, directed against the French. President HouphouetBoigny is notably soft on South Africa, which has good trade relations with the Ivory Coast. South African Airlines still makes a “technical stop-over’’ at Abidjan, and the golfer, Gary Player, gets a warm welcome at Ivorian tournaments. The “Ivorian miracle” has transformed one of Africa’s poorest countries into one of the richest by a judicious mixture of investment and economic diversification from coffee and cocoa (which have nevertheless also increased). The poorer Muslim north and the rural hinterland/may not completely reflect the glass and concrete opulence of coastal Abidjan, but many of the benefits have trickled down. In the last year the bubble almost burst. Fiscal sloppiness, over-borrowing for over-ambitious projects, inflation, and the world recession suddenly skewed plan-

ning, cut profits, and sent the annual growth rate slumping from 7 per cent to 2 per cent. The International Monetary Fund jumped in with a rescue package and — luckiest of all — offshore oil was found in handsome quantities.

But the economic turmoil has produced an unparalleled crime wave. Posses of ruthless policemen now harass urban dwellers and randomly imprison anyone — especially non-Ivorians — who cannot show papers. Of 56 Ghanaians summarily slapped inside last month, 46 died from suffocation in a tiny cell. The 2 million black foreigners are under pressure: Guinean taxi-drivers who never seem to know the way, Senegalese waiters and cooks; servants and labourers from Upper Volta, Mali, and Niger; prostitutes, smugglers, and petty traders fromkrupt Ghana next door. If officialdom were to bless a more aggressive Ivorianisation — of the retail trade, for instance — the Lebanese would catch the rough edge of Ivorian frustration too. But the French look secure in their domination of the skilled sectors of the administration and economy. Every Ministry is still packed’with “conseillers” — half-a-dozen in the private office of the Planning Minister alone, and more than 100 lesser “fonctionnaires” in each of the key economic Ministries. In private and public companies, maintenance engineers are generally French, while most Ministers openly admit a preference for French personal secretaries (“more efficient, more discreet”).

Even the madames in downtown Abidjan bars and nightclubs tend to be French. Only such professions as teachers and lawyers, not immediately essential to the economy, are notably Ivorianised. The Ivorian bureaucrats are not renowned for efficiency, especially in the bloated parastatal corporations, which the President himself has denounced for overspending and corruption. Many Ivorian “fonctionnaires” are said to spend most of their time on private

business enterprises, letting theoretically junior French “conseillers” keep the. State’s paperwork and managerial detail in order. After office hours, there is virtually no French-Ivorian social “melange,” unless business or tactical reasons demand it. Quite a few top Ivorians have French wives but tend to form a society of their own. Most Ivorians seem to accept a need for the French without particularly liking them. The French say that the Ivorians are more “raciste entre eux” — that tension is greater between their tribes than between black and white.

The list of officials in the President’s office is studded with non-Ivorians. He feels safer with them. When he recently decided that the police needed an overseeing eye in the campaign against Corruption, be brought in several hundred gendarmes from Martinique — in effect, black Frenchmen.

Politics at the top remain

shuttered. President Houphouet advocates “palaver” rather than multiparty competition, although he allowed a measure of democracy in November, when the people were permitted to vote for a new rubber-stamp National Assembly. Most incumbents who stood for re-election were thrown out in a poll of only 40 per cent. Debates within ‘the key nine-man executive committee or the 32-person political bureau are scantily reported, and only by official communique. There is no real political press at all.

Nearing 80, President Houphouet is sensitive to signs of ambition among his underlings,and loves to keep his people guessing at successors. He boasts that he sleeps “like a crocodile — with my eyes open.” He recently excited everyone by declaring that a vicepresident, to be newly appointed, would be his constitutional successor, but has since refused to name one. Copyright O.F.N.S.