One of the most important questions relating to peacekeeping in Africa has been made manifest by the French continued brutality in the Ivory Coast. That is the question of what are the rules of engagement of peacekeeping troops operating under a United Nations mandate. How can there be two peacekeeping forces operating in the same theatre, ostensibly under the same UN mandate, but without a common direction or purpose?
The United Nations peacekeeping force, the ONUCI was created at a time of relative stability in Cote d'Ivoire with a mandate “to use all necessary means” to monitor a May 2003 ceasefire agreed in Linas Marcoussis and to assist a government of national reconciliation to re-establish peace, disarm and resettle combatants and organize elections in October 2005. It was also charged with protecting UN staff and civilians under threat. It was set up to assist the legitimate government of the Ivory Coast, that of the democratically-elected, Gbagbo, to achieve peace and reconciliation under the terms of the agreement. This agreement included several parts; the most important of which were the integration into the governing process of some ‘rebel’ or ‘new forces’ leaders and, most importantly, the disarmament of the rebels.
The UN forces were assembled from various parts of West Africa (mainly francophone) and set up camps near the fault line of the new border dividing North and South. This was set up under a UN mandate. However, the mandate had a double-edge. The UN peacekeepers were to enforce their mission “in coordination” with troops from France, the former colonial power, which remained under separate command in the Ivory Coast. This French "Unicorn Force," which has been beefed up from 4,000 to 5,500 men over the past month, had already intervened in the civil war at an early stage; indeed the French both provoked the rebellion and gave arms and shelter to the rebels. Under the UN mandate which was adapted by the French, the French troops were authorised “to use all necessary means” to support ONUCI.
According to UN observers on the ground, there is a fundamental ambiguity about the role of the French, who are there under agreements with the country as well as agreements with the United Nations. The agreements with the host country are of long standing and deal with the relations of French support for the government of the Ivory Coast. None of these state to state treaties allow the French to establish contacts with or support for rebels. The French activities, under these agreements, are to support and protect the legitimate government of the Ivory Coast.
The way the two supposed UN peacekeeping forces work together in Cote d’Ivoire is spelled out under mutually agreed rules of engagement. The UN rules of engagement specify that troops must “never fire at civilians but only at clearly identified armed combatants.”
Both ONUCI and Unicorn operate under a "Chapter Seven" mandate from the United Nations. This authorizes the use of force when faced with a threat. However, a Chapter Seven mandate can be set at three different levels of authority and the rules in the Ivory Coast do not authorise the use of force against unarmed civilians.
These rules of engagement were ignored by the French. Not only did they destroy the Ivory Coast air force but they surrounded the Hotel Ivoire and opened fire without provocation or warning against unarmed civilians. The video supporting this is available on the web at
http://www.freewillblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4745/. The French initially denied that Col. D’Estremon ordered his men to open fire on the civilians but have since changed their story, saying that only a few were wounded, not the 60 dead claimed by those who counted the bodies.
In an interview with France Inter radio French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie dismissed as “outrageous” reports that French troops had “decapitated” Ivorian protestors in Abidjan. “The outrageousness of the terms employed strips them of all credibility,” she said. “Such remarks consist of disinformation,” she added. More specifically, Mme. Alliot-Marie was responding to Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, who, while noting that he had not himself visited the Abidjan hospital where the headless corpses of protesters are supposed to have been held, said that on the basis of the testimony of “several persons” who had done so “one could consider the reports as true”.
The original report of decapitations came from the Archbishop of Abidjan Bernard Agré, who, interviewed on the French-language service of Radio Vatican, said: “I’ve just come from the hospitals. It’s intolerable: these young people decapitated by the French Army, these bodies lying on the ground.” So if there is a campaign of disinformation, the Archbishop is apparently in on it and Radio Vatican has been one of its conduits.
This incident was a confrontation that took place on November 9 between Ivorian protestors and French troops having taken up heavily armed positions in front of the Hotel Ivoire, not far from Laurent Gbagbo’s Presidential residence. The French forces are accused of having fired into the unarmed and unthreatening crowd. A colonel of the Ivorian gendarmerie has affirmed that French forces on November 9 fired directly and without warning upon the crowd of protestors gathered in front of the Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan. Colonel Georges Guiai Bi Poin, who was in charge of a contingent of Ivorian gendarmes dispatched to control the crowd and coordinate with the French troops, says that the order to fire came from the commander of the latter, Colonel D'Estremon. Colonel Guiai Bi Poin is quoted as saying: "French troops fired directly into the crowd. They opened fire on the orders of their chief Colonel D'Estremon. Without warning." Note that the last sentence in the French original implies more precisely that there were not warning shots ["aucune sommation"] - and thus explicitly contradicts the version of events still being defended by French officials. Guiai Bi Poin said the crowd at the Hotel Ivoire was yelling insults but was unarmed.
"Not one of my men fired a shot," he said. "There were no shots from the crowd. None of the demonstrators was armed -- not even with sticks, or knives or rocks." He said that when he reported to the French commander on the day of the riot [sic.], he was told: "Colonel, my barbed wire has been crossed, and the crowd is getting excited. If they do not let us leave within 20 minutes, I am going to shoot." "Suddenly," said Guiai Bi Poin, "there was a movement on our left and my gendarmes were pushed violently by the crowd. They fell back a meter or two. D'Estremon then said to me, 'Colonel, the red line has been crossed. I am going to open fire. FIRE!'"
The officer said the French troops began shooting. "It was not a haphazard fusillade. It was carried out on the orders of their chief. And there was no warning." Guiai Bi Poin said he yelled at the French officer to fire in the air, to aim higher, "He did this but some of his men did not obey and some continued to fire on the crowd. I saw lots of people falling, but I do not know how many victims there were."
The Hotel Ivoire incident has attracted much comment on the internet where the videos taken at the scene were shown. By contrast, the traditional mainstream media have largely ignored it. Bloggers have pointed out the hypocrisy. It does not require a very elaborate demonstration to be able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it were not the French, but rather the American military that was caught on videotape firing into a crowd of civilians, it would be all over the airwaves and the subject of massive protests and marches.
Whether it was “legitimate” for the French troops to have opened fire on the crowd, as the French Army spokesperson suggests, does not only depend on whether they had themselves come under fire from militants. It also depends on whether they had any business being in Abidjan in the first place and, more generally, on whether the increasingly aggressive action taken by the French forces in the Ivory Coast, including the November 6 destruction of much of the Ivorian air force, is compatible with their specific mandate under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and with the basic principles of international law as laid out in the UN Charter. The French escalation of its military involvement on November 6 was illegal and, in effect, transformed erstwhile French peace-keeping forces into a party to war with the Ivory Coast.
The other question which has not been raised is what the non-French ONUCI were doing during the sustained French attack against the civilians from November 6th to 10th? There are 6,000 peacekeepers in the ONUCI; what were they doing while the French marauded across the country? Why did they not restrain the French? Why did they not protect the citizens of the Ivory Coast? Why did they not fulfil their UN mandate?
This question of a French participation in UN peacekeeping is very important. The French, as an ex-colonial power, have a political and economic agenda in the Ivory Coast; indeed in all its previous colonies. There is no UN mandate which can encompass the French interest in manipulation and intrigue. There is no justification for an ex-colonial power to operate in Africa in its former colonies under the rubric of the United Nations. It is unwilling and unable (in the Ivory Coast, Rwanda, the Congos, Burkina Faso and elsewhere) to constrain itself to the rules of engagement which control UN Forces operating under UN rules which state, quite plainly that troops must “never fire at civilians but only at clearly identified armed combatants.”
The UN peacekeeping mandate must be lifted immediately from the French, the Spanish, the Belgians and the British. They have no legitimate business operating in their former colonies under a UN mandate. The British in Sierra Leone were a special case and operated within the UN guidelines. There is too much baggage attached to these nations’ activities in acting militarily n their former colonies. There cannot be peacekeeping when there is blatant interference in the political and military affairs of the host government. The French, in particular, have been wild-eyed bullies throughout Africa, assisting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Africans in Rwanda, the Congos and the Ivory Coast. They must be stopped and sent home.
If this is not possible, there is another, peaceful solution. The NGOs should begin a crash course for all Africans South of the Sahara in conversational German. If enough Africans learn German then perhaps the French will respond in their time-honoured tradition of surrender, retreat or collaboration. It’s a thought.
