What strategies should U.S. policymakers consider to deal with the current crisis in the Ivory Coast and instability in West Africa? How serious of a threat is political and economic instability in West Africa to overall international security?

On February 12, 2003, Timothy Docking, Africa specialist and program officer in the Institute's Research and Studies Program, explored some of the complicated issues surrounding the ongoing conflict in the Ivory Coast during testimony before the Africa Subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations.

The following is a summary of his statement made before the committee. The views expressed below are those of the author, not the U.S. Institute of Peace, which does not take positions on policy issues.

Introduction: The Regionalization of Conflict in West Africa

I have been asked to speak to you about the crisis in the Ivory Coast—in particular, to examine the role that regional actors are playing to both assuage and complicate the situation and to assess American foreign policy toward the Ivory Coast.

To begin with, I believe it is difficult to exaggerate the seriousness of the threat that present instability in Ivory Coast poses for Ivorians and the entire West African sub-region. As this committee is aware, the Ivory Coast is just the most recent state to fall victim to the cancer of violent instability that has plagued West Africa for fourteen years.

Today, the fifteen-state West African region, with its nearly 240 million inhabitants, houses all the ingredients of the "coming anarchy" that Robert Kaplan described nearly a decade ago. West Africa is the poorest region on earth, where we find 12 of the 22 least developed nations in the world: weak governance, collapsed states, the growing presence of mafias, gun and drug runners, international meddlers (like Libyan president Mohamar Kaddafi), and a surfeit of young, well-armed men who lie in wait to prey on weak and exposed people and their decaying governments.

The political instability and violent conflict we currently find in the Ivory Coast has numerous socio-economic causes that are important to understand: the politicizing of religious and ethnic differences by opportunistic Ivorian politicians; the absence of a democratic history; and the lack of economic diversification of the nation's agriculture-based economy, which makes the economy particularly vulnerable to price fluctuations for commodities (especially cacao, coffee, and palm oil).

Yet to understand and begin to address the troubling situation in Ivory Coast we must also appreciate the regional context of the current troubles.

For the spread of war in the Ivory Coast is in part a symptom of a larger system of conflict affecting the entire region. This warfare started in 1989 in Liberia when Libyan-trained, and Burkina Faso–backed, militants started a civil war to overthrow Liberian dictator Samuel Doe. The fighting spread to Sierra Leone in 1991, to Guinea in 2000, and now threatens to engulf Ivory Coast. At the epicenter of this conflict system is the president of Liberia, Charles Taylor.

Regional Involvement in the Ivory Coast Crisis

From the earliest reports from the Ivory Coast following the September 19 army mutiny—which subsequently led to the appropriation of roughly the northern half of Ivory Coast by mutinous Ivorian soldiers—there have been reports of English-speaking (in other words, Liberian) rebels among northern elements that today are known as the Patriotic Movement for Ivory Coast (MPCI).

These reports quickly gained credibility when new fronts opened up in the west of the country along the Liberian border. Two groups emerged in this region: 1. the Far West Ivory Coast People's Movement (MPIGO) are the rump supporters of General Robert Gui, the former military ruler of Ivory Coast (1999-2000) who seized power in a coup; and 2. the Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ), comprised largely of Liberian rebels and reportedly housing members of Taylor's elite "Anti-Terrorist Unit" (ATU) and National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) regulars. These forces quickly set off to terrorize villagers and loot everything from automobiles to unprocessed cacao.

There is also strong reason to believe that the MPCI has received support from Burkina Faso. While less conspicuous than Liberia's involvement in Ivory Coast—according to French media sources (including Le Monde)—Burkina is complicit in the northern rebellion. The open distain between Presidents Campaoré of Burkina Faso and Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast, along with Burkina's past adventurism in the region (in Liberia and Sierra Leone), further adds to these suspicions.

Following the September 19 mutiny, the Gbagbo regime immediately suggested that Ouagadougou was behind the northern unrest. Indeed, President Campaoré has expressed sympathy for the northern rebels, many of whom have ethnic roots in Burkina Faso and Mali, and he has heaped condemnation on the government in Abidjan, stating recently that Gbagbo should step down or be forced out "like Milosevic."

But just as some regional states have meddled in the Ivory Coast's internal affairs, others have actively tried to foster peace. These efforts have been led by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its capable executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas. Togolese President Eyadema led a series of talks in Lomé between Ivorian combatants but after reaching an initial cease-fire agreement, was unable to achieve a breakthrough in mediation. It was at this point that the French stepped up their involvement in the negotiations and brought all sides together in January for peace talks 30 kilometers south of Paris in Linas-Marcoussis.

The leadership role played by Senegalese President Wade in addressing the crisis has also been commendable. Indeed, Senegal has agreed to contribute the largest contingent of peacekeeping troops to the planned 1,200-person ECOWAS force currently deploying in Ivory Coast. Benin, Ghana, Niger, and Togo have also agreed to provide troops. Nevertheless, the fifteen-member regional organ has not displayed unity over its handling of the Ivory Coast crisis and has at times been beset by bickering.

American Foreign Policy toward West Africa

Since the late 1990s, American foreign policy toward West Africa has been dominated by efforts to contain and isolate the Taylor regime in Liberia. This goal has contributed to the imposition of UN sanctions including an arms embargo and travel restrictions aimed at Taylor and his cabal. In addition to supporting sanctions, the United States has attempted to channel support to Liberia's legitimate democratic opposition and to build an independent media. The defined goal of these actions is to strengthen the potential for a free and fair presidential election scheduled for later this year.

But by the administration's own admission, sanctions have proven leaky and difficult to enforce; Taylor continues to repress his political opposition and the free press; and, as I've described above, Liberian forces are currently fighting in the Ivory Coast.

The failure to isolate and contain the Taylor regime presents the United States and the international community with a serious problem that must be addressed. We have seen from past activities that the Taylor regime seeks to spread instability beyond its borders and then to loot in the wake of violent conflict. Along West Africa's porous and often vulnerable borders this insidious strategy has at times worked and is being repeated again in western Ivory Coast.

In examining U.S. foreign policy toward Ivory Coast it is instructive to review past policies toward neighboring Sierra Leone, where in 2001 the combined forces of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), the Guinean Army, and the British military beat the Taylor-supported rebel forces of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) into submission. During that period the United States steadfastly backed all three forces that faced off against the RUF. Most notable, however, and perhaps analogous to the current crisis in the Ivory Coast, was our policy vis-á-vis the British.

From the moment the United Kingdom intensified its support for the failing UNAMSIL mission in the summer of 2000, Washington acted in lockstep with London, supporting the British effort financially, politically and by training and equipping African peacekeepers. The end result was the defeat of the RUF and the end to a decade of warfare culminating last year in the free and fair election of Sierra Leone's current government.

With the Sierra Leone model (of backing a former European colonial power) in mind, it appears that U.S. policymakers intend to approach the crisis in Ivory Coast by supporting the French in similar fashion. Indeed, this is a wise and prudent starting point for our evolving policy toward Ivory Coast.

Yet the comparison between the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast should only be taken so far. To begin with, in comparison to the Ivory Coast, instability in Sierra Leone with its 5.6 million people, anemic economy, and clearly delineated enemy (the RUF) posed a smaller immediate threat to the wider West African region.

Along with Nigeria, the Ivory Coast is a linchpin for the region. With nearly seventeen million inhabitants, and sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest economy, the Ivory Coast has long been a stable and relatively prosperous state. Millions of Burkinabe and Malians and hundreds of thousands of other African migrants constitute the agricultural backbone of the nation and an important source of remittances to surrounding countries. The Ivory Coast is the world's leading producer of cacao.

Abidjan has also become a financial center in West Africa, with key banking institutions and a developed port and road system that serves as a door to the Atlantic for its landlocked northern neighbors.

The character of the crisis in Ivory Coast is also different than it was in Sierra Leone, where the principal engine of violence was access to diamond mines. In the Ivory Coast there are multiple engines driving the conflict including the cynical quest for political power, ethnic schisms, economic recession, and international opportunism and banditry. Yet the most dangerous division—which poses profound consequences for the region—is the divide that has developed along religious lines.

Once latent Muslim-Christian animosities have been stoked and politicized by Ivorian politicians since the mid-1990s. Today, the potential for religiously based violence in Ivory Coast is real and if left unchecked could fan the flames of religious tensions throughout the region, especially in Nigeria. Massacres have already taken place and a recent UN report has drawn links between death squads based in Abidjan and the Gbagbo regime.

Finally, unlike Sierra Leone which sits between a well-defended and autocratic Guinea, and the collapsed state of Liberia, Ivory Coast touches three stable states including two of Africa's brightest democratic stars, Ghana and Mali. Each of these states and the nearly 45 million people that inhabit them are feeling the pinch of instability in Ivory Coast, the collapse of which threatens to send shock waves across these countries and throughout the entire region.

So U.S. policymakers must do more than just stand behind the French: we must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Rhetorically, financially, and diplomatically we need to assertively back the French-brokered Marcoussis Accords and assure President Gbagbo and his supporters that there is no "American alternative." At the same time we need to send a clear message to the northern rebels that the United States does not accept a divided Ivory Coast. And that both sides must work towards reconciliation and national unity, a program that was well defined by all sides in the Marcoussis talks. The U.S. government could underscore this point by drawing on various financial tools to penalize any group that tries to renege on the Marcoussis deal.

The clear signs of regional foreign involvement in the Ivory Coast's internal affairs also warrant a U.S. policy response: American intelligence organizations must determine the level of Burkina Faso's involvement in the conflict and penalize it as well.

Events in Ivory Coast should also cause the U.S. government to revisit its policy toward Liberia, from whence many of the region's problems emanate. Principally, we should return to the missing link in our Liberia policy: the French. For years the French have viewed Taylor as "part of the solution" in West Africa and thus failed to back a hard-line sanctions regime in the UN against Monrovia. In return, Liberia was to stay out of Ivory Coast. Clearly that deal has now been broken. We should therefore intensify our dialog with the French over Liberia and encourage them to toughen their policy toward the Taylor regime.

Other regional policies that should be considered by the United States include:

• Developing a short-term contingency plan to exploit the possible indictment of Charles Taylor as a war criminal by Sierra Leone's Special Court;
• Developing a mid-and long-term regional plan for West Africa that accounts for big-picture economic and human development trends;
• Continuing military assistance to the key regional armies to build capacity and strengthen linkages with the United States;
• Increasing aid to the region as an investment in stability, socio-economic development, and the creation of new markets for the United States and to help prevent state collapse; and
• Marrying the administration's West Africa program with the ambitious conflict prevention/development programs being articulated at the U.S. Agency for International Development.