April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

presidents, two governments. This situation would be amusing were the
current and future consequences not programmes, deaths, summary
executions, arrests, illegal detentions and economic, social and human
devastation. So how are we to make sense of recent developments?
THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM AND THE WORSENING OF INTER-IVORIAN
CONTRADICTIONS
We will settle here to return to the development of the crisis of
capitalism, the handling of this crisis by capitalist policy and the resultant
consequences, not only for the secondary imperialist powers but also and
above all for the world’s dominated capitalist countries, particularly those
in Africa. In so doing we will recall that from 1981, the dominant capitalist
powers proclaimed, through the voice of President Reagan (supported by
his European colleagues), ‘that they know better than the countries of the
South themselves what’s good for them’[1] in dealing with the debt crisis
which US policy had plunged them into in the first place. The Washington
Consensus and structural adjustment policies were the results of this
political stance which have been implemented and executed with such
efficiency since this date, and remarkably so in Côte d’Ivoire.
The world’s largest producer of cocoa, with considerable mineral prospects
(especially oil), UEMOA’s (Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine)
largest economy, ECOWAS’s (Economic Community Of West African States)
second largest, the main migrant hub in sub-Saharan Africa, located in the
Gulf of Guinea and as a springboard into the hinterland countries (Burkina
Faso, Mali and Niger), Côte d’Ivoire enjoys a role of undeniable
geostrategic and geopolitical importance. The stakes for neoliberal policy
in the country are high.
THE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND THE IVORIAN CRISIS AND WHAT’S AT STAKE
The interest of the United States in Africa and its clear will to establish
itself in the Gulf of Guinea dictate the importance the country attaches to
its presence in Côte d’Ivoire. Its presence in Côte d’Ivoire not only
increases competition between imperialist rivals (of the Triad) for the
conquest of markets and the control of raw materials but also heightens
the greed of the secondary imperialist powers, notably France and its will
to doggedly defend its zone of influence and place in the Ivorian market.
Yet in a country where the financial market is limited, privatisations
benefit primarily from those with the capacity to mobilise considerable
capital to buy up public sector or public–private firms. In the competition
that sets American imperialism against the secondary imperialist powers
(most notably France) for the control of the Ivorian agro-industrial sector,
America wins the day. As American multinationals edge their way into Côte
d’Ivoire, the United States is constructing, not in Lagos or in Accra, but in
Abidjan, a surveillance centre covering all of sub-Saharan Africa, along
with the most significant diplomatic representation in Africa south of the
Sahara after South Africa.
In order to preserve its positions inherited from the colonial and postcolonial
period and its place in the Ivorian market, France often has to
lean on political power. This enables France to protect its interests,[2]
with the exception of the agro-industrial sector, notably the coffee–cocoa
subsector where American competition is particularly tough, principally
from the American multinationals (ADM, Cargill) but also from the Anglo-
Suisse (Nestlé, Armajaro). In January 2001, the cocoa war begun in 1987
was essentially brought to an end. Although French interests remain
predominant, American interests essentially control the strategic cocoa
sector. The presence of such interests means that the United States can
from now on use Côte d’Ivoire as a base of support for their policy of