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Ivory Coast
Index
Côte d'Ivoire's armed forces developed from the
colonial
military forces organized by France after the formal
establishment
of the colony in 1893. Although Côte d'Ivoire was a
separate
colony, France set up a regional military command
structure for all
of French West Africa
(Afrique Occidentale Française--AOF; see Glossary).
The command headquarters was located at Dakar,
Senegal,
and Côte d'Ivoire was integrated into a regional defense
structure.
Its African forces were organized into regiments of
Senegalese
Irregulars (Tirailleurs Sénégalaises), whose name revealed
the
centralized character of the colonial administration and
the
subordinate status of the vast expanses of the AOF beyond
the
Senegalese hinterland. This externalization and
regionalization of
Ivoirian defense persisted after independence in the form
of the
Council of the Entente (Conseil de l'Estente), the
security of
whose member states continued to be guaranteed by France.
Between 1908 and 1912, when four-year conscription was
introduced by the governor general of the AOF, the number
of
Africans serving in the Tirailleurs Sénégalaises
grew from
13,600 to 22,600. At the outbreak of World War I in August
1914, of
the nearly 31,000 black troops under French arms, about
half were
deployed outside of the AOF and French Equatorial Africa
(Afrique
Equatoriale Française--AEF), underpinning French
imperialism in
Morocco, Algeria, and Madagascar. During World War I,
about 164,000
black soldiers were recruited in the AOF for service in
Europe and
elsewhere.
In Côte d'Ivoire, pacification and conscription
continued even
as France was fighting for its survival. Between October
1914 and
February 1916, approximately 13,500 Ivoirians were trained
for
military service. All told, about 20,000 Ivoirian soldiers
fought
for France during the war. Many others resisted
recruitment, which
was widely regarded as the heaviest of the colonial
exactions. A
major wartime revolt had to be put down by force. The
colony
suffered a sharp decrease in its standard of living
because of the
various war-related levies.
During World War II, France again called upon its
colonies to
fulfill manpower levies. Before France fell in 1940, over
100,000
men had been recruited from French West Africa alone,
including
30,000 from Côte d'Ivoire. After the armistice, the Vichy
government increased the size of its peacetime army by
recruiting
an additional 50,000 Africans, while another 100,000
Africans
served under the Free French between 1943 and 1945. Thus,
over
200,000 Africans fought on behalf of France during the
war.
Although the Vichy government further intensified the
burdens
of colonialism, in the aftermath of the war the colonial
regime was
gradually dismantled to make way for independent nations.
By 1950
the essential defense and internal security apparatus that
would be
bequeathed to Côte d'Ivoire after independence was in
place.
Defense was entrusted to a single army battalion with four
companies: three were based at Bouaké, and the fourth was
at Man,
with an armored reconnaissance unit at Abidjan. Internal
security
was the responsibility of the National Security Police
(Sureté
Nationale). This division of the Ministry of Internal
Security
copied French organization and had a headquarters element,
four
mobile brigades, a security service, and a central,
colonial police
force. These units were reinforced by a local constabulary
(gardes cercles) organized by the army and a local
detachment of the regional gendarmerie. During the 1950s,
administrative powers devolved to the colonies of the AOF.
Defense
and foreign affairs remained the responsibility of the
colonial
authorities. Even at independence in 1960, no provision
was made
for an Ivoirian national armed force.
Not until after the April 1961 Franco-Ivoirian
Technical
Military Assistance Accord (Accord d'Assistance Militaire
Technique), more than a year after independence, was a
national
army formed from indigenous members of the French colonial
marines.
These troops formed a single, undermanned battalion and
used
equipment donated by France. By the end of 1962, the armed
forces
had expanded rapidly to about 5,000 soldiers organized
into four
battalions. For the new military establishment,
independence was
more formal than functional: French influence remained
paramount,
delaying the emergence of an autonomous Ivoirian identity.
Data as of November 1988
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