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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
The tone of Ivoirian-Ghanaian relations had varied
widely since
independence. Côte d'Ivoire regarded the government of
Flight
Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, who overthrew a civilian regime
in 1983,
with a mixture of disdain, contempt, and wariness.
Relations with
Ghana declined in the mid-1980s after Rawlings and Burkina
Faso's
leader Thomas Sankara appeared to ally themselves with
Libyan
leader Muammar al Qadhaafi. In November 1987, Ghana
condemned Côte
d'Ivoire for granting landing rights to South African
military and
commercial aircraft, championing the Zionist cause in
Africa,
undermining Organization of African Unity (OAU)
resolutions,
isolating Burkina Faso in West African councils, and
permitting
Abidjan to become a haven for hostile South African,
Israeli, and
Western intelligence services. At the same time, the two
states
worked together harmoniously to end smuggling in both
directions
across their common border.
Relations with Burkina Faso, a traditional source of
agricultural labor, were historically cordial, but they
degenerated
sharply in the wake of the coup that brought Thomas
Sankara to
power in August 1983. Sankara soon made common cause with
the
Rawlings government in Ghana, further raising suspicions
in
Abidjan. Following Libyan deliveries of military equipment
to
Burkina Faso, Ivoirian authorities investigated alleged
arms
trafficking between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire.
Tensions between Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso
increased
sharply in early 1985 following the alleged mistreatment
of
Burkinabé immigrants in Côte d'Ivoire and the
assassination of a
prominent Burkinabé businessman in Abidjan. In September
1985,
hours before Sankara was to arrive in Côte d'Ivoire for a
Council
of the Entente summit meeting, a bomb exploded in a hotel
room he
was to occupy. Sankara blamed forces in Côte d'Ivoire,
although no
one claimed responsibility and no one was arrested. In
defiance of
other Council of the Entente members, Sankara refused to
sign the
summit communiqué, rejected the expansion of the Entente
charter to
include security cooperation, indirectly accused Côte
d'Ivoire and
Togo of victimizing resident Burkinabé and sheltering
opponents to
his regime, and called for the creation of an
internationalist and
populist "Revolutionary Entente Council." Two years later,
in
October 1987, Sankara was killed during a coup led by his
second in
command, Captain Blaise Compaoré. Compaoré immediately
reassured
Côte d'Ivoire that he wanted warmer relations and later
pledged to
strengthen ties with the Council of the Entente countries.
For its
part, Côte d'Ivoire reaffirmed its "readiness to engage in
trustworthy, brotherly, and lasting cooperation with this
neighboring and brotherly country."
Following Guinea's abrupt break with and estrangement
from
France in 1958, Sekou Touré adopted a socialist domestic
policy,
supported Nkrumah's pan-African ideology, and sought close
relations with communist, socialist, and radical Third
World
states. Not unexpectedly, ties with Abidjan became
strained.
Following Sekou Touré's death in 1984 and the advent of a
moderate,
reformist military regime in Conakry, Ivoirian relations
with
Guinea improved considerably.
Ivoirian relations with Mali and Liberia, although far
from
warm, were decidedly less confrontational than those with
Guinea,
Burkina Faso, and Ghana. Abidjan and Bamako maintained a
relatively
stable relationship that varied between cordial and
correct,
despite Mali's flirtations with Marxism in the 1960s and
1970s.
Likewise, the peculiar conservatism of the Liberian
regimes both
before and after the April 1980 coup posed no inherent
threat to
Côte d'Ivoire. However, the unexpected and shockingly
bloody
Liberian coup greatly alarmed Abidjan and prompted fears
of a coup
plot in Côte d'Ivoire.
Data as of November 1988
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