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In Ivory Coast, the tense post-election dispute between incumbent President Laurent
Gbagbo and rival and self-proclaimed president-elect Alassane Ouattara is a
power struggle for control of national institutions--including the sole state media outlet, Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI).
Two parallel governments now claim power
in Ivory Coast since the disputed results of the November 28 runoff between
Ouattara, who proclaimed himself president after the Independent Electoral
Commission and international institutions named him the winner, and Gbagbo, who
was declared the victor by the Constitutional Council--the supreme Ivorian
electoral body. Ivorian security forces, which have remained loyal to Gbagbo,
have surrounded Ouattara's headquarters at the Golf Hotel in
In this tense standoff, both sides
are vying for control of RTI. From the besieged hotel, Ouattara
In a December 15 press conference,
Gbagbo
Cut off from the state media, Ouattara's self-proclaimed
government uses the international media and an improvised radio station to make
itself heard. The station, called Radio Côte d'Ivoire, la Voix du
Rassemblement, broadcasts
political statements, music, and call-in programs 24 hours a day from the Golf
Hotel and is also on the Internet at ADOsolutions.ci, Lancine Koné, a reporter with the station, told CPJ.
On December 13, RTI broadcast a statement from the National Broadcasting Council--which is loyal to Gbagbo
The United Nations, which recognizes Outtara as
president, has also incurred the wrath of Gbagbo
In an interview
with CPJ, UNOCI spokesman Hamadoun Touré denied the minister's
accusations. "We give voice to both Gbagbo's and Ouattara's sides. Radio ONUCI
FM is in journalism and not propaganda," he said. "It is RTI which is making
propaganda that incites to hatred."
On the other side, Gnonzié denied accusations that RTI
was inciting hatred. RTI is a state media outlet that "covered all views and
respected the institutions of the republic and the Ivorian constitution," he
said. "If the Constitutional Council recognizes Gbagbo as the elected president
of
Since Ivory Coast's independence
in 1960, RTI has always been under the control of the ruling power. In
January 2010, hundreds of opposition supporters organized a peaceful march to RTI
headquarters to denounce what they said was subjugation of the national
broadcaster by Gbagbo's supporters. Following the November 28 elections, RTI
repeatedly broadcast footage of alleged victims of purported
violence in the northern part of the country (Ouattara hails from an ethnic
group living in the north of the country which is considered his stronghold), according
to CPJ research. RTI exclusively aired views supporting such allegations and
backing the premise that the ballots in the north should be thrown out on
account of the alleged violence. When Gbagbo's government imposed a ban on French news channels for broadcasting live the
announcement of election results by the Electoral Commission that declared
Ouattara the winner, RTI aired news and debates lambasting the French media and accusing them
of interference.
Yet RTI is under its own sort of attack. According to
Gnonzié, the station's broadcasts were scrambled on December 21 by "unidentified
persons." Viewers in the countryside hardly receive RTI broadcasts anymore
and the station has experienced disturbances on its satellite transmissions,
according to local reports. Meanwhile, Ivoirians are turning to the variety of politicized newspapers that
continue reporting on the situation, the Internet--where they can listen to the
suspended French news channels--and news websites like Abidjan.net, according to CPJ research. They are also interacting
with their compatriots in the diaspora through social media sites like Facebook
and Twitter where the #civ2010
(for "Côte d'Ivoire 2010") hashtag has become popular.
Nassirou Diallo is an intern in CPJ's Africa Program.
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yourself b) This is a perfect satiution where the human rights focus on a political satiution can lead to stalemate. Because, as I said on my blog, if if does appear that Outtara condoned the crimes committed by his supporters and if the international community is to be consistent with its current trend, it should call for at the very least an investigation into him as well, which, if it leads to his indictment, would create an unwelcome political vaccum in the country. Of course, the ICC could pull a Bemba on us, by going after a rebel leader, but leaving Ouattara out of it, but that would not look good I would think c) putting Outtara aside, I see your point about Victor's justice, of course, but I'm a bit skeptical about the reconciliation discourse as well. I think it's unrealistic at this stage. You cannot expect such a fractured society to mend after a bloody, and deeply embedded, civil conflict. d) in the same way, you can't expect a fair accountability process to be initiated from a short-term perspective. Even if the ICC is waiting in the shadows, it should be a little patient before considering that Ivory Coast has failed. More generally on this, I think this is one problem with how complementarity functions today, with its extremely case-specific focus . Some have laughed the Kenyan admissibility challenge out of court. It is certainly weak from a purely legal point of view, in light of current ICC practice. But I find the expectations too high on how fast we expect prosecutions. The ICC has been functioning for 9 years now and has not completed a single trial! What is the standard of expediency in that case for State parties? e) which brings me to my last point: from the ICC's perspective, I'm not sure it's not getting involved in too many satiutions in relation to its logistical capacity and its budget.I don't have the perfect solution, of course, and it's certainly frustrating from a human rights angle, but I think that we have too many expectations for how a society mends after conflict, expectations which are not borne out by any serious historical/sociological analysis of nation-building in the past.