On the brink

Cote d’Ivoire is on the “brink of disaster” and a lack of will among the country’s political classes to end the crisis that has divided the country is to blame, according to Pierre Schori, the outgoing United Nations special representative for Cote d’Ivoire.

Schori, whose term ends this month, spoke with IRIN about his two years in Cote d’Ivoire and what he saw for the future of the country.

“The economic, social, humanitarian and security situation has been degraded over the years into a real day-to-day drama for the people,” he said. “This is a bitter disappointment to see that they’re losing this opportunity - the political leaders - to go toward peace and a better life.”

Cote d’Ivoire now ranks 163 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme’s human development index. Schori said about half of Cote d’Ivoire’s population lives on less than US $1 per day, even though the country produces 40 percent of the gross domestic product of the eight countries of the West African francophone monetary union.

“Ordinary Ivorians are on the brink of disaster in the sense that their living standards are degrading,” he said.

Despite the country’s humanitarian needs, he said, donor funding for Cote d’Ivoire is waning. In the late 1990s, before the nation’s first coup, Cote d’Ivoire received about $1 billion in overseas development assistance per year.

Now it stands at about $200 million, Schori said.

“But there is a reason for this and that is you have the impression that there is not good governance and there is not serious implementation of the peace process,” he said.

“All along my two years the road maps elaborated by Ivorians themselves with the help of ECOWAS [the Economic community of West African States] and the African Union and Security Council have had a rough ride because of some spoilers who didn’t like elements of the road maps.”

He cited members of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and other “anonymous elements” who, he said, used violence to derail the peace process.

“You can say there are no angels in Cote d’Ivoire,” Schori said.

Observers say this concept carries over into the country’s economic sphere, where there is little transparency in key revenue-generating sectors such as oil, cocoa and coffee. Some Ivorians accuse both members of the government and New Forces rebels of making money during the current political stalemate, thus diminishing their will for genuine peace.

“It’s high time for having more transparency,” Schori said. “There is a discrepancy between what is considered to be the income of the state and the country and what is coming out in public finance programmes.”

When asked whether he thought sanctions might force the country’s political leaders to take peace more seriously, Schori said sanctions imposed against three political actors after attacks on the UN in January last year worked well and had a “calming effect” on the situation in Cote d’Ivoire.

He said it would have helped the peace process if the Security Council’s sanctions committee had applied sanctions against other political leaders before the adoption of Resolution 1721 last November.

“Now we've gotten no action whatsoever and the sanctions threat was not seen as credible,” he said.

UN Security Council Resolution 1721 last November extended the mandate of the current transitional government with Laurent Gbagbo as president for another, final year, with a strengthened mandate for Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny. Gbagbo said parts of the resolution went against the Ivorian constitution and announced a unilateral plan for peace.

Among his proposals were direct talks between the government and rebels. They are being held this week in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.

“I hope we might get a restart of the peace process” as a result of the direct dialogue, Schori said. “I know that the international community is prepared to do a lot of things [for Cote d’Ivoire] once the peace process gets started.”

cs/nr