Laurent Gbagbo’s return to Côte d’Ivoire on Thursday, June 17, was negotiated step by step by the envoy of the former president and current head of state, Alassane Ouattara. Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné, a sociologist and researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), was in the special edition of RFI. He analyzes how these negotiations can enable a peaceful return for the whole country.
RFI: Do these long negotiations between the government and the former president’s envoy bode well for the future? Everyone took a step towards each other …
Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné:Absolutely, I think this is something very important. These negotiations show once again that when Ivorian leaders try to have a sincere dialogue, it sends very good signals of conviction to the people, even though these negotiations are still indicators of the interests at stake, of what this really represents. political prospects.
We saw last October, during the presidential election, how fragile reconciliation or the beginning of reconciliation can be. There were still a hundred dead, many injured …
Yes, quite. And this is a bit sad in the Ivorian political context, when we see how political leaders often project speeches from the general point of view soothingly and unfortunately it follows directly after dramatic sequences. It is always assumed that the sincerity and reality of the commitment provides a peaceful political climate. [Mais] when elections, I would say political, interests begin to take over, very quickly the cracks reappear and social tensions become harmful.
In his interview at the end of October on TV5 Monde, Laurent Gbagbo did not call for civil disobedience. Helped the close comments with Alassane Ouattara and the delivery of his passport a few weeks later?
This position of Laurent Gbagbo was very significant in the way in which the election crisis was resolved. The opposition really needed leadership, because there was not really within this coalition, this conglomeration of actors, a spokesman, I would say a figure who could cement and the opposition. Laurent Gbagbo expected this support, which he gave in half words: he practically rejected, prevented this disobedience. This sent a very positive signal to the opponent, to Alassane Ouattara. And indeed, this played a role in appeasement and it facilitated the negotiations that followed about the possibility that he would return.
You are talking about signals and it is also a question of signals, this reconciliation that the Ivory Coast has been seeking for ten years. In May, political refugees returned. Today Laurent Gbagbo returns. What could be the next step?
I believe that the next step is a step that leads us back to the primary responsibility of this political elite who have become accustomed to cosmetic rhetoric, but which always follow in dramatic sequences.
In 2001, Laurent Gbagbo in power had Henri Konan Bedié returned from exile, and Alassane Ouattara had organized a national reconciliation forum designed to appease politics and increase democracy. Unfortunately, a year later, we ended up in a very long crisis.
We also remember that before the 2010 elections, in the second round, there was this very good debate and these very positive signals about the good health of Ivorian democracy, but which unfortunately ended in this murderous electoral crisis. Again, this is a window of true national reconciliation. The leading political elite is therefore facing its responsibilities.
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