On November 6, 2004, two Ivorian planes bombed a French camp for the Licorne force in Bouaké, Ivory Coast: nine French soldiers and one American civilian were killed, 38 people wounded.
In retaliation, the French army destroyed the Ivorian air force. Tensions are rising between Paris and Abidjan. More than 16 years later, the trial of the persecuted pilots for murder, attempted murder and destruction of property will begin on Monday before the Assize Court in Paris, without the accused.
The box will be empty. Of the three accused, the former Belarusian mercenary Yury Sushkin, who is suspected of having piloted one of the Sukhois, has disappeared.
The two co-pilots assumed that the Ivorian, Ange Magloire Gnanduillet Attualy and Patrice Ouei, benefited in their country from an amnesty law in 2007.
A situation “very, very difficult” to live explains Edwige Laliche who lost her son. “Can you imagine us killing your child … We know who the killers are and they are free!” They destroyed me, they destroyed my life, they destroyed many things. There’s a trial, more than sixteen years later, and they’re not here! This can be the most difficult thing, she says.
Gray areas
It is therefore not from the accused that the clarifications that the victims and their relatives have been waiting for will come. Because many gray areas remain in this issue. Starting with the central question: who ordered this bombing and why?
Short reminder of the context. In November 2004, Côte d’Ivoire was divided into two: the loyalist forces of Laurent Gbagbo in the south, the rebels of Guillaume Soro in the north and between the two, the peacekeepers and the French of the Licorne force.
Despite a ceasefire agreement signed in 2003 and against President Chirac’s advice, Laurent Gbagbo launched a retaliatory operation on November 4, especially in Bouaké, the stronghold of the insurgency.
After bombarding rebel positions until the morning of the sixth at noon, the Ivorian Sukhoi planes fired at the French camp.
Several hypotheses
The hypothesis of a target error was quickly ruled out by witnesses and the circumstances of the attack. Who would have deliberately ordered the raid?
Ivory plane, Ivorian decision? This is the hypothesis of Master Lionel Béthune de Moro, lawyer for several victims. “We have a simple read,” he explains. “That the person who pays for the aircraft, pilots, mechanics can be the client. And we have the financial flows between Côte d’Ivoire and Belarus.
“On the other hand, he specifies,” there is no certainty about the Ivorian headmaster: is it the head of state, the head of the armed forces – which does not seem so simple in a country going through a crisis and partition? Is it the chief of staff of the armed forces? “We have also talked about some hawks circling the Ivorian authorities …” he points out before adding: “But of course my clients are what they expect above all to be the truth. The one who sponsored the bombing.”
For the followers of Ivorian responsibility, the raid should then have served either to provoke the crime with France, or even for the tricolor forces to leave; or to hide the difficulties encountered in the retrieval operation.
Problems in Togo
But a worrying section is at the heart of another hypothesis: French responsibility. Ten days after the attack, Togo arrested eight Belarusian nationals suspected of being linked to or even the perpetrators of the bombing. Warned, neither Dominique de Villepin’s Home Office nor Michelle Alliot-Marie’s defense or Michel Barnier’s foreign affairs acted.
They are released. For Maître Jean Balan, a lawyer for the majority of the civil parties, this signals the participation of Paris.
“The reality for me is extremely simple,” he explains. “For me, France, finally a camarilla in power is the origin of this bombing. The dead did not want to be. When the dead intervened, the most total panic and therefore the lies arose, one by one. ”
For the lawyer who has been scrapping for 16 years in this case, “they did this with the express intention of getting rid of Gbagbo and saying, ‘here, Gbagbo has attacked us so well, we will get rid of him.’ “We do not know,” the lawyer admits. “All we know is that we have done the utmost, by people like Villepin and Alliot-Marie, to never be able to question or arrest those responsible for the material, so that the latter never can be heard. Of French justice, “he says.
Hearings of ministers are eagerly awaited
In February 2016, interrogating judge Sabine Khéris estimated that “everything has been arranged so that it is not possible to arrest, question or assess the Belarussian perpetrators of the bombing”.
According to her, “the decision not to do anything regarding pilots arrested in Togo was taken identically by the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”.
She then applied for a referral to the Republic Court, the only one entitled to adjudicate ministers.
On 17 May 2019, the CJR Complaints Committee decided not to prosecute Michèle Alliot-Marie, Dominique de Villepin and Michel Barnier, given that the latter’s “inaction” was not sufficient to justify prosecution and that suspicions that the investigation was not obstructed.
The three former ministers will still be present as witnesses at the time of the trial. Hearings eagerly awaited, even for the victims, who, like Jean-Paul Roko, do not believe in the French implication.
“It’s unbelievable to have arrested pilots, mercenaries and released them! Why not give the green light to arrest them or have them transferred to France, why? Asks the former soldier. And to add: “The secrets-defense, if there are any, we must raise them, we want answers!”
