While supporters of Laurent Gbagbo are jubilant, part of the Ivory Coast view is insulted to see the former president definitively acquitted, rehabilitated given the allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, for which he was indicted. Do you understand the plight of the victims, who saw him as responsible for the prejudices they suffered during the war that took place when he was head of state, 2011?
We can understand their fate. But without wanting to add to their dismay, we cannot invite these victims to wonder how easily they could adapt so quickly in such a deadly war (3,000 dead in a few weeks). . Indexing Laurent Gbagbo, and not the other warlords, those who had waged war against the outgoing president, turns out to be a miscalculation.
Usually in Africa, when a resigning head of state announces his re-election, even wrongly, no one declares war on him. He retains power and lets the opposition end in protest. Gbagbo had also taken an oath and thought he was safe. Until the French army’s armored vehicles engage …
How do you explain that the victims forgot to hold other warriors accountable?
No doubt they beat the camp on their safety with regard to Laurent Gbagbo’s defeat. Many still believe that it was because he did not admit defeat that this war existed. But to put it that way means to politicize their cause by investing in a partisan way in an inevitable condemnation of Laurent Gbagbo. It is only by approaching the realities of the country through a partisan and interested prism that most people stop installing hatred in the heart of political life in Africa.
“Hate,” you say? Isn’t the term a bit exaggerated?
So listen to the terms used by the spokesman for power, in Chad or in the Congo, to talk about opponents! Follow in “Calls on news” how certain listeners, supporters (or activists) of an unlucky candidate, in Niger, Côte d’Ivoire or the Central African Republic, nominate or qualify the winner and his camp. Address some of the public reflections that are favorable to Ousmane Sonko when he talked about Macky Sall and vice versa. If you do not feel a hateful charge in the words or tone, listen again, and you will find it! With a few exceptions, the political opponent, almost everywhere in Africa, is an enemy, one who is held in stubborn hatred.
Of course, some leaders generally take it upon themselves to continue performing, radiating some kindness and brushing their teeth. But hugs and hugs are never more than monuments of hypocrisy. And in the face of these visceral hostilities, we will sometimes wonder if they would not have killed a family member in them or plundered an inheritance from them.
Is that the case?
No. In Africa, explanation and enmity, in politics, are often explained by underlying material interests and by the fact that the conquest of power is a game of zero sum, where the winner takes everything, even gives himself., Often, the right to starve the defeated and reduce them to a crossing of the desert or to gather.
The winners then gather around the “manger”, and even those who only collect crumbs are sometimes ready to kill so as not to lose any of these crumbs.
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