News — Ivory Coast

Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro Basilica is located in Yamoussoukro, which since March 1983 been the capital of Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast). It is the largest Christian church in the world, according to Guinness World Records. The basilica is not to be confused with a cathedral, which is the principal place of worship and where the ruling bishop is seated. It was constructed between 1985 and 1989 and is locally known by its French name, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Paix.

Former President Felix Houphouët-Boigny chose the location as part of a plan to transform his hometown of Yamoussoukro into the country’s administrative capital. Although funding for the construction came directly from the President Houphouët-Boigny’s personal funds, the cost of the basilica generated controversy as Côte d’Ivoire was going through a financial and economic crisis at the time of construction. Residents of many of the nation’s major cities were without access to running water, trash was piling up everywhere, and diseases were spreading.

The actual cost of construction is not publicly known but estimates are that it took from $400 to $600 million in US dollars to complete the edifice. The latter figure was more than double the country’s entire national debt. On September 10, 1990, Pope John Paul II traveled to Yamoussoukro, on behalf of the Catholic church, to accept the basilica as a gift. The Pope consecrated the church with the condition that a hospital be built nearby. Construction of the hospital was halted during the Ivorian Civil War and other political and military crises from 2002 to 2011, but was completed in 2014.

Lebanese architect Pierre Fakhoury, designed the basilica in the fashion of the Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican City in Italy. He made the dome slightly lower in deference to the Basilica of St. Peter but added a cross that gives it a taller overall height. The structure can accommodate 18,000, including some 7,000 seated and 11,000 standing, and the esplanade in front of the Basilica can accommodate 300,000 people.

The building was constructed from imported Italian marble, and contains twenty-four stained glass windows, including one with the likeness of President Houphouët-Boigny alongside Jesus and his Apostles. West African Iroko wood was used for the 7,000 pews. Two identical villas sit in front of the structure. One houses clergymen who operate the basilica and the other is reserved for papal visits. The basilica’s circular colonnade is made up of 272 Doric columns.

Regular services are usually only attended by a few hundred people. The only time the basilica was filled to capacity was on February 7, 1994, for President Houphouët-Boigny’s funeral. Only 17 percent of Ivorians identify as Catholic, while Islam remains the major religion of the nation.

The Second Ivorian Civil War was a five-month conflict in the west African country of the Ivory Coast (also known as Côte d’Ivoire) between 2010 and 2011. The main belligerents of the conflict were the military of the Ivory Coast, led by President Laurent Gbagbo who also recruited Liberian mercenaries and had as his allies the Young Patriots of Abidjan; and the Ivorian Popular Front. The opposition New Forces were led by Gbagbo political rival, Alassane Ouattara, who also recruited Liberian mercenaries and had militia support from Rally of the Republicans (RDR).  The United Nations (UN) maintained a small peace-keeping force in the country and France had special forces members there as well. Their presence was critical when France decided to support Ouattara.  An estimated three thousand soldiers, members of various security forces, and civilians were killed in the conflict in a nation of 24 million people.

The conflict was initiated by the disputed 2010 Ivorian presidential election. Presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner of the contest but President Gbagbo immediately disputed the results claiming that there was extensive voter fraud. The international community, which included the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), all supported Ouattara and urged Gbagbo to step down. He refused and his followers soon initiated violence initially in Abidjan, the nation’s largest city.

On March 17, 2011, about thirty people were killed by central government-initiated rocket attack on a pro-Ouattara suburb of Abidjan. In the following days between March 21 and March 26 more violence occurred when fifty-two people were killed in Abidjan by supporters of Gbagbo. On March 28, 2011, the New Forces launched a military offensive across the country to drive Gbagbo from power.  They quickly captured a number of small towns and cities around the nation and on March 30, they took the capital, Yamoussoukro.

The following day, March 31, heavy fighting occurred in Abidjan as pro-Ouattara forces advanced through the city. At that point United Nations peacekeepers took control of Abidjan airport after pro-Gbagbo forces abandoned it. The fighting continued with claims of massacres by both sides.  The largest occurred in the town of Duekoue where an estimated 1,000 civilians were killed by both pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces. Another massacre was reported on April 7, 2011 in the towns of Blolequin and Guiglo where an estimated 100 bodies were found.

The brief war took an abrupt turn on April 11, 2011 when pro-Ouattara forces captured Gbagbo and placed him, his wife, and 50 supporters under arrest.  The capture was assisted by French special forces who now were ordered by their government to openly support Ouattara. After Gbagbo’s arrest, the fighting ended and Ouattara was sworn in as the new president of the Ivory Coast.

It has been a week since the International Criminal Court (ICC) upheld an earlier acquittal of the former President of Ivory Coast, Laurent Koudou Gbagbo, bringing to an end a decade of legal problems for the 75-year-old who had been charged among others with murder and sexual abuse which marked postelection violence.

After the President of the ICC, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, a Nigerian, declared on March 31 that “[t]he appeals chamber, by majority, has found no error that could have materially affected the decision of the trial chamber,” Gbagbo would have heaved the most profound sigh of relief he has ever managed. He had always maintained his innocence but the alacrity with which Gbagbo was processed for adjudication has been hailed as the best possible way to deal with powerful men whose reigns see unspeakable inhuman offenses.

Gbagbo was freed along with the Minister of Youth during his presidency, Charles Blé GoudéOn Wedne, a man blamed by loyalists of the current Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, as the one who led the organizational ground game for offensives against rebel alliances from the north as well as against civilians.

Judge Eboe-Osuji also repealed all the conditionalities attached to letting the men go. But as any observer of the politics in the Ivory Coast could tell you, this is a tense never-before-seen moment that will test the fragile peace in the West African country.

Welcomed home?

On Wednesday, Ouattara announced that Gbagbo and Blé Goudé were free to return to their home country if they wanted to. Ivorian authorities, perhaps in anticipation of the present moment, gave Gbagbo an ordinary passport as well as a diplomatic one, depending on which life he chose to live after the ICC’s proceedings.

Gbagbo’s travel expenses, and those of his family as well, will be paid for by the Ivorian state. But Ouattara’s announcement of these packages mentioned nothing about a 20-year prison sentence that awaits Gbagbo from a case tied to embezzlement. He was tried and sentenced in absentia in 2019. It is also not known if the Ivorian government will agree to Gbagbo’s financial demands in line with his importance as a former president.

Jeune Afrique, the pan-African Francophone magazine, has reported that Gbagbo is asking for “a €14,600 [$17,000] monthly allowance plus another €11,400 [$13,500] for transport, gas, electricity, and telephone bills.” These amounts are the same as what he was entitled to when he was arrested by the ICC in April of 2011.

Campaigners for peace and well-wishers will be gladdened by Ouattara’s commitment to involving the state in receiving Gbagbo. However, the president may be expected to go further than that. Gbagbo’s influence may not be insignificant despite being away for about a decade. In Gbagbo, it is possible for elements antithetic to Ouattara to find renaissance.

Religious and ethnic tensions are still very present too, one cannot forget. Ivory Coast still struggles to define what it means by a nation after 60 years.

There are even grounds to doubt what was heralded as reconciliatory efforts by Ouattara’s government last December when Gbagbo was handed the two passports. An African Intelligence report noted at the beginning of this year that the two men had not spoken, with one man waiting for the other to call.

Sara Coulibaly grew up playing with light-skinned dolls, and even as an adult, the idea of still seeing such dolls on shelves in Ivory Coast was unsettling to her, especially when Black people are claiming their roots now more than ever.

Every girl child at some time in their lives played with dolls and for African children, most of these dolls until recently were light-skinned.

Coulibaly decided to bring a much-needed representation to the children in her home country so she created her own doll company Naima Dolls which produces dark-skinned dolls for the local market.

Children are oblivious to the implications of not having dolls that looked like them to play with. Seeing how that shaped her social construct, this Ivorian decided to bring Black dolls onto the shelves so children can see themselves in the toys they played with.

Her office is in the capital, Abidjan, and according to Reuters, it is beautifully decorated with African masks and colorful wax prints.  

Naima Dolls currently has 20 employees and the company was birthed five years after Coulibaly conceived the idea of creating alternative dolls for children that looked more like them than their colonizers. The dolls received a lot of admiration and massive patronage during the holidays last December.

Inspiration for the dolls come from different ideas or people she has met. Coulibaly, who trained to be an architect, designs and styles the dolls, which are then produced in China or Spain. On average, she produces 150,000 a year. The young entrepreneur hopes to bring the production to her home country someday to cater to high demand.

The names of the evolutional dolls come from different regions of Ivory Coast and the most popular doll is a two-year-old girl with plump features that goes by the name Adjoba, a name given to one born on Tuesday in the Akan language of the southeast.

“Our hope today is to give children the means to make good decisions, Coulibaly said. “I want them to be conscious of the fact that they are beautiful, that their culture is beautiful and their culture is rich.”

Many people now appreciate the Naima Dolls and Black dolls in general as they are bringing diversity to the market.

Global giant doll company Mattel, producers of Barbie, have also in recent times leaned towards creating more dolls that drive diversity and inclusion. The first doll was created in 1959 and it was light-skinned. The first Black doll by the company was Christie, which was made ten years later. It took another two decades before another Black doll, “African-American” Barbie was released since Christie, People reported.  

As recent as last year, Barbie released a set of looks for its Black doll collection for Black History Month as part of efforts to bring the much-needed representation in the homes of the young ones who love the dolls.

Mattel worked with costume designer Shiona Turini, the creative mind behind the movie ‘Queen & Slim‘, to outdoor a set of Barbies in 10 different hairstyles, skin tones, and body types to create Barbies with braids, finger waves, and everything in between.

Two of the world’s largest producers of cocoa, Ghana and Ivory Coast, have accused U.S. confectionary giants of avoiding paying a bonus that will help improve the economic fortunes of poor farmers.

The Coffee Cocoa Council (CCC) and the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) in a letter on Monday accused Hershey’s and Mars, two of the world’s top chocolate sellers, of not paying the living income differential (LID), according to AFP.

The letter also accused Fuji Oil Holdings’ Blommer subsidiary of aiding Hershey.

The LID gives cocoa farmers a bonus of $400 per tonne in addition to the market price and envisioned to cushion many farmers who live in poverty. The $400 a tonne LID on cocoa sales for the 2020/2021 season was introduced by the West African nations last year.

According to the CCC and Cocobod, a large purchase of cocoa on the U.S. futures market by Hershey recently clearly indicates the company’s “intention to avoid paying the living differential income.” The producers added that they had been “been left with no choice but to cancel all sustainability programs with which your company is involved”.

The joint letter also denounced Hershey’s and Mars’ “breach of confidence” in the scheme intended to help millions of African farmers. The schemes certify that the chocolate is ethically sourced, that is, production must be free of child labor and avoid environmental destruction. This allows companies to sell their chocolate at a higher price.

In a statement to Reuters, Hershey, producers of Hershey chocolate bars, Hershey’s Kisses and Kit Kat, said it is fully participating in the LID. “Our concern is that by cutting off industry sustainability programs, cocoa farmers will no longer receive the benefits provided by our programs… (like) the price premium for certified cocoa,” the company said in a statement.

It was “unfortunate” that the countries had decided to “distribute a misleading statement this morning and jeopardise such critical programmes that directly benefit cocoa farmers,” AFP also quoted Hershey as saying.

Ghana and Ivory Coast are the world-leading producers of cocoa. Jointly, the two West African nations produce two-thirds of the world’s cocoa. However, cocoa farmers from the two countries continue to wallow in poverty even though their produce sustain the economies of the two nations.

In 2018, Bloomberg reported that these farmers make “only about 5.5 per cent of a global supply chain worth more than $100 billion”. This is even less than 15% of governments take as the value-added tax on the sale of chocolate products in Western countries where chocolate is most consumed.