W. Africa feels Ivory Coast woes

He says that most surrounding countries rely on the Ivory Coast for goods such as soap, oil, manioc, and bananas. Rebels in control the northern half of the country have cut off shipments heading north. Goods now must be transported via a circuitous route through Accra, Ghana, adding 160 percent to their overhead cost. He says the crisis has also halted beef imports from Burkina Faso. The prices of beef here has jumped 20 to 30 percent.

"Truckloads of potatoes and onion are sitting in Mali rotting," Mr. Amedé says, noting that exports such as these are key to the Malian economy.

Ethnic tensions have come to the fore in Ivory Coast recently. Mr. Rajab says that these tensions may be exacerbated by the economic woes.

"When the Ivorian economy was strong, there were no problems of ethnicity," he says. Rajab says that after the death of President Félix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, a political power vacuum opened.

"Politically insecure leaders then resorted to exploiting ethnicity to consolidate their power base," he says. The country is home to some 2.3 million Burkinabe and close to 800,000 Malians, many of whom work in the cocoa and agriculture industry. Amedé says that Malians living in Ivory Coast send home more than $750,000 each year, which helps prop up their fragile economy. But these remittances have slowed recently.

A young Ivorian woman, who fled to Bamako, Mali's capital, after rebels captured her town of Mbengué and recently returned to Abidjan, says the price of yams, peppers, eggplants, cooking oil, and other goods grown or manufactured in Ivory Coast have increased in Mali – sometimes doubling. She also noticed an anti-Ivorian sentiment on the streets.

"As soon as you arrive at the market, the first vendor informs the others that an Ivorian has come to the market," says the woman, who requested anonymity.

Compounding the wave of inflation is the shaky political climate in surrounding countries. Liberia is in the midst of an insurgency allegedly backed by neighboring Guinea; Mali is taking its first steps into democracy; and Nigeria is locked in a land dispute with Cameroon. The fragile social infrastructure in these countries could be broken with the return of 5 million foreigners living in the Ivory Coast.

Rajab says the region needs to be aware of insurgents in other countries taking advantage of the increasingly destabilized political climate.

"Past experience has shown that an event occurring in one country is often repeated in another," he says. "Therefore the possibility of copycat revolts in the subregion should not be discounted."

According to Rajab, the key for the region lies in revitalizing the economy.

"The panacea for the ills that are currently visiting Ivory Coast is a restructured economy and good governance," he says. "It is also important that citizenship issues are addressed at a subregional level within the context of ECOWAS."

Page: 1 | 2