re: what is france up to? .... protecting iraqi oi
Ivory Coast and France FACTS
1. Ivory Coast was a french colony upto the 1960's
2. The French since then have maintained ties with the Ivory Coast through commercial and military arangements including defence agreements.
3. For most of the 40 years since independence france's in put into the Ivory coast both economical and military has been welcomed.
4. the recent up rising was a result of tension between the muslim north of the country and the christian south and the government which is made up of the majority of the christian south.
5. The north of the country have been complaining of receiving a raw deal from the south and tensions came to a climax when military officers from the north were sacked for what they claim to be no reason.
6. REQUESTS were made by the Ivory Coast government to the French to supply military assistance to the government in the uprising.
7. The French were only prepared to act mainly inthe way of peace keepers and negotiators - which the Ivory Coast government and rebel representatives AGREED to.
8. The peace agreement was negotiated by the French on the weekend between the ivory Coast government and the rebels.
9. Supporters of the Ivory Coast government and the military (refer to point 5) were unhappy with the deal as they did not want to concede anything to the rebels and are therefore rightly of wrongly blaming the French. From what I have read the main preasure put on the government to agree with the peace deal was that if a deal could not be reach the French would walk away and let them sort it out between themselves.
10. The UN were not involved in the peace deal because they were not asked to be involved and both parties were happy and even request the French act in the role they did.
There is no comparision between the French involvement in this situation and the US trying to force their control through military force on the middle east.
The problem some here have seems to have more to do with the French government having the audacity to not suck up to GWB and make their own decision on the Iraq issue based on evidence avaliable.
Who knows maybe GWB may be able to fabricate something in the next 7 days. If he does I hope it is better than his last attempt - a nuclear facility that turn out to be a bomb out pile of rubble.
