$Unique_ID{bob00299} $Pretitle{} $Title{Cote d'Ivoire Chapter 2B. The Road to Independence} $Subtitle{} $Author{T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{french african france political coast assembly government ivory constitution colonies} $Date{1973} $Log{} Title: Cote d'Ivoire Book: Area Handbook for Ivory Coast Author: T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1973 Chapter 2B. The Road to Independence The Impact of World War II World War II had a profound effect on the future of all French West Africa. With the outbreak of the war, the fall of France and the creation of the German-allied, Vichy government in France, the French colonies were faced with the problem of declaring their loyalty to Marshal Philippe Petain, who headed the Vichy regime, or to the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle, whose headquarters were in London. Pierre Boisson, Governor General of the OAF, and all of his subordinate governors remained personally loyal to Petain but the African population of the Ivory Coast largely favored the Free French. The Vichy government was considered a usurper without right to govern France or its colonies. A number of prominent chiefs organized their people into resistance movements which actively sabotaged the Vichy war effort and supported de Gaulle through agents in the neighboring Gold Coast. Some even led their people into voluntary exile in the Gold Coast until the return to power of the "true French." Under Vichy, French West Africa was subject to heavy economic exploitation and fierce racism. Nazi theories of a superior race were applied against the Black African and resulted in acute discrimination. The recruitment of forced labor was intensified as was the drafting of men into the armed forces. Farmers were assigned production quotas for foodstuffs which often could be met only at the expense of the local residents, whose standard of living had already been greatly lowered by the cutting off of imports from Europe. The resentment engendered by Vichy policies gave rise to a feeling of African consciousness and nationalism and a hope of greater autonomy after the war. The differences in loyalty among the people also matured their political awareness. Negro intellectuals, who had for some time been under the influence of socialist ideas of the Popular Front in prewar France, were attracted by some of the Marxist ideas expounded by the anti-Nazi movements and by some French teachers and labor organizers. In 1943 branches of an organization known as Communist Study Groups (Groupes d'Etudes Communistes-GEC) were established in the principal cities of West Africa, including Abidjan. In these groups African intellectuals discussed African problems in Communist terms, many of the participants later became prominent as postwar national leaders. After the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, Governor General Boisson, on the orders of Admiral Darlan, came over to the Allied side and, on November 25, declared the allegiance of the AOF to the French Provisional Government in Algiers. A French consultative assembly was called by the government to Algiers in early 1943 and convened in an atmosphere of reform. In early 1944, Rene Pleven, Commissioner of Colonies in the Provisional Government, called a conference of governors of French Black Africa to Brazzaville. Events of the war and the comportment of the Africans toward the French made the governors realize that it was time to revise radically their former relationship. Inspired also by the principle of the Atlantic Charter and its affirmation of the right of self-determination, the conference recommended far-reaching political, social and economic reforms. In effect, the recommendations were a compromise between the points of view of assimilationists such as Pleven and federalists such as Felix Eboue, the Negro governor of Chad. The conference considered it necessary that the colonies send delegates to the constituent assembly which was to draw up a new French constitution after the war and that they be granted political representation in whatever parliamentary body the constitution provided for. The colonies themselves were to be given greater autonomy in administration and a legislative assembly elected on a double slate by both French citizens and Africans. A program for economic development was also proposed. The most striking recommendations, however, were in the social field and were inspired by Eboue: local customs were to be respected and safeguarded; l'Indigenat was to be abolished and a new penal code adopted; labor conscription was to be ended; and health and education facilities were to be improved. In addition, positions in the colonial administration were to be opened to Africans. The Brazzaville Conference signaled the beginning of a new era in colonial policy, but its only immediate effect was the passage of a law in August 1944 granting labor in the AOF the right to organize. Postwar Reforms In October 1945 the first country-wide elections were held in the Ivory Coast to choose two delegates for the Constituent Assembly which was to meet in Paris before the end of the year. One was chosen by the French metropolitan citizens and the other by a restricted African electorate, which chose Felix Houphouet-Boigny to represent its interests (see ch. 12, Constitution and Government). When the Constituent Assembly met in Paris, 63 out of 600 delegates represented the African colonies. The Africans among them, all of them members of the educated elite, played an active role in the deliberations. The Assembly offered them their first real opportunity to air publicly the grievances and aspirations of their fellow Africans; their demands for liberal reforms received strong support from the Socialists and the then strong Communists. Out of the debates of the Assembly came a re-evaluation of colonial policy and a draft plan for the union of France and the former colonies. In the meantime, a number of important reforms concerning Africans had been achieved by decree. The hated l'Indigenat and forced labor system were abolished; residents of the colonies were granted freedom of speech, association, and assembly; the Monnet Plan for economic reconstruction in France was extended to the West African colonies; and funds were provided for economic and social development. Houphouet-Boigny is credited with having achieved the abolishment of forced labor, and the law implementing it bears his name. A new penal code for the AOF was adopted in April 1946, and in May the Law Lamine Gueye (so called after the African socialist deputy from Senegal) extended French citizenship to all the inhabitants of French colonies. Its failure to define closely the rights of citizenship, however, prevented inhabitants of the colonies from the full exercise of civil rights on the ground that they were not yet ready for it. The first French constitution, which included whole passages of the Brazzaville recommendations, proved too liberal for the French electorate which rejected it in a referendum in May 1946. When a second constituent assembly convened in June, pressure from conservative elements in France and in the colonies was strong, and sharp differences of opinion developed among the delegates. The advocates of colonial autonomy included all the colonial deputies and the French political left wing. They favored political autonomy within the framework of metropolitan France in a strong revival of assimilationist ideas. The extremists among them, including deputies from north Africa and Madagascar, demanded political independence, whereas the deputies from Black Africa, including Houphouet-Boigny from the Ivory Coast, supported the idea of local self-government and political equality of Frenchmen and the colonial people. Colonial interests, on the other hand, and the French political right and center inclined toward a nominally federalist system, within which France would preserve its dominant position. A compromise was finally reached, and the plan for the French Union was written into a new draft constitution, which was adopted by the assembly on September 28, 1946, by a vote of 440 to 106. All deputies from Black Africa voted for it, and it was approved as the Constitution of the Fourth Republic in a referendum held throughout France and the overseas possessions on October 13, 1946. The French Union, established by the constitution of the Fourth Republic in 1946, consisted of metropolitan France and its overseas possessions, which were classified as Overseas Departments, Overseas Territories, Associated Territories, Protectorates and Associated States. The West African colonies were designated as Overseas Territories, which together with the Overseas Departments and metropolitan France comprised the French Republic. The President of the French Republic was President ex officio of the French Union, the organs of which were the High Council and the Assembly. In practice, as before, metropolitan France dominated. The French Government exercised all legislative and executive powers, and the administration of the overseas possessions continued on centralized pattern by the Ministry for Overseas France (Ministere de la France d'Outre-Mer). Despite its federal trappings, it was a unitary and in many aspects strongly assimilationist system. Laws, administration, citizenship and the educational system were all French, and the basic premise of economic planning was full integration of colonial economy with that of France. A first step toward political autonomy was taken in giving some administrative and financial powers to the elective general councils in each territory (known as territorial assemblies after 1952), in granting limited suffrage and in removing the ban on political association. The AOF continued as a regional federation with its structure unchanged except for the addition of elective bodies at the federal and territorial levels. Each territory elected a general council (Conseil General) on the basis of a double electoral college, one for Africans and one for Frenchmen, which in turn sent five of its members to the Grand Council (Grand Conseil) of the federation. The councils had advisory and regulatory functions but no legislative power. The exclusive right to legislate for the overseas territories remained with the French Assembly and was carried out in practice by executive decree. The councils were nevertheless important as representative bodies where debate could take place, and they had considerable influence over matters of finance. In addition to the territorial and federal council, the French Union provided for African representation in the two houses of the French Parliament, in the Assembly of the French Union and on the Economic Council. The representatives were elected by a complicated system of direct and indirect voting. The complex of representative institutions provided the environment for political organization and a growing political maturity among the African population. Elective office offered the elite an outlet for their talents and aspirations, and, despite their limited powers, the councils became a useful training ground for future politicians. The educated evolue, fluent in French and familiar with French political institutions and practice, had a definite advantage in gaining political office over traditional leaders, whose influence in the community steadily decreased. The electorate got considerable training in the business of politics through actual voting and through the almost perpetual campaigning of the new politicians. The interconnection of the various bodies through the indirectly elected representatives stimulated the formation of alliances and affiliations between African and French political parties, trade unions and other organizations. Despite the growing political activity, however, there was little if any agitation for complete self-government or independence. In the early 1950s the French Government granted additional reforms which were to a large extent the work of the African deputies in the National Assembly. In 1950 the Second Law Lamine Gueye admitted Africans to all high civil service positions on equal terms with Europeans, and in 1952 a new labor code was adopted in the AOF patterned on the code in force in metropolitan France. The most significant reform was the passage in June 1956 of the so-called loi-cadre which granted universal suffrage and a single electoral college, thus giving Africans and Europeans equal political rights. In addition, the loi-cadre gave broad legislative powers to the territorial assemblies, while enumerating the powers reserved to the French Government. Elections for the new assemblies were held in March 1956 and in May the African governments took office. Since Houphouet-Boigny was serving in the French government in Paris, Philippe Gregoire Yace, Secretary General of the majority party, became vice-president of the Council of Government in the Ivory Coast. While at last implementing fully the egalitarian features of assimilation, the loi-cadre in effect adopted association as the basis of future relations between France and its possessions. This reorientation of philosophy opened the way for independence within four years. Growth of Political Consciousness The development of anticolonialism in the Ivory Coast had its roots in economic grievances. It began in the interwar period when the introduction of coffee and cocoa as cash crops gave rise to an African planter class which competed on the market with the Europeans who had come to the Ivory Coast to make their fortune. Colonial policy strongly favored the Europeans: the forced labor system supplied them with workers; their crops commanded higher prices; and they had access to protected markets. African resentment against this discrimination was brought to a head by the economic hardships of World War II, when discrimination was heightened to a point where African plantations were faced with extinction. In September 1944, therefore, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, a wealthy African planter who was also a chief and a French-educated physician, founded the African Agricultural Union (Syndicat Agricole Africain-SAA) to fight for the abolition of forced labor and a fair deal for the African planter. The SAA became the first anticolonial organization in the Ivory Coast. Its membership included some 20,000 African planters as well as laborers, civil servants, traders and every kind of African engaged in the money economy. It cut across ethnic lines with an efficient organization which covered a large part of the country. Houphouet-Boigny's leadership of the SAA catapulted him into national prominence. The constitutional reforms of 1946, by guaranteeing the right of free speech and assembly and by creating several bodies composed of elected representatives of the people, signaled the formation of African political parties. A number of parties based on ethnic and regional interests were organized in the Ivory Coast and elected members to the territorial assembly and the Abidjan municipal council. From the beginning, the dominant party was the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (Parti Democratique de Cote d'Ivoire-PDCI), which was created in 1946 out of the SAA to attract a wider following than its predecessor. It soon attracted the radical intellectuals from the wartime Communist Study Groups and became a political force to be reckoned with in French West Africa. Its leader, Houphouet-Boigny, was elected to the constituent assembly in Paris in 1946 and later that same year to the newly constituted French National Assembly. Increasing political activity and a growing national consciousness were both responsible for and stimulated by the postwar constitutional reforms. Pressure from the SAA and similar organizations in other territories brought about most of the reforms of 1946 (notably the law abolishing forced labor), and the reforms, in turn, by granting Africans greater equality and a limited participation in government, induced further interest and action. By providing for territorial elective assemblies and territorial representatives in the French National Assembly, the reforms stressed the importance of the territory as a political entity and fostered a national consciousness. On the other hand, by grouping the territories into the AOF with its own elected council and by joining territorial deputies with French deputies in the National Assembly, the reforms encouraged cooperation not only across territorial boundaries but also with French political organizations. It was this need for cooperation which in 1946 prompted Houphouet-Boigny and several other French West African leaders to form the African Democratic Rally (Rassemblement Democratique Africain-RDA). The RDA was conceived in the period between the two constituent assemblies when the defeat of the first draft constitution in May threatened a resurgence of conservative and colonial feeling in France. Five leading African delegates to the assembly, including Houphouet-Boigny, issued a joint manifesto calling for a united front of all African organizations in the fight for political and economic democracy in Black Africa. It specifically rejected, however, the idea of autonomy and supported the proposed French Union. In October 1946 the RDA was formally established by a congress called at Bamako by the signatories of the manifesto. Its aims were declared as "the union of Africans and their alliance with French democrats" for the achievement of a "real French Union-that of different peoples who are free and equal in their rights and duties." Its militant call to equality and its tightly knit organization made the RDA an immediate success in all of French West Africa. It had a wide popular following and gained dominance in most of the elective assemblies under the French Union. In the French National Assembly the RDA deputies formed an alliance of convenience with the French Communist Party. As a result the RDA was branded as communist and aroused the animosity of the French. In 1946, when the alliance was formed, the French Communist Party was a member of the coalition government, and its strong support of the RDA platform held promise of favorable legislative action. But in 1947 the Communists were asked to withdraw from the coalition and lost their influence in the government. Nevertheless, the RDA retained the support of the 183 Communist votes in the National Assembly, and the alliance was maintained until 1950. Although the RDA was an interterritorial party, its stronghold was the Ivory Coast. From the beginning Houphouet-Boigny emerged as its leader, and the postwar colonial administration under Governor Latrille was favorably disposed toward it. The economic situation in the Ivory Coast also favored a militant African party since here more than in any other French West African territory, African planters, evolues and even laborers were in direct competition with European settlers. Numerous other African parties appeared and disappeared, but none could compete effectively with the PDCI, the Ivory Coast branch of the RDA, and most were eventually absorbed by it. After 1947, Governor Latrille's administration was replaced by a strongly conservative one, favoring the settlers and metropolitan France in every way, and relations between the PDCI and the administration abruptly changed from cooperation to open hostility. The administration actively sponsored rival parties and manipulated elections; PDCI supporters were dismissed from government employment; and most of the leaders were jailed. Houphouet-Boigny is one of the rare nationalist leaders who, because of his parliamentary immunity, was never jailed. The PDCI retaliated by organizing strikes, boycotts of European goods and services and mass demonstrations. In 1949 the hostility erupted into violence when government troops began to fire on African demonstrators. In 1951 the PDCI reached a low ebb, and its existence was threatened. Its alliance, through the RDA, with the French Communist Party had caused the disaffection of the more moderate elements in the party, and government-sponsored rival parties had eaten away much of its popular support and drastically weakened its position in elective bodies of the Union. Houphouet-Boigny then affected a drastic change of policy. He broke all connections with the Communist Party; dramatically expelled the Secretary General of the RDA, G. d'Arboussier, who was an ardent supporter of such a connection; abandoned the policy of militant opposition to the administration; and embarked on a policy of practical cooperation. Opposition had been extremely costly in terms of lives and good will and had achieved nothing. Cooperation along practical lines, which restored the strength and prestige of the PDCI at home and of the RDA in the rest of the AOF and France, led not only to political concessions but also to significant economic cooperation with France and members of the local French community which made the Ivory Coast the richest territory in the AOF. The French Community The dissolution of the Fourth Republic in 1958, after General Charles de Gaulle came to power, offered the opportunity to write into the constitution for the new Fifth Republic a revised relationship between France and its colonies which would reflect not only General de Gaulle's own ideas but also the economic and political changes which had occurred since 1946. Constitutional reforms since 1946, culminating in the loi-cadre, had progressively weakened the centralized structure of administration and given more authority to local bodies. At the same time, the formation of political parties and the piecemeal extension of the franchise to various groups of literate and semiliterate Africans, eventually to the whole population, steadily increased the number of Africans involved in their own government. Had the principle of assimilation within the framework of the French Union been carried out to its logical conclusion, France would have become a colony of its colonies because the West African electorate would have sent a far greater number of deputies to the National Assembly than metropolitan France. Assimilation was therefore clearly no longer possible, nor was it any longer desirable to the Africans, who, with the loi-cadre, had achieved the equality under law which previously only assimilation offered. The Constitution of 1958, creating the Fifth Republic, provided for the free association of autonomous republics within a French Community where France was envisaged as the senior partner. The Community had jurisdiction over foreign policy, defense currency, common ethnic and financial policy, policy on strategic raw materials, and unless specifically excluded by agreement, over higher education, internal and external communications and supervision of tribunals. The Community's executive was presided over by an elected president, who was also the President of the French Republic, and consisted of an Executive Council (composed of the President, the prime ministers of the member states and the French ministers concerned with Community affairs) and a Senate (elected indirectly by each member state in proportion to the population). The Community also had a common High Court of Arbitration. Each member state was to have its own government established by separate constitutions (see ch. 12, Constitution and Government). The new constitution was submitted to the electorate of the French Union in a referendum on September 28, 1958. The choice was either to accept the constitution and consequent membership in the Community or to reject it, which would result in immediate severance of all ties with France. No provision was made in the Constitution for eventual independence for members of the Community. The Ivory Coast voted almost unanimously (99.9 percent) in favor of the Constitution. Two main factors lay behind the overwhelming support which the people of the Ivory Coast gave to the formation of the Community and their rejection of independence. One was an almost mystical feeling of brotherhood with France which more than 50 years of cultural assimilation had instilled, particularly in the elite and the political leaders. The second was a purely practical consideration of the advantages of continued association with France. Although it was the wealthiest French African territory, the Ivory Coast had neither the financial resources nor the trained manpower to develop independently. Since Africanization of responsible posts in the government had barely begun in 1957, there were no Africans who could reasonably be expected to operate the government should the French withdraw, and the country's economy was so completely tied to France that it was inconceivable to survive without it. Ever since 1946, France had been pouring money and technical assistance into the development of the African economies. Through a 10-year development plan financed by the Investment Fund for Economic and Social Development of Overseas Territories (FIDES), over $750 million of public capital was invested in French West Africa between the years 1947 and 1957. Approximately 70 percent of rapidly growing African exports were sold within the franc zone, where they were highly protected from outside competition, sometimes commanding prices 15 to 20 percent higher than on the world market. In addition to this heavy capital investment and export subsidy, France, between 1947 and 1957, absorbed about 27 percent of the normal cost of administration of the colonies by paying for the salaries of civil servants, most of the defense establishment, and many other hidden items. Adoption of the 1958 French Constitution brought the Community into being, and in March 1959 the Ivory Coast adopted its first constitution as a self-governing republic. It provided for a unicameral legislature elected by universal, direct suffrage and an executive headed by a prime minister elected by a majority vote of the legislature and responsible to it. The PDCI won all seats of the newly formed legislature, and Houphouet-Boigny resigned his post in the French government to form the first government of the Ivory Coast. He had played a major role in the events leading up to the establishment of the Community and with its establishment seemed to have achieved his main goal: self-government with close direct ties to France but without an intermediary federal organization. The AOF had long been a thorn in the side of the Ivory Coast and its elimination against strong opposition from several other West African leaders was a major victory for Houphouet-Boigny. His antifederalism was based purely on economic reasons-the AOF had been set up to pool the area's resources and have the richer territories help support the poorer ones. The federation had claim to all the revenues levied by export duties and after deducting the costs of federal services, was to redistribute the surplus to the component territories in proportion to their original contribution. But the amount of rebate, decided on annually by the Grand Council of the federation, in practice always favored the poorer territories. The Ivory Coast, as the richest territory in the federation, bitterly resented having its resources distributed without having a controlling voice in the distribution. The lack of control over the distribution of funds and not the distribution itself was the important factor in the grievance because in May 1959, only one month after the AOF ceased its legal existence, the Ivory Coast joined with Niger, Upper Volta and Dahomey in the Council of the Entente (Counseil de l'Entente) for the express purpose of pooling their resources for economic development. The Entente agreements, however, provide for a fixed mathematical formula for the distribution of funds which can be changed only with the consent of all signatories. Thus the Ivory Coast cannot be dictated to as it was under the AOF (see ch. 14, Foreign Policy). Although in 1958, when the Community was created, neither the French nor the Africans seriously considered complete independence for the colonies, events in the rest of Africa during the next two years altered the situation. In early 1960 the French government sponsored an amendment to the 1958 Constitution which permitted member states of the Community to gain complete independence but remain within the Community, which was reconstituted along commonwealth lines. Houphouet-Boigny was violently opposed to the "reconstituted Community" which he considered a new federation, and in August 1960 the Ivory Coast withdrew from the Community and became independent.