Ivory Coast Confronts Issues of Immigrant Identity

April 18, 2011

Part of millions of frightened immigrants, some Burkina Faso citizens unload their belongings at the national soccer stadium in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso after they came home from the cocoa plantations and coffee fields of neighboring Ivory Coast (File Photo)

Founding father Felix Houphouet-Boigny offered work to thousands of West African immigrants as part of his drive to make Ivory Coast the world's largest cocoa producer.

Start of "Ivorianess"

But when cocoa prices dropped and Houphouet-Boigny died in 1993, his successor, Henri Konan Bedie, sought to capitalize on voter anxiety about a falling economy by speaking out against people whose parents were not born in the country before independence. Those "non-native" Ivorians were blocked from voting in 1995 and were increasingly subject to attacks, especially in the south.

While Bedie popularized the issue of "Ivorite" or "Ivorianess," it was former president Laurent Gbagbo who pushed the depths of its xenophobia. Former prime minister Alassane Ouattara was repeatedly blocked from running for president because of questions about his parents being born in what is now Burkina Faso.

Having won the right to contest the office as part of a peace plan that followed a brief civil war, Ouattara's candidacy was repeatedly attacked by Gbagbo. In their November run-off election, Gbagbo told voters that there was only one "real" Ivorian in the race, warning that they should never trust the leadership of their country to a foreigner.