Beyond the news- Cote d' I voire

This is what  you have probably heard: 

Ivory Coast faces many hurdles to peace

The prolonged fall of Laurent Gbagbo continued Wednesday, casting a pall over Abidjan, a city that’s been ground to a halt by nearly a week of urban warfare.

Two efforts by forces loyal to the internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara to storm a bunker under the presidential palace where Gbagbo is reported to be hiding with his wife and family failed to dislodge the defiant former leader who refuses to step aside.

The crisis that has gripped Ivory Coast since its election in November has seen the resurgence of heavily armed militias and ethnic violence in a country already long divided between north and south. The economy is near collapse and both sides of the conflict have been accused of horrific human rights violations. Reports suggest both sides have armed notoriously hard-to-control militias and recruited civilian fighters and mercenaries. from The Toronto Star

AND THIS IS THE TRUTH BEHIND THE NEWS: 

New African Magazine

January 2008 archived edition

Focus

CFA How France lives off Francophone Africa via the CFA franc Professor Mamadou Koulibaly, Speaker of the Ivorian National Assembly and Professor of Economics, sheds light on the economic devastation caused to the African member states of the CFA (Communauté  Financière d’Afrique – [French Community of Africa]) zone through their continued link to the French currency – the Franc – in the past and today to the euro. In this informative interview with New African’s Ruth Tete and Soh Taadhieu, Professor Koulibaly does not mince his words as he calls for a total split and the creation of an independent currency free of colonial baggage. Question: Could you explain to our readers, what are the principle mechanisms of the CFA Franc Zone? Answer: The CFA franc region represents a state-controlled zone of cooperation with, interestingly, the levers of control based in Paris, from where the priority is the interests of France. The satellite states that are members of this zone are dispersed in West and Central Africa. The operational logic driving the functioning of this zone brings to mind a similarity with the way the Eastern European states were linked during the Cold War to the former Soviet bloc through the Warsaw Pact. The principals of monetary cooperation between France and the member states of the CFA zone were formulated in the 1960s in a colonial pact which was reviewed in the monetary cooperation convention of 23 November 1972 between the member states of the Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale (BEAC) (Bank of Central African States) and the French Republic on one hand, as well as in the cooperation agreement of 4 December 1973 between the member states of the Union Monétaire Ouest-Africaine (UMOA) (or the Monetary Union of West African States) and the French Republic on the other hand. Just before France conceded to African demands for independence in the 1960s, it carefully organised its former colonies in a system of compulsory solidarity which consisted of obliging the African states to put 65% of their foreign currency reserves into the French Treasury, b ased on the convertibility, at a rigid exchange rate of the CFA – a currency France had created for them.  Gbagbo opposes French Colonial Pact According to President Gbagbo’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Koffi Charlse (Ouattara has since sent his own UN ambassador to New York), “the core of the problem in Cote d’Ivoire is a conspiracy by the French government to use any means necessary to remove Gbagbo from power because they think he is dangerous and inimical to their interests in Francophone Africa. But Gbagbo will not allow the French to control and run Cote d’Ivoire on their own terms.” Now form an objective opinion.