According to Localcollegeexplorer, Ivory Coast is a State of West Africa, overlooking the Atlantic, chap. Yamoussoukro, Abidjan main center. Covered by forests in the Center-South and by savannah in the North, the Ivory Coastd’A. it is highly fragmented ethnically, with kru people prevailing in the western part, an Islamizing north inhabited by senufo, diula, etc. and a Center-East dominated by Akan groups, in particular the anyi and the baule. The North (➔ Kong) and the East saw the establishment of centralized kingdoms: in the 17th-18th century. Gyaman, Sanwi and Anyi-Ndenye, influenced by Asante. Weaker political formations in the trunk and in the West. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the French tried, unsuccessfully, to settle in Assini, on the coast, where Paris returned in 1843, stipulating a treaty with Sanwi and occupying other bases. French control over the interior extended (➔ Binger, Louis Gustave ; Samori Touré), the Ivory Coastd’A. it became a colony in 1893, part of French West Africa (1902), but local resistance lasted for a long time. Area of agricultural exploitation (cocoa, coffee) and forestry, it experienced intense immigration from neighboring countries and the growth of an indigenous agricultural bourgeoisie, the basis of a powerful union. The nationalist movement was dominated by the Parti démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI-RDA), founded in 1947 by F. Houphouët-Boigny – a trunk, member of the Ivory Coast d’A. in Paris (1945) – as a section of the Rassemblement démocratique africain. Territory of the French Union since 1946, the Ivory Coastd’A. he opted in 1958 for autonomy in the Franco-African Community and became independent on 7 August 1960, under the presidency of Houphouët-Boigny. Strenuously pro-French, he governed with autocratic-paternalistic methods, weaving effective networks of consensus and dosing repression and concessions to opponents. The growth of the agricultural export economy favored the stability of the system, also guaranteed by the ties with Paris, which maintained a military contingent. But in the late 1970s, the collapse in agricultural commodity prices led the government to resort to structural adjustment plans, with drastic spending cuts that especially affected wage earners and public employment. In 1990 student unrest and the discontent of the armed forces led the president to implement multi-partyism (in fact the PDCI-RDA had been the only legal party until then), but the elections still confirmed him with an absolute parliamentary majority. The decline in the president’s health sparked a dispute over the appointment of a successor, designated between Alessane Ouattara, a northerner, and Henri Konan Bédié, a trunk, who was later chosen by Houphouët-Boigny before his death (1993). The hegemony of the baule, favored by Houphouët (who in 1983 moved the capital to his hometown, Yamoussoukro), was resentful of the other communities. Bédié, confirmed as president in 1995, he exacerbated the opposition with Ouattara by supporting a discriminatory position with respect to political participation on the basis of the “avorian nature” of the birth of a citizen’s parents: a requirement that Ouattara lacked, together with the imposing community of twentieth-century immigrants. The contrast between the different communities alienated the North in particular, but also the army, which in 1999 implemented a coup, bringing General Robert Guéi to power. He changed the Constitution to prevent Ouattara from participating in the 2000 elections, in which Guéi ran against Laurent Gbagbo, an old opponent of Houphouët, but refused to recognize his victory and abandon the country in the riots that followed. Having become president, Gbagbo thwarted a military rebellion in September 2002 and remained in power in Abidjan (while Guéi was killed), but the rebels took control of the North, resulting in a state of civil war with intercommunal clashes and an interposition of French troops. An agreement reached in gen. 2003 was wrecked the following year. The killing of nine French soldiers at the resumption of hostilities (Nov. 2004) provoked the retaliation of the Paris troops against the government aviation and subsequent popular anti-French uprisings. Gbagbo’s mandate, which ended in 2005, was repeatedly extended with the consent of the UN until an agreement was reached between the parties, which intervened in March 2007. Therebel leader Guillaume Soro became prime minister, pledging not to run for president, while the constitutional clause introduced against Ouattara was abolished.
About Ivory Coast
State of West Africa, independent since 1960, formerly a French colony. The capital functions were transferred to Yamoussoukro in 1983, but in fact they are still carried out by the historical capital Abidjan. The country, roughly rectangular in shape, borders on the W with Liberia and the Republic of Guinea, on the N with Mali and Burkina Faso, and on the E with Ghana ; to the S, it overlooks the Gulf of Guinea for over 550 km.
