History

Little is known about Côte d'Ivoire before the arrival of Portuguese in the 1460s. The major ethnic groups came relatively recently from neighbouring areas: the Kru people from Liberia around 1600, whilst the Senoufo and Lobi moved southward from Burkina Faso and Mali. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Akan people, including the Baoulé, migrated from Ghana into the eastern area of the country, and the Malinké from Guinea into the north-west.

French Colonial Era

Compared to neighbouring Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire suffered little from the slave trade. European slaving and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast, with better harbours. France took an interest in the 1840s, enticing local chiefs to grant French commercial traders a monopoly along the coast. Thereafter, the French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic conquest of the interior. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka forces, mostly from Gambia. Guerrilla warfare by the Baoulé and other eastern groups continued until 1917.

France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Côte d'Ivoire stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of 'settlers'; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and English were largely bureaucrats. As a result, a third of the cocoa, coffee and banana plantations were in the hands of French citizens and a hated forced-labour system became the backbone of the economy.

Independence

The son of a Baoulé chief, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was to become Côte d'Ivoire's father of independence. In 1944 he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Annoyed that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, they united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that the country would benefit from it, which it did for many years. France made him the first African to become a minister in a European government.

In 1958, Côte d'Ivoire became an autonomous member of the French Community (which replaced the French Union).

At the time of Côte d'Ivoire's independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to stimulate production further. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Côte d'Ivoire into third place in world output (behind Brazil and Colombia). By 1979 the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil.

In the rest of Africa, Europeans were driven out following independence; but in Côte d'Ivoire, they poured in. The French community grew from only 10 000 to 50 000, most of them teachers and advisers. For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10% - the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.

Houphouët-Boigny Administration

Politically, Houphouët-Boigny ruled with a firmness some called an "iron hand"; others characterised his rule more mildly as "paternal." The press was not free and only one political party existed although some accepted this as a consequence of Houphouët-Boigny's broad appeal to the population that continually elected him. He was also criticised for his emphasis on developing large scale projects. Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new capital that it became, were wasted; others support his vision to develop a centre for peace, education and religion in the heart of the country. But in the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shockwaves through the Ivoirian economy. Thanks also to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased threefold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan.

In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multi-party democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.

Bédié Administration

In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.

Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful in avoiding any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions wide-open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasised the concept of 'Ivority' (Ivoirité) to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had only one parent of Ivory Coast nationality, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from Burkina Faso are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained.

1999 Coup

Similarly, Bédié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bédié fled into exile in France. The coup had reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and openly campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.

Gbagbo Administration

A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was neither peaceful nor democratic. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Guéï's attempt to rig the election led to a public uprising, resulting in around 180 deaths and his swift replacement by the election's likely winner, Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution did not allow non-citizens to run for president. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's Muslim north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.

2002 Mutiny

In the early hours of September 19 2002, troops, many of whom originated from the north of the country, mutinied. They launched attacks in many cities, including Abidjan. By lunchtime they had control of the north of the country. Their principal claim relates to the definition of who is a citizen of Ivory Coast (and so who can stand for election as President), voting rights and their representation in government in Abidjan. On the first night of the uprising, former president Robert Guéi was killed; whilst the government said he had died leading a coup attempt, it was widely claimed that he had actually been murdered at his home along with fifteen other people and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the French embassy, and his home was burned down.

President Gbagbo cut short a foreign trip to Italy, and on his return said some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers live. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousand, attacking the residents.

An early ceasefire with the rebels, who had the backing of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries, and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.

2003 Unity Government

In January 2003, President Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a 'government of national unity'. Curfews were lifted and French troops cleaned up the lawless western border of the country. However, the central problems remained, and neither side achieved its goals.

Since then, the unity government has proven extremely unstable. In March 2004, 120 people were killed in an opposition rally. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed, relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.