In war-torn Ivory Coast, chaos follows 'reggae coup'

By Joan Baxter
Associated Press

Alpha Blondy says politicians have lost control in his homeland. His role, he says, is steering a middle course, taking no side and advocating peace. Associated Press

reggae star is trying to inspire with a new message for his warring West African homeland: peace.

His voice thick with emotion as he's interviewed in his hotel room on a West African tour, Alpha Blondy makes an impassioned appeal for cool tempers in Ivory Coast, where a rebellion that began Sept. 19 has now torn apart a nation that was one of the region's few success stories.

"If we don't find a quick solution now, tomorrow will be too late," Blondy says. "We won't be talking about an uprising of a few rebels — we'll be talking about a war that will last maybe 20 years or more."

Blondy, a 50-year-old Ivorienne, made his name and his following bringing reggae from the Caribbean to Africa — discovering reggae in a 1970s U.S. concert by Jamaican legends Burning Spear. His latest reggae album, "Merci," was nominated for a Grammy.

In the decades since — most particularly the '90s — he's released numerous songs warning of the dangers of tribalism, racism, injustice and inequality.

All such evils, he says, have flourished in his homeland, fostered by greedy politicians since the death of Ivory Coast's first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

Blondy's works include a CD titled "SOS Tribal War" and a song called "Civil War," whose warnings of an uprising against an entrenched president ring today as an uncannily accurate prediction of the crisis in Ivory Coast.

The world's largest cocoa producer, Ivory Coast for long years after independence from France in 1960 had been considered a bulwark of political and economic stability on the continent.

Then in 1999, soldiers overthrew the elected government, accusing it of corruption, ineffectiveness and discrimination against northerners. Coup forces announced their takeover on a station that played the songs of Blondy and other musicians beloved by the opposition.

Some called it Ivory Coast's "reggae revolution" — marked by junta soldiers cruising the streets in vehicles whose stereos blared the words of Jah.

Rather than ending corrupt rule, however, the coup has ushered in chaos and ethnic, regional and political bloodletting.

Today, the rebellion that began with a new coup attempt last fall has divided the country, killed hundreds, caused thousands to flee their homes and threatened the country's very survival.

Ivory Coast, Blondy fears, is teetering on the brink of genocide.

"Machine guns sing louder than me. My little voice cannot overcome the deadly music of machine guns and rockets," he says, while not hesitating to offer peace proposals from his platform as Ivory Coast's most famous artist.

Blondy says the only winners in Ivory Coast will be the world's arms merchants, who are supplying both the government forces and the rebel groups with weapons.

"Those who sell the weapons don't give a damn about who is killing who, about who is genociding who. They don't know the faces," Blondy says.

Blondy says politicians have lost control of the crisis. His role is to steer a middle course, he says, taking no side so that he can fight for peace.

Blondy calls for the abolition of the entrenched concept of "L'Ivoirite," an emphasis on Ivory Coast as a nation for the native-born rather than for the millions of immigrants who have come here from other African countries.

He called it "black Nazism."

Blondy — never hesitant to tackle policy in his songs and in his comments — suggested that French, West African and U.N. forces deploy in Ivory Coast to keep the peace, staying until 2005.

More than 2,000 French troops already are in the former French colony, and more than 1,000 West African regional peacekeepers are to arrive soon. Other Ivory Coast reggae artists, equally outspoken, disagree sharply with their mentor — including Tiken Jah Fakoly, who says the French presence will only encourage massacres.

In the meantime, Blondy says, the United Nations should oversee elections in which all factions are allowed to compete.

His suggestion addresses a trigger point in Ivory Coast's tensions — barring of northern-backed opposition leader Alassane Ouattara from presidential elections.

For years, Ivory Coast's southern-based government has insisted Ouattara's parents are foreign-born — making him a noncitizen, and shutting out of the presidential race.

"They say shut up you who came from far away ... this is not democracy, or multiparty politics, this is tribalism, and it will bring all kinds of conflicts," Blondy sang in "Multipartism" in 1992 — another song pinpointing with eerie clairvoyance causes of troubles that were then still a decade away.

Blondy performed in Mali over New Year's as part of an African tour marking 20 years of his successful musical career.

His concert in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, was abruptly canceled last month by the government, which he has criticized in a song about the unsolved 1998 killing of journalist Norbert Zongo.

After Bamako, the Ivory Coast reggae singer was headed to Cameroon and Guinea, although, as he told the Associated Press, "I don't have the heart to sing now. My heart is bleeding for my bleeding land."