Sunday, April 17, 2011

Understanding the Cote d'Ivoire Crisis With Professor Akyeampong

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WHRB reporter Allan Bradley sat down with Harvard History Professor Emmanuel K. Akyeampong to learn more about the four-month crisis in Cote d'Ivoire. Professor Akyeampong explains that the present division, between president and strongman Laurent Gbagbo and presidential challenger Alassane Ouattara, is the result of an ethnic and religious divide between the north and the south, plus the intrusion of "the politics of indigeneity."

Names for reference:
Félix Houphouët-Boigny - the first president of an independent Cote d'Ivoire after French colonial rule, beginning in 1960.
Henri Konan Bédié - the designated successor to Houphouët-Boigny, Bédié took power in 1993. He was the first to declare Alassane Ouattara ineligible for office because of Ouattara's northern heritage.
Laurent Gbagbo - President of Cote d'Ivoire, 2000-2011
Alassane Ouattara - Prime Minister under Houphouët-Boigny, 1990-1993. Left the nation to work for the International Monetary Fund during Bédié's rule.  Winner of the November 2010 presidential election against Gbagbo.
 
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