FORCES NOUVELLES VIEWS ON IDENTIFICATION,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABIDJAN 000520

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/30/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM SOCI IV
SUBJECT: FORCES NOUVELLES VIEWS ON IDENTIFICATION,
REDEPLOYMENT OF ADMINISTRATION

REF: ABIDJAN 459

Classified By: EconChief EMassinga, Reasons 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary. During a recent Embassy visit to Bouake
and Seguela, senior interlocutors from the Forces Nouvelles
(FN) and regional leaders of the RDR political party raised
concerns about how the process of identification would
proceed. FN political leaders went to great lengths to
reject a statement made by President Gbagbo in his July 14
speech in Seguela suggesting that identity cards would not be
issued until after the presidential election. RDR leaders in
both Bouake and Seguela raised the same concerns, fearing the
President would use this as an excuse to prevent hundreds of
thousands of newly enfranchised voters, brought into the
political system through the audiences foraines process, from
getting national ID documents. Emboffs also took stock of
the redeployment of the national administration to FN-held
territory, and found it limited at best. End Summary.

ID CARDS STILL A CENTRAL FOCUS
--------------


2. (C) Forces Nouvelles political leaders went to
considerable lengths to impress on Emboffs their views about
the process of identification, particularly the distribution
of identification cards to the newly enfranchised. All were
disturbed by the fact that during President Gbagbo's July 14
trip to Seguela, he stated that new identity cards would be
distributed after the presidential election. FN Deputy
Political Director Cisse Sindou mentioned the statement made
by the President, noting with no small amount of vehemence
that "while the President can say what he likes, the FN would
not accept that." Sindou asserted that the "jugements
suppletifs" (birth documentation for unregistered births)
distributed during the audiences foraines process now
explicitly identify nationality and remove the fear that
northerners will be summarily disenfranchised because their
nationality will be questioned during the registration
process. Sindou also dismissed the notion of a role for the
Ministry of Interior in producing national ID cards. He told
Emboffs that during negotiations on the Ouagadougou Political
Agreement, the subject of identification was especially
contentious, even if that had not been reported in the media.
The FN, Sindou said, would "not fight and struggle over this
in the 2007 negotiations just to see those gains disappear in
the electoral end-game."


3. (C) RDR representatives also focused intently on the
President's statement about distributing identification
cards after the election (septel). The RDR leader in Bouake
expressed concerns that the FPI would do as it did in 2000,
when the winning faction allegedly had the national
identification registry scrubbed after the presidential
electoral vote.

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT STILL NOT IN CONTROL
--------------


4. Interlocutors throughout the FN-controlled territory
reported uneven, generally unsatisfactory progress on the
redeployment of national administration. A unified treasury
bringing local, municipal, regional and national tax revenues
under the control of a single, national government authority
(vice into the FN central treasury or the pockets of
individual ComZones) exists in name only. United Nations
Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) officials in Bouake and
Seguela reported that the FN continue to collect taxes and
deposit them in their own treasury. Eighteen recently
redeployed customs officers assigned to work at the Ouangolo
border crossing with Burkina Faso have returned to Abidjan
due to a lack of agreement between the FN and the central
government over how to handle customs receipts.


5. (C) Prefects in both Bouake and Seguela are not in town
very often; business, to the degree prefectural offices are
operational, is done by deputies. Prefectural officials
themselves report they have "zero" to do with security
issues. Salary arrears to municipal workers in the
FN-controlled zone are a serious issue, as municipalities
don't have sufficient tax receipts to meet payrolls.
Municipal market taxes come on top of parallel FN taxes,
squeezing an already suffering commercial tax base. The RDR
mayor of Seguela confirmed that market taxes are being
collected by the city, but not so-called corridor or business
taxes, which are being collected by the FN. Moreover, 30
percent of Seguela's market taxes are being turned over to
the FN under an interim, ad hoc arrangement. These fiscal
disruptions are causing programmatic havoc in some cases: in
Bouake, CARE can't implement some planned health care
programs because the city doesn't have the means to fulfill

ABIDJAN 00000520 002 OF 002


its portion of planned partnership.


6. (SBU) There are some brighter spots. The European
Commission is financing the rehabilitation of prisons and
buildings used in judicial proceedings. The German
development agency GTZ, the EC's contractor, has work
currently underway in Bouake and Korhogo. The RDR mayor in
Bouake reports he has been doing birth and death registries
on his own since 2004, a major boost to upcoming efforts to
reconstitute the civil registry. The Prefectural office in
Seguela says people can now get attestation of identify
documents.


7. (C) Comment: The Forces Nouvelles and the RDR seem
intent to lock in the gains they believe they have made on
the identification front through the audiences foraines, and
are dead-set against any maneuverings by the President that
would undermine these gains. The weak redeployment of the
national administration appears to result from an intent by
the FN to continue to exert their grip of the region as much
as tardiness on the central government's part. Overall, the
FN appears intent on and capable of exerting political
influence on issues of key importance to it in the near
future, despite recent challenges to its internal cohesion.
End Comment.
NESBITT