Heart of the Matter

Crossing over...

I am sitting here in my dingy room at Hotel du Centre in Bouake, the heart of the rebellion in Cote d'Ivoire. It's Sunday, October 26th, but I don't know when this entry will be posted. I have a feeling it may be awhile. There is limited cell phone service here (I've been told that Orange, my cell phone service, hasn't been operating here at all for the past few days.) There is also no television reception for some reason. I'm guessing that my chances of finding a functioning cyber caf? are not good. I am sitting here typing away on my laptop while listening to the news from the BBC over shortwave. (Thank God for the Beeb right?)

(Okay it is Monday and much to my surprise I have found a working cyber cafe, which is how I am able to post this. My cell phone also works today too which is very good news. The cyber cafe even has decent AC – which is great because this place is freaking hot.)

The last two days have been interesting, although not particularly productive in terms of work. Yesterday morning, I went over to the main military barracks in Abidjan to pick up a pass that would let me cruise through government checkpoints in the south of Cote d'Ivoire. This pass was supposed have been ready the night before, but of course it wasn't. Once I had the pass in hand, I abandoned the lap of luxury at the Novotel and decamped to the homey but far less posh Residence Bertrille. Emma and Timothy were waiting for me there to make sure I settled in okay, which was very nice of them. But no sooner had I moved in than I set off again with Fanny and Yoda to make my way north from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. When Yoda drove me around last week he had some sort of old Peugot. But today he is driving a newer Toyota Corola wagon.

Yamoussoukro, which is located 200 km north of Abidjan is the political capital of Cote d'Ivoire even though in reality almost nothing of importance happens there. (Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who served as the president and semi-benign dictator of Cote d'Ivoire for 33 years, moved the capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro in 1983 because it was close to his birthplace and because it was located in the center of the country rather than on the coast.) The road out of Abidjan starts out as a four-lane highway, but it quickly narrows to a single lane in each direction. This is crazy given that it is one of the primary north-south transport routes in Cote d'Ivoire and hundreds of 18-wheel trucks ply it daily on their way back and forth from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. The road is fairly well paved, but every kilometer or so there is a pothole large enough to swallow a bus. To avoid them, Yoda swerves suddenly from one side of the road to the other, which adds a bit of excitement to an otherwise monotonous two and a half hour journey. (The trip feels longer than this because to economize on fuel Yoda has decided not to run the air conditioner. That makes for a very hot and dusty drive with the windows rolled down and reggae tapes blaring on the stereo. The heat makes me drowsy and I find myself nodding off frequently. Fanny catches a long nap in the back seat. I just hope Yoda stays awake.)

I am told the highway leads through farmland and scrub brush, but frankly, it is hard to say what the countryside looks like because for the most part it is obscured behind green curtains of elephant grass that line both sides of the road. (It would be very easy to set up an ambush on these roads.) We drive through a few small villages, which look fairly impoverished. We pass a convoy of French soldiers heading south. Every once in awhile there is a checkpoint manned by Ivorian troops, but as soon as we show them our pass we are waved on. Only once do they actually ask see our luggage and even then the inspection seemed cursory. As we get closer to Yamoussoukro, we drive past some kids selling stuff on the side of the road. One child, who looks to be no more than six, is hawking a monstrous looking lizard that he holds aloft by its tail. The thing is almost as long as the child is tall. Fanny tells me it is called a "varron." He seems surprised I have never seen one before.

Just when I think we will never get there, we approach a hill with tall lampposts sprouting from its crest and the highway suddenly widens to six-lanes across. This is the entrance to Yamoussoukro. The city is entirely overbuilt, with broad boulevards mostly devoid of traffic. Supposedly 100,000 people live here, but I bet the actual figure is less than that. The place seems fairly deserted except for the central market, which is in section of town called Habitat that was the site of a small village before Houphouet decided to turn the place into a monument to himself.

Yoda wants us to stay at the city's premier hotel, Hotel President. I object, but Yoda says he knows the manager and can get us rooms for 25,000 CFA, or 10,000 less than the normal rate. I am starting to discover that Yoda is extremely well connected everywhere we travel. With the price reduction the rooms don't sound too bad. (We only need two of them because Fanny plans on staying with relatives of his friend Konate who live here.) Hotel President is weird. It is actually a large complex, consisting two buildings separated by a well-manicured lawn and a large pool. It has several bars, all of which are empty and a nightclub that Yoda says is very popular. The main building is a tall, gray concrete structure with an incongruous octagonal observation deck jutting out from its upper stories. This makes the place look as though a flying saucer has crash landed on the roof. Inside, the clock stopped in 1974. Really. I'm not exaggerating. I am sure they haven't redecorated since then. Back in New York, you could probably sell the furniture, light fixtures and carpeting from this place in some hip boutique on the Lower Eastside for a small fortune. (I took some pictures of my room that hopefully I will be able to post at some point.) Next to the hotel is one of Africa's finest 18-hole golf courses. Unfortunately, I've forgotten my clubs. (I also realize that I left my bathing trunks back at the Novotel. I will have to buy a new pair at the SOCOCE when I return to Abidjan.)

We drop off our bags and go for a brief drive around. As we pass through the bustling, ramshackle market, we can see the giant dome of the basilica of Notre Dame de la Paix looming through the humid red twilight. It's an impressive sight. Near the center of town is a giant walled estate. This was Houphouet-Boigny's presidential palace and apparently his family still lives in the compound, which is closed to the public. On one side, the palace grounds are bordered by a moat populated by a dozen or so lazy crocodiles. (Fanny says they are just one part of a vast menagerie Houphouet kept at the palace.) We look at them for a while. But staring at motionless crocodiles gets old fairly fast. So we head back to our hotel and Fanny and Yoda head off for dinner. I won't see them again until morning.

I have dinner plans with Jason, an American radio reporter based in South Africa where he knows my good friend Adam. Jason happens to be in Cote d'Ivoire working on two stories, one about the political situation and the other about the basilica here. We have dinner at a maquis -- more chicken, attieke and the obligatory bottles of Flag. Jason seems like a really good guy and a smart reporter. I'm sort of relieved to find that his French is almost as bad as mine. (It makes me feel a little less crazy for wanting to cover things here without having a firm grasp of the language.) Jason has been based in Africa since December, but he had previously traveled to Cote d'Ivoire from Boston to cover the war. He isn't optimistic about the country's future. Actually, Jason thinks all of West Africa is in terrible shape. He says it is his least favorite part of the Continent. As for Cote d'Ivoire, he thinks it is only a matter of time before violence returns. He even thinks that if the current impasse goes on much longer, the government might try to fly troops over the French peacekeepers and launch an offensive from the north. (I don't think this is likely, but it's an intriguing idea.) After dinner, Jason drops me off at the hotel. I pop into the nightclub but it seems deserted. I go back to my room vowing to check out the nightclub again in a few hours. Instead, I pass out on my bed.

In the morning, I oversleep. Fanny calls to say he is in Yoda's room. I pop up there. Yoda opens the door and lets me in. Fanny is sitting in one of the chairs, but the curtains are drawn and the room is still dark so it takes me awhile to notice the braided hair peeking out from the covers of Yoda's bed. I'm guessing this is neither Yoda's wife nor the mistress he has mentioned before. (Later Yoda says it is yet another girlfriend and Fanny wags his finger and tells me Yoda has "a wife" in every village.) The woman turns over and stares up at me groggily. I say hello and try to act nonchalant. She says nothing. Fanny and I try to call an army colonel who is supposed to be in town. I'm hoping to interview him before heading to Bouake. But we can't reach him and I decide to go grab some breakfast. The massive hotel dining room where breakfast is served is largely empty. This whole complex, like Yamoussoukro itself, seems so overbuilt. I wonder if it is ever full. I also wonder how much money the Intercontinental chain, which now owns the place, is losing on it per week. There are three white guys sitting behind me at breakfast and they are speaking what sounds like Russian, which makes me suspicious about what they are doing here. A few hours later, we pass one of them in the hotel lobby and much to my surprise Yoda stops to shake his hand. It turns out they know each other. (I guess this shouldn't surprise me. Yoda seems to know everyone.) It turns out the man is in fact Russian as is one of the other men I saw at breakfast. Yoda says the third man is South African. It also turns out that the men are mercenaries. They fly attack helicopters for the government. Yoda says that if I want he can arrange an interview them for me when we pass through Yamoussoukro again on our way back south.

We go off to visit the basilica. It really is a massive edifice, modeled closely on St. Peter's in Rome. In fact, with the huge gold cross atop its cupola, it is taller than St. Peter's, which makes it the tallest church in Christiendom. The project was conceived by Houphouet, a devout Catholic. Completed in 1989, it was built in just three years by a labor force of 1,500 working around the clock. Its full cost has never been revealed, but estimates put it in the neighborhood of $300 million, an amount equal to about half of Cote d'Ivoire's budget deficit at the time. Yearly maintenance is some $1.5 million. Certainly, given the amount of poverty here, this money could have been better spent. The basilica has 7,000 seats - each individually airconditioned. It can hold another 11,000 people standing and its plaza, which is larger than St. Peter's, can hold 300,000 pilgrims. But there are only 1 million Catholics in the whole country and the basilica has only been full twice: once when the Pope came to consecrate the building and then again for Houphouet's funeral. Interestingly, the only depiction of a black man in the whole Church is the image of Houphouet himself in one of the 36 gigantic stained glass windows. All of the other images - of Christ and the apostles and what not - are of white guys.

We don't get to tour the whole basilica because Mass is starting when we arrive and we are soon shooed out. But it is interesting to see who is attending the Mass. There are many Ivorian families as well as some whites that I assume are French. The bishop and the priests are all white. Three jeeps pull up and drop off a contingent of French soldiers still wearing their combat fatigues. They join a large group of ECOWAS soldiers from Togo and some Ivorian troops who are also coming to Mass. One hopes they are praying for peace.

We finally reach the army colonel I want to see but he can't meet me so we decide to head off for Bouake, which is another 155 km north of Yamoussoukro. Immediately outside of town, the highway narrows again to a single lane in each direction, and the elephant grass crowds in around us. We pass a few villages, set off from the road down paths of red clay. Others have roadside markets where they sell all kinds of fruits and berries. The colors here are fantastic. I want to stop and take a photograph but we are moving too fast. I'll have to try to remember to do so on the way back.

We soon arrive at a FANCI checkpoint in Tiebissou. This is the edge of government control: everything north of here is either demilitarized or in rebel hands. Tiebissou was the scene of a bloody two-day battle during the war. It is also one of the few places where Licorne, the French force, engaged in combat with the rebels. This battle didn't last long. The rebels quickly withdrew to Bouake. On the other side of Tiebissou is a checkpoint manned by West African peackeepers, beyond which lies the 40 km demilitarized "zone of confidence." The crossing is remarkably undramatic. The checkpoint isn't very robust - some sandbags, a little bit of barbed wire and a piece of spiked metal wheeled across the road. The soldiers look bored and just waved us through. Once inside the zone of confidence, the only reminder that this was recently a war zone is a small French army base, complete with a solitary tank.

Not far from the French encampment, Yoda, who is driving far too fast for the narrow road despite the fact that I tell him every five minutes to slow down, zigs when he should have zagged and we hit one of those monster potholes. Our front right tire doesn't survive the encounter. Luckily we have a spare and we are able to change the tire and continue on within 15 minutes. We drive on past villages where people are using a traditional textile weaving method. It involves a small vertical loom placed on a kind of easel, from which stretch 30 feet of yarn suspended by small poles planted in the ground. We also drive past a place where a truck has recently overturned and spilled its load, which consists of some sort of locally manufactured soap. All these children are come here, many of them on bicycles, to gather up the soap and carry it home to their villages. It's interesting to watch. (Fanny tells me the soap is made from discarded industrial chemicals. As a result, it is highly toxic and can't be used for washing your body. But people use it clean clothing and metal objects. I say, let me guess, it's also a non-diary floor wax, but of course he misses the joke.)

Without warning we suddenly come upon a metal gate set up across the road. We've reached the rebels. A kid, certainly no older than 18, approaches us, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. No uniforms here. These rebels are a rag-tag lot. The first kid is wearing flip-flops, some ill-fitting camouflage pants, an Adidas T-shirt and an olive green dew rag. He asks to see our papers and then wants to inspect the trunk. I get out of the car. He looks at my laptop case and has Yoda open it. I'm worried he'll take the thing. Instead, he just asks if we have anything for him. I can't tell if he's joking or not. I offer him some cigarettes. In the movies, offering soldiers cigarettes always seems to curry favor with them and I've been schlepping a carton of Marlboros around with me ever since I was in Kuwait in May to use for exactly this purpose. (In Iraq, the only soldiers I ever met were American and they always seemed to have lots of cigarettes already.) As it turns out, the cigarette trick doesn't work here either. The kid doesn't seem the least bit interested in my smokes. But he waves through any way.

Just on the other side of the gate, a second kid, who is maybe a few years older than the first and is decked out in Yankees paraphernalia, flags us down. He doesn't have a weapon but he seems to outrank the first kid and he seems pissed off. He demands to see our pass. We show him our government issued one but he says it is no good here. He wants us to get a rebel press pass - and he says there will be 1,000 CFA charge. Yoda starts to argue with him in French. I don't quite get what he is saying but I think Yoda is telling him that we are press and that we shouldn't have to pay anything. Fanny starts arguing too - as much with Yoda as with the kid. Fanny asks to see "the chief" or the commander in charge of the checkpoint. We pull over to the side of the road and get out of the car. An older man, maybe he's 34, with an unkempt beard walks over. At least he looks a little more like a soldier. He dressed in olive drab fatigues and combat boots and he's wearing a red beret. But his shirt is unbuttoned and he doesn't look very professional. We all shake hands. Yoda and Fanny talk to him and he lets us go without having to pay anything.

Back in the car, Yoda and Fanny get into a heated argument. I ask Fanny what is going on. Fanny says Yoda is a fool and that he is going to get us killed. He is angry at Yoda for arguing with the kid in the Yankees gear. This is rebel held territory and you don't argue with the rebels, Fanny says. Half of them are kids and a lot of them are drunk or high and they're liable to shoot us. This sounds like good advice, but on the other hand I know there are a lot of checkpoints and I don't want to have to pay a bribe at each one. And it turns out that both Yoda and Fanny had asked to see "the chief" so I'm not sure what the fuss is about - I think it is a matter of Yoda's tone. Plus, I've noticed Yoda and Fanny aren't exactly the best of friends. Fanny enjoys teasing Yoda and that causes some minor trash talk back and forth, but I've also seen them get genuinely angry at one another on more than one occasion. I tell them to cool it, but I'm not sure they understand me.

About a kilometer down the road from the first checkpoint, we come to another roadblock. Again there's a kid - this one definitely under 18 - who approaches with some sort of submachine gun pointed at us. Gbagbo set back the peace process here a few weeks ago by referring to the rebels in an interview as “dish boys with toy guns.” The guns are very real but frankly I think he got the dish boy part just about right. This kid also asks for our pass, but Yoda gets out of the car and goes to talk to "the chief" of this checkpoint. The chief is sitting under a thatched hut at the side of the road behind some sandbags. I think I see a heavy machine gun at his feet. He lets us through, but as we leave the kid says something to Fanny. It turns out he that wanted Fanny's baseball cap, but he didn't seem particularly upset when Fanny said no and we drove off. The kid looked stoned and Fanny says he probably is -- there is a lot of marijuana use among the rebels. The checkpoints are coming more frequently now. Another gate, another kid playing soldier, another chat with a chief. This time I can smell the pot on the kid's clothes. Actually, the fact that the soldiers are stoned makes for sort mellow checkpoint encounters. The kids make demands, but they seem too dazed and confused to follow up on them. It's like, "Whoa dude, where's your pass?" (I wonder if they get the munchies? Note to journalists heading this way: ditch the cigs, bring Doritos.)

As we get very close to Bouake, the checkpoints are literally set up within 10 feet of one another, each one manned by a different crew. I guess this is how the rebels have decided to pay their troops - let them set up as many roadblocks as they want and demand a toll from every passing car or truck. The most hostile encounter we have is with a kid who looks to be about 15. He's dressed totally in civilian clothes and he's wearing a cell phone around his neck like an amulet. He can't understand why we didn't get a press pass at the first checkpoint. We tell him we want to get one from the main secretary for the rebels. He doesn't like this answer and he starts yelling at us. (He eventually lets us pass.) The really weird thing about this kid is that he is wearing mascara and blue eye shadow. He looks ridiculous. But it turns out that some of the rebels do this because they think it makes them look fierce. (Kind of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.) Others believe that such things are magic charms that will protect them from bullets. The rebels believe in all sorts of weird mysticism. I ask a group having lunch at the restaurant attached to my hotel if I can take their picture. They refuse, but they say the photo wouldn't do me any good any way. They say they are carrying magic totems that make it impossible to capture their image on film. (I'm very tempted to snap a shot with my digital camera and show it to them, but I think this might cause an incident so I don't.)

Our hotel here is pretty crappy. But it is cheap and it will do for a day or two. And my room is still nicer than the one I had at the Palm Club my first night in Abidjan. After we check in, we go to try to get a press pass. This takes awhile. The rebels - Force Nouvelle as they are called - have set up their main headquarters in what were formerly offices of the ministry of public health. Outside we meet some of the spokesmen for the political wing of Force Nouvelle. They seem very welcoming and speak excellent English. I notice they are carrying Thuraya satellite phones - just like I had in Iraq. I guess that's how they deal with the poor cell service up here (it is also probably a more secure way to communicate than the mobiles.) I miss my Thuraya phone. (I say my Thuraya, but it really belonged to my magazine and I guess I couldn't have asked to borrow it for four months when I'm not even sure I'm doing a story for them.) I wouldn't feel so isolated if I had a sat phone. (They only cost $600, but then the service is expensive.) I also wish I had a BGAN - a fast satellite modem through which you can have an always-on Internet connection. Those things are fantastic. (They cost $1,600 and again, the service is expensive.) Then I could post this immediately-oh well.

Any way, while waiting to get the press pass we went to have our busted tire repaired in Bouake's main market. (Yoda got upset because he said the man repairing the tire overcharged him when he saw me. White man's price again.) While work was being completed on the tire, I interviewed a man who is what the UN calls an IDP - Internally Displaced Person. The man said he used to live near Guiglo (that's a city in western Cote d'Ivoire not a bad movie with Ben and J-Lo.) He told me that at the start of the civil war his whole family was forced to abandon their cocoa plantation and flee to Bouake. They were accused of supporting the rebellion because they are of Malian descent. The man was born in Cote d'Ivoire but his parents were originally from Mali. They had lived in Guiglo since 1950 and had owned their land for over 30 years. Now the local population in Guiglo has seized his farm and won't let people like him return. He is stuck here in Bouake giving people rides on his motorbike to make ends meet. He claims his brother was killed by a JPP death squad on his way from here to Abidjan in December. Over all, it was a sad story - and an all too common one here. The issue of nationality and land ownership is very contentious and has become one of the prime issues dividing the government and opposition. It is hard not to sympathize with some of the rebels’ demands even if one objects to their means of achieving them.

Bouake is crawling with rebel soldiers, in all manner of dress and carrying all manner of weaponry. Several are wearing uniforms that Fanny says were taken off the bodies of Angolan or Liberian mercenaries that they killed in battle. (Apparently the government employed a lot of mercenaries.) Some of the rebels tool around the city in pickup trucks with large machine guns mounted on the truck bed – I know that in Somalia these things were called "technicals" but I have no idea what they call them here. They seem like a fairly undisciplined group and it's hard to believe that many people think they could have rolled over the Ivorian army if the French hadn't intervened. (Then again, I bet the British thought the same thing about the George Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War and look what happened there.) The French are here, although not in the kind of force I expected. I saw two French army patrols in town - one in vehicles and the other on foot. I think it's interesting that the French troops don't wear body armor or helmets here. Maybe they think it is too hot and the risk too low to justify that kind of equipment. The guys in the trucks had their body armor slung over the doors for added protection, but they were just wearing jungle fatigues and floppy hats.

After finally getting the press pass, Yoda and I drove Fanny to his aunt's house, which is here in Bouake. Fanny told me he wanted to go and visit his 5-year old daughter who is being cared for by his aunt. I found this shocking since I didn't know Fanny had a daughter - he's only 23, so that means he had this child when he was 18. He asked me why I didn't have any children. I told him I was too young and that it costs too much and involves far too much responsibility for me at this point. He replied that in Africa children didn't cost very much (maybe this part of the problem here. Maybe if they made it more expensive have kids, people would have fewer of them. God, I can't believe I just said that. I'm turning into a neo-con over here. Also, I suppose kids don't cost that much when you pawn them off on your relatives to take care of!) He said his girlfriend became pregnant accidentally and even though neither he nor she wanted the child, the child was born and now his aunt cares for her. Fanny said his aunt - who is my age and has no children of her own yet - didn't mind caring for the girl. I found all of this kind of strange. Any way, getting to Fanny's aunt's house was an odyssey in and of itself. We had to follow these wide but winding dirt roads through a terribly poor neighborhood. It was pitch black out and the road was so rutted and uneven that the experience of driving on it was a bit like being in a boat surfing up and down big waves. There was the constant danger that our car - not exactly an SUV - would get stuck. Yoda seemed annoyed that Fanny was making us drive this way. And I have to say this slum where Fanny's aunt lived looked really scary. There were kids bathing in the middle of the street in the darkness. There were dogs lying in the road. I am sure there was no running water. It was really dirty and awful. Both Yoda and I were glad to drop Fanny off and get back out there.

Well, that’s my past two days. Sorry about the long post.

Posted by Jeremy Kahn at October 27, 2003 01:24 PM