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RR RUEHPA
DE RUEHAB #0417/01 1141559
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 241559Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY ABIDJAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1232
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 1343
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0304

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABIDJAN 000417 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
KINSHASA PASS TO BRAZZAVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/24/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL ASEC IV
SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE: CONTROVERSY OVER IDENTIFICATION 
 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON Jim Wojtasiewicz, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  A bitter dispute over how to identify who is 
an Ivoirian lies at the heart of Cote d'Ivoire's current 
political crisis.  No new identifications have been 
registered since 2003, and no identity cards have been issued 
since 1999.  Prime Minister Banny has made resuming the 
identification process one of his top priorities, but 
President Gbagbo's followers are insisting that the rebel New 
Forces (FN)  must first disarm.    Going forward with both 
identification and disarmament at the same time seems like a 
reasonable compromise, but it is far from clear whether the 
political will is there to accept it.  There is no solution 
to the Cote d'Ivoire crisis without a credible identification 
process.  Unless this process gets underway in April or early 
May, which is highly unlikely, elections cannot take place in 
¶2006.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (C) A long, tangled, bitter dispute over how to identify 
who is an Ivoirian lies at the heart of Cote d'Ivoire's 
current political crisis.  This dispute can be traced back to 
1993 when Laurent Gbagbo's Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) 
party, then in opposition, accused Prime Minister Ouattara's 
government of distributing forged identity cards to 
foreigners in the North.  (Ouattara is from the North and his 
RDR (Rally for Republicans) party draws much of its support 
from Northerners.)  Ouattara's government instituted new 
identity cards with tighter security controls.  After Henri 
Konan Bedie became president in 1994 and began propagating 
the concept of "Ivoirianness" it became progressively more 
difficult for Northerners to get the new cards.  When Bedie 
was overthrown by a coup in 1999 the government stopped 
issuing them altogether. 
 
¶3. (C) After Gbagbo was elected president in 2000, and the 
FPI took control of parliament, they pushed through an 
entirely new identification process requiring all Ivoirians 
to register in their home village.  This new law no longer 
accepted as proof of citizenship the Certificate of 
Nationality, which any Ivoirian can get by proving in court 
that at least one parent is Ivoirian.  Village-based 
registration was highly unpopular among Northerners because 
many of their families had long ago migrated to the South. 
Others were naturalized citizens from neighboring countries 
to the North who had no home village in Cote d'Ivoire.  The 
FPI's village-based identification was one of the principal 
reasons for the 2002 coup attempt against Gbagbo.  When the 
rebel New Forces (FN) took control of the North they stopped 
this identification process there and destroyed many of the 
records that had been created.  Village-based registration 
continued in government-controlled areas, and in the end 
about 60 percent of the population was identified through 
this process, mostly in the South.  No cards were issued -- 
the plan was to identify the entire population and then issue 
the cards all at once. 
 
¶4. (C) The 2003 Linas-Marcoussis Agreement halted 
village-based registration and called for a revised law on 
identification, to return to a more inclusive identification 
process under the oversight of a new National Commission for 
the Supervision of Identification (CNSI), which would be 
headed by a judge and include representatives of all the 
political parties.  The FPI-controlled National Assembly 
pushed through a flawed bill in May 2004 that did create the 
CNSI but also added two new pieces of information to be 
recorded in the identification process: the height and 
national origin of the person being registered.  This meant 
that the 60 percent of the population already identified 
would have to register again.  Under pressure from the 
opposition and South African President Mbeki, President 
Gbagbo issued a decree in July 2005 removing the national 
origin requirement but leaving in height. 
 
¶5. (C) The identification process thus remains paralyzed. 
The CNSI was created and the concept of village-based 
identification was scrapped in favor of a return to the 
Certificate of Nationality.  However, no new identifications 
have been recorded since 2003 and no cards have been issued 
since 1999.  Certificates of Nationality continue to be 
issued in government-controlled areas, but not in 
FN-controlled areas where there are no courts.  There is 
another important legal procedure by which a person who has 
no birth certificate can obtain one by bringing witnesses to 
his identity before a traveling court.  These courts are also 
operating only in government-controlled areas. 
 
¶6. (C) When Prime Minister Banny took office in January he 
made the resumption of the identification process one of his 
top priorities, to speed up preparations for elections. 
 
ABIDJAN 00000417  002 OF 002 
 
 
Indeed, at the February 28 "Yamoussoukro Five" meeting, he 
persuaded President Gbagbo and the principal opposition 
leaders to agree that identification and voter registration 
would be carried out simultaneously.  However, at a March 29 
cabinet meeting, President Gbagbo rejected a proposal to 
begin this process by sending magistrates to the North to 
conduct traveling courts to help people obtain birth 
certificates.  Ever since then his supporters have been 
conducting a strident campaign against resuming the 
identification process until the rebels disarm.  The rebels 
have refused to disarm without identification.  Congolese 
President and AU Chairman Sassou came to Cote d'Ivoire April 
8 to try to break this deadlock.  After meeting with 
President Gbagbo and the principal opposition leaders, Sassou 
announced that agreement had been reached to go forward with 
identification and disarmament simultaneously.  Rebel and 
opposition leaders embraced this agreement but Gbagbo's 
followers emphatically rejected it. 
 
¶7. (C)  Comment.  This dispute stands squarely in the way of 
any progress toward elections.  President Gbagbo has proposed 
going forward with the elections using the voter registration 
lists from the last presidential elections in 2000, but the 
opposition claims many opposition voters were excluded or 
removed from these lists.  Given the deep mistrust on both 
sides, going forward with identification and disarmament 
simultaneously, perhaps one small step at a time, seems like 
a reasonable compromise.  However, at this point, it is far 
from clear whether the political will is there to reach out 
and take it.  There is no solution to the Cote d'Ivoire 
crisis without a credible identification process.  Unless 
this process gets underway in April or early May, which is 
highly unlikely, elections cannot take place in 2006. End 
Comment. 
 
Hooks