Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-20-Speech-4-123"
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"en.20000120.8.4-123"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, democracy remains extremely fragile in Africa. This is once more illustrated in the Côte d’Ivoire, despite being a country which, for a long time, passed as a model of relative political and economic stability. Indeed, the Bédié regime has been caught up in a downward spiral lately. The IMF, the World Bank and the European Union had suspended their aid to the Côte d’Ivoire last year on account of lack of transparency and misuse of government money. Things went wrong in the political arena as well. The President started to display authoritarian and repressive traits, especially when he eliminated his major rival, Watara, in a very controversial manner. But are all these considerations of such dimensions that they legitimise a coup d’état? This is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. I cannot shake off the impression that the European Union is taking a more liberal stance towards the Côte d’Ivoire than in comparable situations. One cannot punish a coup d’état in Burundi by supporting an embargo and at the same time move on quickly to the order of the day in the Côte d’Ivoire as if nothing had happened. If we do not unequivocally condemn this coup, then we risk giving the military leaders in Africa an alibi to seize power by means of weapons. This is why the European Union must keep the pressure up and prioritise the restoration of the constitutional state and democracy by means of free and fair elections as a
of cooperating any further with the Côte d’Ivoire.
Let us, above all, not employ double standards. As far as I am concerned, Mr President, there are no good or bad coups d’état. Military solutions, wherever they occur in the world are, by definition, short-sighted solutions."@en1
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