1To understand the future of Côte d’Ivoire today, we need to know what has become of those who fought for control of the country for almost ten years, from 2002 to 2011. This ‘Focus’ article deals with rebel fighters who held positions of responsibility in the Forces Armées des Forces Nouvelles (Armed Forces of the New Forces, FAFN) and who officially controlled areas of northern Côte d’Ivoire from 2006 onwards, namely the com’zones, or zone commanders.
 

2In 2011, it was these com’zones who fought to put President Ouattara in power, and this struggle gave them a legitimacy and importance, in the eyes of the president, that they may not have had previously [1]. Since then, the Ivorian authorities have wavered between relying on them to control the army and sidelining them when they start becoming too important or independent. In broader terms, the Ivorian example raises the difficult issue of how to reintegrate warlords into a state that is seeking to build peace and democracy.

3In order to study these com’zones, I identified fourteen fighters belonging to the first generation (see box). In 2006, the organisation that controlled northern Côte d’Ivoire underwent a change, and ten zones were defined, each one under the control of a com’zone.

4In addition to these initial ten com’zones, a further two com’zones replaced two of the initial ten (Wattao replaced Koné Zakaria as head of the Vavoua-Seguéla area, i.e. zone 5, and Daouda Doumbia was replaced by Traoré Dramane in the Touba area, i.e. zone 7). While these twelve people represent the com’zones in the narrow sense, I have nonetheless extended my sample to two other figures in the rebel hierarchy who held similar responsibilities. Tuo Fozié, spokesman for the Forces Nouvelles (New Forces, FN), and Koné Messamba, head of the FN paramilitary forces during the crisis, namely two of the three FN ministers appointed following the Marcoussis agreements of January 2003, have therefore been considered as belonging to the com’zones group. I did not include Ibrahim Coulibaly, known as ‘IB’, although he was close to certain com’zones and took part in the 1999 coup and the 2002 rebellion, since by 2006 he had already moved away from the decision-making structure of the FN: he came into conflict with Guillaume Soro in 2004, before the north was divided into ten zones [2].

5During my research, I also identified fourteen ‘young heirs’ who could be considered to represent a ‘second generation’ of com’zones [3], demonstrating that even if the old com’zones were to be removed from power, their succession is potentially secured. However, this article primarily considers the first generation of com’zones, as the second generation continues to play a secondary role.

6Origins (1999-2011): Corporals in power. The com’zones have been the heirs of the crisis since 2002, or even since 1999. They embodied the armed resistance to Laurent Gbagbo and the occupation of the north, which they officially shared from 2006 onwards [4]. However, beyond these characteristics, what do they have in common? It is important to remember that they are all ‘northerners’. They are all former members of the Ivorian army. Many of them were non-commissioned officers: Chérif Ousmane was a sergeant in 2002; Wattao, a corporal cook; Losseni Fofana, also a corporal; and Traoré Damane was a staff sergeant. It is difficult to say whether the poor progress of their military careers was due to their northern origins or their lack of talent. Nevertheless, all of them became officers in 2016, ranging from the ranks of commanding officers to lieutenant-colonels (Wattao for instance). And three of them are currently prefects: Ousmane Coulibaly, alias ‘Bin Laden’, in San Pedro; Tuo Fozié in Bondoukou, capital of the Zanzan district, in the north-east; and Koné Messamba in Guiglo, in the west. Only Tuo Fozié is prefect of a region that was partly occupied by the FN during the war.

7A number of future com’zones stand out for having participated in the 1999 coup that brought General Gueï to power, including Gaoussou Koné and Tuo Fozié. Others were also involved in attempted coups between 1999 and 2002 (Losseni Fofana and Ousmane Coulibaly). In the late 1990s, several were part of the Force d’Intervention Rapide Paracommando (Paracommando Rapid Intervention Force, FIRPAC), an elite force created by General Gueï in 1990—namely Ousmane Coulibaly, Losseni Fofana, Tuo Fozié, and Gaoussou Koné (Banégas, Losch, 2016).

8Some com’zones shared excellent athletic ability, which gave them the opportunity to be trained at the armed forces sports academy at Fontainebleau (they distinguished themselves in athletics). The ‘Fontainebleau Crew’, as some French soldiers call them, was made up of Chérif Ousmane, Wattao, Tuo Fozié, and ‘IB’ (Ibrahim Coulibaly) [5].

9While some similarities and affinities emerge, fierce hatred also pitted some rebel leaders or com’zones against each other; not just against IB—with whom certain com’zones had worked in the past, including, in the case of Tuo Fozié, as one of Alassane Ouattara’s bodyguards—but also amongst themselves. Wattao and Koné Zakaria, for example, engaged in a relentless war, which ended with Wattao chasing Koné Zakaria from his Vavoua-Séguéla zone in June 2008 [6].

10Some of the com’zones have family bonds: Wattao and Morou Ouattara are cousins. Others are more difficult to link to the rest of the group, such as Zoumana Ouattara, due to a lack of information. The latter occupied a northern area—Mankono—and subsequently an area of Abidjan, following victory in 2011.

11The position of com’zones within the army after 2011. From 2011 onwards the com’zones emerged as key players in the Ivorian and Abidjan security establishment, notably because they contributed to the fall of Gbagbo and to ending the electoral crisis to the benefit of President Ouattara. They did accept the redeployment of the authorities in the northern part of the country, which could not be taken for granted. But in certain cases they kept some control of these areas, even if the ‘zones’ as such no longer exist today. Above all, they form a real parallel hierarchy within the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (Republican Forces of Côte d’Ivoire, FRCI), within which they have all been reinstated, except for the three who have become prefects. The aim was two-fold: to seek to control the com’zones within a hierarchical military framework, but also to use them to ‘hold together’ the FRCI, although this role is now less apparent and its success has been questionable.

12After 2011, several com’zones were thus entrusted with positions of senior responsibility within the army. Koné Zakaria became second in command of the Bataillon d’Artillerie Sol-Air (Ground-to-Air Artillery Battalion, BASA) in Akouédo in December 2011; Zoumana Ouattara has commanded the 1st Infantry Battalion, also in Akouédo, since August 2012; and Ousmane Chérif was appointed second in command of the Groupement de Sécurité Présidentielle (Presidential Security Group, GSPR) in August 2011. The majority of FRCI units, special forces, and presidential guards are thus led by com’zones, either as the second in command or directly (Pierronnet, undated). This state of affairs was strengthened following the 2017 mutinies (see below).

13Following the November 2014 mutiny, especially in Bouaké, and with the aim of controlling the 3rd Infantry Battalion in Bouaké, Hervé Touré, known as Vetcho, was appointed commanding officer. However, the wisdom of appointing a com’zone to head a sensitive unit was increasingly called into question, as Hervé Touré himself was criticized by the battalion, to the point that he no longer dared to go to Bouaké in 2016. The mutinies from January to May 2017 confirmed this divide between com’zones and rank and file soldiers, even if the authorities relied on the com’zones, and in particular on Wattao, to manage these crises, which were finally settled by cash bonus payouts (Leboeuf, 2017). Following these crises, many com’zones were promoted, although their exact role in resolving the crisis remains debatable [7].

14One of the individuals I interviewed felt that the com’zones are all heavily criticised by FRCI soldiers, because they have enriched themselves on the backs of their men, have become part of the establishment, and are no longer legitimate in the eyes of their troops. This assessment must certainly be tempered, since the ‘galaxy of com’zones’—including the fourteen ‘young com’zones’ noted above—includes many different actors, some of whom have little influence, but others who have remained leaders of men—especially Wattao—who use their wealth to maintain clientelist networks that may be significant, and whose capacity for mobilisation remains difficult to gauge.

15Wooing the com’zones or keeping them at bay? As proof of their supposed influence, the com’zones appear to be wooed by some Ivorian politicians, who may see them as valuable support in their struggle to take or maintain power, or who may seek to keep those who are the least favourable to them at bay (Depry, undated; Connection ivoirienne, 2015; Pitroipa, 2013; Bavier, 2015). Some com’zones are therefore presented as being closer to Guillaume Soro, because he led the FN, or to President Ouattara. The struggle for the presidency post-2020 (post-Ouattara) may well involve a rapprochement with the com’zones. This issue is all the more crucial as Guillaume Soro has prepared for the election by revamping the FN, in August 2017 (Jeune Afrique, AFP, 2017). We should not forget that in Sierra Leone, a few years after the end of the war, politicians continued to mobilise within their ‘political militias’ former combatants, who occasionally clashed before elections, despite having been officially reinstated. Former minor leaders of the various armed groups then served as intermediaries for recruitment. These episodes of pre-election violence did not, however, have an impact on the elections themselves, or very marginally so. They do, however, remind us of the danger posed by former ‘war contractors’ in electoral and democratic processes.

16Since 2014, the com’zones have been seen as a political and security liability that needs to be solved. Their position has weakened over this period. When President François Hollande paid a visit to President Ouattara on 17 July 2014, they discussed the issue of the com’zones, and particularly the abuses perpetrated by Wattao, which included extorting the heads of French companies in Abidjan. Further exasperated by an exchange of fire between Wattao’s close circle and the police at the exit of an Abidjan megastore, Alassane Ouattara seems to have decided to address this problem, notably by removing Wattao from his post [8]. The withdrawal of Abidjan’s South Zone Command from Wattao in July 2014 went very badly, with some of his men within the Republican Guard apparently trying, in vain, to prevent the handover (Djiba, 2014). Moreover, a decree issued by the head of state established a six-month rotation schedule for former war leaders to lead operations at the Centre de Coordination des Décisions Opérationnelles (Centre for Operational Decision Coordination, CCDO), which explains why Wattao had to pass on the baton after two years as the head of the CCDO (Depry, 2014). Wattao was thus removed from the CCDO and sent to Morocco for training (RFI, 2014). A member of his close circle, Daouda Koné, was also removed from the CCDO and sent to the north-west (Jeune Afrique, 2014). The Ivorian press has been awash with rumours of struggles between com’zones anxious to monopolise Wattao’s trafficking business, regardless of whether or not they had already clashed in the past—such as Wattao and Koné Zakaria) (Connection ivoirienne, 2014).

17These tensions partly explain the decision to send Wattao away from Abidjan. He nevertheless remained jointly in charge of the Republican Guard. He was replaced by younger and less exposed com’zones, such as Commander Inza Fofana, known as Grumman, and Lieutenant Tuo Souleymane. His temporary exile was not therefore a fatal blow to the com’zones, but simply the relative weakening of a com’zone deemed to have become too powerful, too heavily criticised, and with too many military duties. Wattao officially returned to Abidjan on 25 June 2015 with a Moroccan staff college equivalent diploma. He was promoted to Chief of the Presidential Guard following the mutinies of January 2017 (Musandji, 2015; Africa News, 2017).

18Changing the official role of a com’zone within the FRCI is not a strong indication of substantive reform of the com’zone system. In November 2012, for example, Koné Zakaria and Gaoussou Koné were entrusted with new posts considered to be less attractive. But their relative ‘sidelining’ was without greater consequence and did not challenge the central position of the com’zones overall (Bovcon, 2015). For the time being, the legal avenue to remove them appears to be off the cards: few com’zones have been subjected to United Nations (UN) Security Council sanctions, and none are currently being pursued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), although strong pressure is being exerted on the government to deliver some FN leaders to the ICC, in order to prevent its action from being reduced to victor’s justice. Ivorian justice seems to have brought action against some of them, but this appears unlikely to yield results. Ousmane Chérif and Losséni Fofana (Depeyla, 2015; Le Monde Afrique, 2015) appeared before the courts [9], along with other com‘zones, in May 2015 (Depeyla, 2015), but these proceedings do not seem to have made much progress since. These measures make it possible to maintain a form of pressure on the com’zones, threatening them with prosecution unless they toe the line, but do not allow for their removal. Within Ivorian government bodies, the fact that these men without degrees, perceived as upstarts, suddenly find themselves as prefects or lieutenant-colonels is a source of irritation and annoyance. However, it is highly likely that the com’zones will remain significant players within the Ivorian army, even if they are gradually absorbed and moved to less problematic duties—at any rate, until a new generation of officers, selected based on their merit, and representative of a larger portion of the Ivorian population, gradually emerges. None of the twenty-eight com’zones that I have identified were included in the very first cohort of the Institut d’Études Stratégiques et de Défense Ivoirien (Ivorian Institute for Strategic Studies and Defence, ESDI), combining the École de Guerre and the Centre des Hautes Études Militaires (Centre for Advanced Military Studies, CHEM) [10]. This suggests that the hierarchy of the future Ivorian army will primarily consist of officers who do not hail from the ranks of com’zones and with no links to the period of military and political crisis. The solution to the security dilemma of Ivorian power therefore involves the professionalisation of a generation of officers whose profiles truly reflect the ethnic composition of Côte d’Ivoire—as was the case during Houphouët-Boigny’s time—, and which are therefore legitimate in the eyes of the entire population, and truly republican. In order to further this approach, a vetting system (background security checks) could be gradually implemented in order to rule out recruits who have committed crimes. If peace lasts, the com’zones may thus gradually disappear from the Ivorian security arena.

19Conclusion. The oligopoly that shares power in Côte d’Ivoire cannot at the moment truly sideline the com’zones, because it believes that it still needs them, in particular to ‘hold together’ an army that is all too willing to mutiny. It has therefore sought to reduce their power, while hoping to gradually ‘absorb’ them within the Ivory Coast armed forces. In doing so, however, it has contributed to increasing the tensions within this army. Physically eliminating them or sending them to the ICC cannot be used as threats by a state that sees itself as democratic and peaceful, but which does not want to lose the support of those who partly enabled it to rise to power. There remains the option of temporarily removing some of them by sending them away on training or appointing them to missions abroad, as long as they are not needed in Abidjan. Nonetheless, the com’zones remain a thorn in the side of Ivorian peace as the deadline for the 2020 elections approaches, and the prospect of succeeding Alassane Ouattara sharpens the appetites of many Ivorian politicians, including Guillaume Soro, who may also call upon the com’zones to defend their interests.