Space
Program of the Ivory Coast
Space
Program of the Ivory Coast
------The Ivorian Space Agency------
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Level = 0 Development: Very Low
What has been going on in Cote D' Ivoire
What kind of space power do they have?
Does Cote D' Ivoire have space weapons?
What are they planning over there? |
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Population: 18,500,000 / Language: French / GDP: $1500 / Cities: Abidjan
OVERVIEW
Once hailed as a model of
stability, Ivory Coast has slipped into the kind of internal strife
that has plagued many African countries.
An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two, and the main players in the conflict have so far failed to find a political solution.
For more than three decades after independence under the leadership of its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast was conspicuous for its religious and ethnic harmony and its well-developed economy.
Politics:
Civil war in 2002 split the country between rebel-held north and
government-controlled south; foreign troops patrol a buffer zone;
Premier Banny was installed to lead a reconciliation government to
elections - the UN extended his mandate for another year from November
2006
UN road map: Aims to re-unite country, disarm militias, restore state authority across the land, register voters and hold elections Economy: Ivory Coast is world's leading cocoa producer; UN sanctions include a ban on diamond exports as well as travel bans and asset freezes for some leaders All this ended when the late Robert Guei led a coup which toppled Felix Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Bedie, in 1999. Mr Bedie fled, but not before planting the seeds of ethnic discord by trying to stir up xenophobia against Muslim northerners, including his main rival, Alassane Ouattara.
This theme was also adopted by Mr Guei, who had Alassane Ouattara banned from the presidential election in 2000 because of his foreign parentage, and by the only serious contender allowed to run against Mr Guei, Laurent Gbagbo. When Mr Gbagbo replaced Robert Guei after he was deposed in a popular uprising in 2000, violence replaced xenophobia. Scores of Mr Ouattara's supporters were killed after their leader called for new elections. In September 2002 a troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the ongoing discontent of northern Muslims who felt they were being discriminated against in Ivorian politics. Thousands were killed in the conflict.
Although the fighting has stopped, Ivory Coast is tense and divided. French and UN peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone which separates the north, held by rebels known as the New Forces, and the government-controlled south. Peace talks brokered by other African nations and France have, so far, failed to reunite the country. Under a 2003 peace deal the government is to disband loyalist militias and pass political reforms. In return, the New Forces are to lay down their weapons. But disarmament has yet to begin.
President: Laurent Gbagbo Veteran politician Laurent Gbagbo, who was elected president in 2000 for a five-year mandate, was given a seventh successive year in power in November 2007 under a new United Nations plan to find lasting peace. The opposition and northern rebels said they did not want him back in office but a UN Security Council resolution, proposed by the African Union, allows him to keep his job for a final year. The resolution extended the transitional government for a second year, until October 31, 2007, so that elections can be held and a democratically chosen government installed. It envisages shifting power from Gbagbo to Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny. Elections were initially due by October 2005, when the UN authorized a transitional government to stay in power until October 2006. However, elections failed to take place by the due date because of feuding between rival factions.
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Ivory Coast's Space Infrastructure The Ivory Coast is one of the world's poorest countries, and its space program is not suprisingly, nonexistent. Not only does it not have an agency, but also no infrastructure in which one would arise. Abidjan Cocody University has no space related educational architecture, lacking astrophysics, astronautics, aeronautics and natural sciences, favoring instead Shi'ra Islamic Law. The government has no ministry devoted to science of this type. Ivory Coast has no history of being part of any organization dealing with space, nor has any launch capability. Ivory Coast lacks the industrial base, the educational base and the political foundation for a process like this to occur within it. It has no functioning university with an astrophysics or astronautics program, and nonexistant industry. Ivory Coast operates no satellites and, not having an orbital presence, has no space power. The government of Ivory Coast in Abidjan has no plans for attempting to further any ambition in space development or research. |
None
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Timeline of Events in Ivory Coast ...From the Past to the Future 1842 - France imposes protectorate over coastal zone. 1893 - Ivory Coast made into a colony. 1904 - Ivory Coast becomes part of the French Federation of West Africa. 1944 - Felix Houphouet-Boigny, later to become Ivory Coast's first president, founds a union of African farmers, which develops into the inter-territorial African Democratic Rally and its Ivorian section, the Ivory Coast Democratic Party. 1958 - Ivory Coast becomes a republic within the French Community. Independence 1960 - France grants independence under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He holds power until he dies in 1993. Felix Houphouet-Boigny, post-independence president
1990 - Opposition parties legalised; Houphouet-Boigny wins Ivory Coast's first multiparty presidential election, beating Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). 1993 - Henri Konan Bedie becomes president following the death of Houphouet-Boigny. 1995 October - Bedie re-elected in a ballot that is boycotted by opposition parties in protest at restrictions imposed on their candidates. 1999 - July - Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim, leaves job at International Monetary Fund and returns to run for president in 2000; his plan to challenge Bedie splits country along ethnic and religious lines. Opponents say he is national of Burkina Faso, not Ivory Coast. Coup 1999 - Bedie overthrown in military coup led by Robert Guei. Bedie flees to France. 2000 October - Guei proclaims himself president after announcing he has won presidential elections, but is forced to flee in the wake of a popular uprising against his perceived rigging of the poll. 2000 October - Laurent Gbagbo, believed to be the real winner in the presidential election, is proclaimed president. Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, excluded from running in the poll, calls for a fresh election. 2000 October - Fighting erupts between Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters and followers of Ouattara, who are mostly Muslims from the north. 2000 December - President Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) emerges as the biggest single party in parliamentary elections. 2001 January - Attempted coup fails. 2001 March - President Gbagbo and opposition leader Ouattara meet for the first time since violence erupted between their supporters in October 2000 and agree to work towards reconciliation. 2001 - Reports of child slave ship off Africa's west coast spark allegations of child slavery in cocoa plantations, straining international relations. Government moves to tackle the issue. 2001 March - Calls for fresh presidential and legislative elections after Alassane Ouattara's party gains majority at local polls. 2001 June - Amnesty International criticises government's human rights record over alleged extra-judicial killings of 57 northerners during presidential election campaign in October 2000. Eight gendarmes accused of the killings are cleared in August. 2001 October - President Gbagbo sets up National Reconciliation Forum. General Guei refuses to attend in protest against the arrest of his close aide Captain Fabien Coulibaly. 2001 November - Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara returns, ending year-long exile in France and Gabon. 2002 August - Ouattara's RDR opposition party given four ministerial posts in new government.
Rebellion 2002 19 September - Mutiny in Abidjan by soldiers unhappy at being demobilised grows into full-scale rebellion, with Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement rebels seizing control of the north. 2002 October-December - Short-lived ceasefire in October gives way to further clashes and battle for key cocoa-industry town of Daloa. Previously unknown rebel groups seize towns in west. 2003 January - President Gbagbo accepts peace deal at talks in Paris. Deal proposes power-sharing government. Power-sharing 2003 March - Political parties, rebels agree on new government to include nine members from rebel ranks. "Consensus" prime minister, Seydou Diarra, is tasked with forming cabinet. 2003 May - Armed forces sign ceasefire with rebel groups. 2003 July - At a ceremony in the presidential palace, military chiefs and rebels declare that the war is over. 2003 August - Group of suspected mercenaries and their backers detained in France; said to have planned to assassinate President Gbagbo. 2003 December - 19 killed in armed attack on state TV building in Abidjan. UN deploys 2004 March - Deadly clashes during crackdown on opposition rally against President Gbagbo in Abidjan. First contingent of UN peacekeeping force deployed. 2004 May - UN report says March's opposition rally was used as pretext for planned operation by security forces. Report says more than 120 people were killed and alleges summary executions, torture. 2004 November - Ivorian air force attacks rebels; French forces enter the fray after nine of their soldiers are killed in an air strike. Violent anti-French protests ensue. UN imposes arms embargo. 2004 December - Parliament passes reforms envisaged under the 2003 peace accord, including abolishing the need for a president to have Ivorian parents. 2005 April - After talks in South Africa the government and rebels declare an "immediate and final end" to hostilities. 2005 June - Massacres in western town of Duekoue: President Gbagbo says more than 100 people were killed, but contradicts widely-held view that ethnic rifts lay behind violence. Poll called off 2005 October - Planned elections are shelved as President Gbagbo invokes a law which he says allows him to stay in power. The UN extends his mandate for a further year. 2005 December - Economist Charles Konan Banny is nominated as prime minister by mediators. He is expected to disarm militias and rebels and to organise elections due in October 2006. 2006 January - Violent street demonstrations by supporters of President Gbagbo over what they see as UN interference in internal affairs. 2006 February - Main political rivals meet on Ivorian soil for the first time since the 2002 rebellion. They agree to meet again to iron out differences. 2006 June - Militias loyal to President Gbagbo miss disarmament deadlines. 2006 September - Political, rebel leaders say they've failed to make any breakthrough on the main issues standing in the way of elections - principally voter registration and disarmament. The government resigns over a scandal involving the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan. Fumes from the waste kill three people and make many more ill. 2006 November - UN Security Council resolution extends the transitional government's mandate for another year until October 2007. |
TODAY AND INTO THE FUTURE
Nothing Planned
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