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Thread: Ivory Coast

  1. #221
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    Default The view of an Ivorian...

    In Ivory Coast, Democrat to Dictator

    The above article written by an Ivorian gives an insightful summary of an aspect of the country's history.

    The question, however, needs to be asked as to whether Gbagbo was ever a real democrat and also whether Ouattara is or will be any better.

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    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    JMA:
    I hate to say it and to admit it but Buffer zone, as humanitarian corridors in Yugoslavia are killing fields. Especially under UN protection.
    UN troops are not commited and willing to do anything, they are too politicised to actually just do their job.
    Yes indeed M-A and herein lies the problem. This inability to keep the peace in situations when the peace (or ceasefire) is really threatened makes such a UN interventions laughable.

    For this and other reasons it is why I advocate as early and violent an intervention as possible once the culprit and his key supporters are identified beyond doubt to ensure they are "neutralised" swiftly and effectively.

    In a previous article, someone suggested that private contractors could do the work. Unfortunately I had to respond it would not be possible because of national pride and soverainty.
    And that's the problem. When you ask a chiwawa to do a bulldog job: you end up with a bloody mess.
    There is certainly potential for the use of private contractors but I would suggest that this type of intervention should be limited to short duration exercises as such organisations would have serious problems maintaining discipline, among what would primarily be mercenaries, in the medium term.

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    Default True again Stan...

    Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
    Then of course diplomatic regret and denial
    I often ask myself which idiots believe these statements of denial? Gbagbo says this, Ouattara says that and even the stuff coming out of Gaddafi's Tripoli. Its all garbage. But there are those in every situation who just suck this stuff up...

  4. #224
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    Another take on the Ivory Coast situation:

    As Cote d'Ivoire's bloody leadership contest draws to a close and the surrender of Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president, seems imminent, a long list of atrocities and electoral irregularities mark the records of both him and his opponent, Alassane Ouattara.

    But with 1,500 people reported dead and more than 200,000 displaced, can one stubborn man be held solely responsible for the human cost of this four-month long dispute?

    Ethan Zuckerman, the founder and editor of Global Voices, believes the situation is more complex than a one-man blame game.

    "The challenge with the situation in Ivory Coast is that neither side has clean hands. Forces working for both have committed atrocities and, unfortunately, it's very hard to see how any resolution to the conflict will avoid further bloodshed, as both sides seek to settle scores."
    Manufacturing Cote d'Ivoire's 'good guy' - Tendai Marima - AlJazeera - 7/4/11

    ***

    Global Voices [Ethan Zuckerman Bio]
    Rebecca MacKinnon and I founded Global Voices in 2005 when we were both fellows at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Initially, we'd planned to build an aggregator of blogs from around the developing world, based on my interest in Africa and her focus on China.
    ethanzuckerman.com

    Ethan Zuckerman is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, the use of technology for international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. He and his team recently launched Media Cloud, an open-source platform for studying online media that enables quantitative analysis of media attention.
    Ethan Zuckerman Profile - TED.com

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    For this and other reasons it is why I advocate as early and violent an intervention as possible
    By who?

    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    There is certainly potential for the use of private contractors
    Who hires them, and who pays them??

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    Quote Originally Posted by Backwards Observer View Post
    It is certainly worth quoting the last two paragraphs of Marima's article.

    In Ouattara's final transition from his luxury suite at the Hotel du Golf to the presidential palace, it is sincerely hoped that he can unite the country and restore peace. However, hard questions will need to be asked of him by seekers of truth and justice.

    Despite the efforts by the media and international community to produce a clear-cut good guy, bad guy narrative for easy mass consumption, countless disturbing images and stories of violence perpetrated by rebel and patriot forces, show there are no clear lines distinguishing the righteous from the heathens. In war, all are sinners, even the guys with major international support.
    The seekers of truth and justice will lose out in the end because almost nobody cares and most just want this problem to go away (which it won't). Ouattara could have come to power with some credibility if he had not had to resort to violence due dithering and hopeless incompetence by ECOWAS, the AU, the UN and the world community in general. Because of the fighting it will be largely back to square one. Another hopeless, basket case country. To think that this last bit could have been avoided. Pretty sad really.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
    Not buying it for a second these days…Seems we are at an impasse with he said she said. Having watched it first hand, there's sufficient reason to believe both were involved and the press will just make a mockery of the event.

    As more details emerge about the massacres in Duékoué and elsewhere, about the atrocities committed in the struggle for Cote d'Ivoire, the international community finds itself in a difficult position. As Salon asked of US Republican Senator James Inhofe's "backing [of] a brutal despot," it must be asked: Will the international community, led by the UN and France, continue to support a man implicated in such gross violations?
    If you want to blend in, take the bus

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    Default nothing personal

    As Salon asked of US Republican Senator James Inhofe's "backing [of] a brutal despot," it must be asked: Will the international community, led by the UN and France, continue to support a man implicated in such gross violations?
    This is gonna sound hopelessly naive and possibly even chauvinistic, but for prominent US Christians to unblinkingly support an ostensibly Christian government that shoots unarmed women and appears to dismiss the incident as 'a blunder', really seems to diminish the whole Jesus thing. Is the New Testament important enough to be taken seriously, uh, especially by Christians; or am I the only clod who hasn't clued in that the whole converting the world business is in truth, "just business"?
    Last edited by Backwards Observer; 04-08-2011 at 05:31 PM. Reason: added to sentence

  9. #229
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    Quote Originally Posted by Backwards Observer View Post
    or am I the only clod who hasn't clued in
    Dumb question, huh? I'm off to read Erasmus...

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    Ouattara could have come to power with some credibility if he had not had to resort to violence due dithering and hopeless incompetence by ECOWAS, the AU, the UN and the world community in general.
    Can't see how being placed in power by intervening foreigners could possibly help any government's credibility or legitimacy. Democracy, or any kind of political progress, is not handed over on a plate, or installed, by a foreign deus ex machina. People have to win it by themselves, or it doesn't mean much. Sometimes that means fighting for it, and when that happens there will be some ugly stuff happening. That's the nature of political change. It never came easy or pretty or nice in the West, why should it be different anywhere else?

    If you start with the assumption that intervention is a fundamentally desirable thing and the sensible default reaction to any internal instability anywhere, it looks like "dithering and hopeless incompetence". Can't see why anyone would start with that assumption, but there's no accounting for tastes, or opinions.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    Can't see how being placed in power by intervening foreigners could possibly help any government's credibility or legitimacy. Democracy, or any kind of political progress, is not handed over on a plate, or installed, by a foreign deus ex machina. People have to win it by themselves, or it doesn't mean much. Sometimes that means fighting for it, and when that happens there will be some ugly stuff happening. That's the nature of political change. It never came easy or pretty or nice in the West, why should it be different anywhere else?

    If you start with the assumption that intervention is a fundamentally desirable thing and the sensible default reaction to any internal instability anywhere, it looks like "dithering and hopeless incompetence". Can't see why anyone would start with that assumption, but there's no accounting for tastes, or opinions.
    You would have realised that I generally ignore your responses to my posts. This mainly because we appear to be so diametrically opposed in terms of position on most of the issues that a ### for tat posting sequence will just lead to intervention from a trigger happy moderator.

    Firstly Ouattara was placed in power through the democratically expressed wishes of the voters of Ivory Coast.

    As I have stated before IMHO it is far more preferable for the UN or even the old colonial power France to ensure the wishes of the people of the Ivory Coast are carried out than for the country once again descend into a state of civil war (as it has now).

    OK, so the initial point of departure that Quattara will be installed in power by intervening foreigners is simply not correct so by implication all that followed thereafter can be discarded. More like Ivorian democracy would have been saved through by intervening foreigners if civil war had been averted.

    As to your opinion in the second paragraph (which incidently I don't see as a personal attack or significantly provocative) is not supported by the facts on the ground. What you term as the sensible default reaction which I term dithering and hopeless incompetence has led to the descent into civil war. Nothing vaguely sensible about not foreseeing this possibility or allowing it to happen.

    In November 2010 with the elections finally taking place there was hope for the Ivory Coast. Dithering, incompetence and hollow words and threats have allowed the situation to descend into civil war once again with 1m people displaced and a known 1,500 killed/murdered/butchered and the clock is still ticking. Do you really present this outcome as the result of the sensible default reaction?

    But I do agree that the US should stay out of African affairs including Libya as apart from Stan there is no other American who has posted here on any related topic that indicates even the most fundamental grasp of the issues. The continued comment just confirms this.
    Last edited by JMA; 04-09-2011 at 08:30 AM.

  12. #232
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    You would have realized that I generally ignore your responses to my posts. This mainly because we appear to be so diametrically opposed in terms of position on most of the issues that a ### for tat posting sequence will just lead to intervention from a trigger happy moderator.
    I've been diametrically opposed to, for example, Bob's World for a long enough time, with numerous teats and tats, and no moderator has yet been involved. It just needs keeping the teats slightly concealed, or you get the ### stuff. This place wouldn't be very interesting without differences of opinion; just requires a bit of civility.

    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    Firstly Ouattara was placed in power through the democratically expressed wishes of the voters of Ivory Coast.
    Winning an election and being placed in power are two different things. Maybe they shouldn't be, but they are.

    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    As I have stated before IMHO it is far more preferable for the UN or even the old colonial power France to ensure the wishes of the people of the Ivory Coast are carried out than for the country once again descend into a state of civil war (as it has now).
    Sometimes people have to fight to get where they want to go. Always been that way.

    I think what you miss on the point of "understanding the issues" is that understanding intervention or the lack thereof is not just about "understanding the issues" in the countries where intervention is proposed. You also have to understand the issues in the countries that have to do the intervening, and I don't think you're looking at that side at all. There aren't many countries that have the capacity to intervene. All of them have economic problems and are accountable to populaces who aren't very interested in messing in other people's fights. All of them have found that past interventions have not generally advanced their interests and have often proven contrary to their interests.

    For several decades now I've been dishing out advice to Westerners who come to Asia looking to save the place. It goes like this:

    When you see people doing things that make no sense to you, don't assume that they are stupid, insane, or incompetent. Assume that there's something in the picture that you don't see

    It works just as well in the opposite direction:

    If you look at other countries and consistently see behaviour that seems ridiculous to you, don't assume that they are incompetent ditherers. Assume that there are other factors in their picture that you aren't aware of.

    People who don't do what you think they should do aren't necessarily incompetent. They're just balancing your agenda with a lot of other agendas and priorities, many of which are a lot more important to them.

    It would be wonderful in "the global community" or "the UN", or anybody other than the US could somehow escort Africa (or a dozen or so countries within Africa, before M-A comes and reminds me that they're all different) from point C to point G without passing through points D, E, and F along the way, but realistically it's not going to happen. Even if everyone on SWJ agreed that it should, it still wouldn't. Early intervention in particular is not going to happen: there's no multilateral decision-making process to support it and a general consensus has emerged that intervention should be a last resort, not a default reaction.

    Like it or not, there is no global cop. Nobody wants the job or can afford the job, and taking that job isn't in anyone's interest.

  13. #233
    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    Default If I may add...

    There has been no military interventions led by the UN since Corean war and Shabba war in DRC. That means since the 60.
    We can look at desert storm as a UN military intervention carried out by a coalition of powers with UN mandat. But what is different from the 2 previous engagement is that no one did it under the UN flag. (Debatable, I know)

    What Ivory Coast is demonstrating is that there is a need now to come back to military intervention under UN flag. We cannot just let democratic process being droped down in Africa just because there are too many local interrest and not enough international interrests (or too much for some countries as France in that particular case).

    I would really support JMA point on the fact that Outtara, even if he did cheat, just as Gbagbo, has won the elections!
    We need a commitement from UNSC to act! Chinese did it in Lybia by buying the rebels oil. There is a need to increase political pressure at UNSC on the 5 guys who decide and nuke Gbagbo forces once for all. UN have the control of air (even without the french)! This should be possible to take down Gbagbo heavy artillery, mortars and armored vehicules.
    Once it's done for good, Outtara troops can clean up the place with air support and strike straignt to Gbagbo HQ.

    Keeping this wait and see posture is want makes short wars turn to infinite bloody civil wars.
    Saying we will hold every criminal accountable is nice but if you do not have the power to impose the very first step of Right, then it's yelling in the desert.

  14. #234
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    What Ivory Coast is demonstrating is that there is a need now to come back to military intervention under UN flag. We cannot just let democratic process being droped down in Africa just because there are too many local interrest and not enough international interrests (or too much for some countries as France in that particular case).
    I can agree with that, but there are still two major problems there.

    First, the UN has no capacity to act on its own, and ends up depending on the same small list of powers that are capable of intervention outside UN auspices. If the US, Britain, or France intervenes on behalf of the UN, it's still perceived as intervention by those powers. For the UN to be able to act it has to be able to act without depending on those powers to provide the muscle.

    Second, the UN has problems making decisions. It's made up of individual countries that act according to their perceived interests, which means that if most countries don't see any advantage in intervention, the UN will have a hard time generating support for intervention. Even if countries vote in favor, they may not be willing to provide resources if they don't see intervention as consistent with their interests.

    I don't follow the UN that closely; the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty appalling. Has it ever been established that the UN has a blanket authority or responsibility to enforce election results?

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    Default UN, OAS, etc., and elections

    International organization practice has been to cite the need for regional peace and security when deciding to intervene; and to cite respect for state sovereignty and non-interference with internal affairs when deciding not to intervene.

    IMO: the test is Orwellian - All pigs are equal; but some pigs are more equal than others.

    Regards

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    I've been diametrically opposed to, for example, Bob's World for a long enough time, with numerous teats and tats, and no moderator has yet been involved. It just needs keeping the teats slightly concealed, or you get the ### stuff. This place wouldn't be very interesting without differences of opinion; just requires a bit of civility.

    Winning an election and being placed in power are two different things. Maybe they shouldn't be, but they are.

    Sometimes people have to fight to get where they want to go. Always been that way.

    I think what you miss on the point of "understanding the issues" is that understanding intervention or the lack thereof is not just about "understanding the issues" in the countries where intervention is proposed. You also have to understand the issues in the countries that have to do the intervening, and I don't think you're looking at that side at all. There aren't many countries that have the capacity to intervene. All of them have economic problems and are accountable to populaces who aren't very interested in messing in other people's fights. All of them have found that past interventions have not generally advanced their interests and have often proven contrary to their interests.

    For several decades now I've been dishing out advice to Westerners who come to Asia looking to save the place. It goes like this:

    When you see people doing things that make no sense to you, don't assume that they are stupid, insane, or incompetent. Assume that there's something in the picture that you don't see

    It works just as well in the opposite direction:

    If you look at other countries and consistently see behaviour that seems ridiculous to you, don't assume that they are incompetent ditherers. Assume that there are other factors in their picture that you aren't aware of.

    People who don't do what you think they should do aren't necessarily incompetent. They're just balancing your agenda with a lot of other agendas and priorities, many of which are a lot more important to them.

    It would be wonderful in "the global community" or "the UN", or anybody other than the US could somehow escort Africa (or a dozen or so countries within Africa, before M-A comes and reminds me that they're all different) from point C to point G without passing through points D, E, and F along the way, but realistically it's not going to happen. Even if everyone on SWJ agreed that it should, it still wouldn't. Early intervention in particular is not going to happen: there's no multilateral decision-making process to support it and a general consensus has emerged that intervention should be a last resort, not a default reaction.

    Like it or not, there is no global cop. Nobody wants the job or can afford the job, and taking that job isn't in anyone's interest.
    In my response to you (the first in a while) I attempted to lay it out in the most simple terms using your terminology and what do I get in response?

    A theoretical and philosophical piece which does not deal directly with the specifics.

    As a kid I watched Superman in the comics fight for "truth, justice and the American Way" and over time (50 years) have observed how America has degenerated into a culture where everything is negotiable. A pretty lamentable state of affairs.

    The first Principle of War is "the selection and maintenance of the aim" (the US just call it Objective). Now every Officer Cadet if asked what the aim for post election Ivory Coast should have been should have been able to produce something like this (or be given a train ticket home):

    The aim is to ensure a peaceful transition of power to the newly elected President of the Ivory Coast.

    Select the aim and then maintain it... difficult to do if you come from a culture where nothing is fixed and everything is negotiable.

    If doing this exercise with 18/19 year old officer cadets one would then get into a discussion about the what ifs. What if the present incumbent refuses to step down? What if a section of the military mutinies? etc etc.

    Presumably this was done by the UN peacekeeping forces and also the French forces in country although there is no evidence that they did this as there does not seem to have been any serious attempt to seek additional specialised ground forces to cater for the what ifs and worst case scenarios when things started to go pear shaped.

    That the country was allowed to slip back into civil war is both negligent and incompetent and criminally negligent on behalf of ECOWAS, the AU, the UN and the world in general.

    And I say to you that to allow the Ivory Coast to slip back into civil war so that they can gain the experience of fighting for political change with the attendant massive human cost is as outrageous in the post year 2010 era as it is ... (self imposed censorship)

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    Quote Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange View Post
    There has been no military interventions led by the UN since Corean war and Shabba war in DRC. That means since the 60.
    We can look at desert storm as a UN military intervention carried out by a coalition of powers with UN mandat. But what is different from the 2 previous engagement is that no one did it under the UN flag. (Debatable, I know)

    What Ivory Coast is demonstrating is that there is a need now to come back to military intervention under UN flag. We cannot just let democratic process being droped down in Africa just because there are too many local interrest and not enough international interrests (or too much for some countries as France in that particular case).
    Perhaps we need to return to first principles. There is peacekeeping and there is peacemaking. In the Ivory Coast the UN was engaged in a peacekeeping exercise and in that it failed in a spectacular fashion as with UN Rwanda, Bosinia and Darfur operations.

    Did the eariler UNSC resolutions give the UN peacekeeping force the "teeth" to keep-the-peace? By Res-1975(?) they were given the Libyan type authority to use whatever means necessary to protect civilians. So what they and the French do? Protect European civilians, allow the North to invade the South, fire on Gbagbo and his military bases and totally ignore the Ivorian civilians (whose protection they were specifically charged).

    But to be fair the success of the Libyan campaign has been hugely over-blown and really apart from the enforcing of the no-fly-zone and halting Gaddafi's march on Bengazi civilians elsewhere (Misrata, Zintan etc) have been fed to the wolves. Equally pathetic execution and not under any UN control.

    So by what mechanism would the UN be empowered to keep-the-peace?

    Would we ever see the UN force on the ground being authorised to act immediately if the situation demands without having to wait for a new UNSC resolution?

    I would really support JMA point on the fact that Outtara, even if he did cheat, just as Gbagbo, has won the elections!
    We need a commitement from UNSC to act! Chinese did it in Lybia by buying the rebels oil. There is a need to increase political pressure at UNSC on the 5 guys who decide and nuke Gbagbo forces once for all. UN have the control of air (even without the french)! This should be possible to take down Gbagbo heavy artillery, mortars and armored vehicules.
    Once it's done for good, Outtara troops can clean up the place with air support and strike straignt to Gbagbo HQ.
    Yes he won and that was agreed by all the election monitors etc. The transition should be as smooth as in western Europe and where there is the potential for it not to happen like in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast there must be a means of enforcing the will of the people.

    Here we need to bear in mind the Hamas example (for the future in the Middle East and North Africa) where the will of the people place a government in power which had unacceptable policies and beliefs to some major powers. The will of the people must prevail but that does not preclude certain countries from refusing to "recognise" that government or fund it or otherwise if they find its policies and beliefs abhorrent.

    This should be applied to the Ouattara government when finally installed. Full recognition and acceptance and even full diplomatic recognition should be withheld subject to the investigation and prosecution of "war crimes" in the current period.

    So I am more than a little concerned about Ouattara's forces cleaning up anything. I know and you know what that means in Africa. I would suggest that once Gbagbo is out the Northern Forces be required to pull back to the northern side of the buffer zone and the UN take responsibility to police the South until the new government can put as close to an independent force together to carry out that duty.

    Extraordinary efforts will be required in the wake of the current violence (when it is finally brought under control).

    Keeping this wait and see posture is want makes short wars turn to infinite bloody civil wars.
    Saying we will hold every criminal accountable is nice but if you do not have the power to impose the very first step of Right, then it's yelling in the desert.
    Exactly. And it is astounding to see countries and supposedly intelligent people placing the human-rights of the likes of Gbagbo, Gaddafi, Mugabe higher than those of millions of the citizens of those countries. But does anyone really care? Nobody cares.

    Certainly at UNSC level there is Russia and China with a predictably negative veto power which makes pre-emptive action for the good (humanitarian reasons) very difficult.

    This is why more people than would care to admit are begrudgingly accepting that when all else fails GWB's unilateralism is probably what must happen. This could be by France, Britain a neighbouring state, whatever.

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    Council Member M-A Lagrange's Avatar
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    One of the difficulties faced by the UN is that they need to be inited by local governments.
    In Ivory Coast, for once since long, we see the local legal government asking for UN to interviene militarily. According to Reuters, ONUCI and Licorne interviene to destroy Gbagbo heavy weapons located in his personal residence.
    The only constrain is to keep Gbagbo alive so he can meet his friends in The Hage.

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    Default Gunships and waves of deceit

    Two reports on the repeated French & UN action, helicopter gunships attacking Gbagbo's heavy weapons (I assume these to be 120mm mortars); BBC:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13030543 and Daily Telegraph:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...residence.html

    I was intrigued by these sentences, in the later report:
    Among the French troops in the country are special forces and foreign legion units, who say privately that if the political will was there, they could remove Mr Gbagbo within days.
    But a diplomatic source said that because of its fraught history in the country, and its commitments in Libya and Afghanistan, it is reluctant to get more involved.

    "It might support and make suggestions, perhaps even be the hand in glove by offering some training to the (Mr Ouattara's Republican forces) but could not be seen to be taking its own military action," he said. He added that part of the reason for the reversals in fortunes were that both sides are prone to exaggeration, meaning they are often seen to lose ground they never entirely held.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-10-2011 at 08:53 PM.
    davidbfpo

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    Thanks David for including links in english. Unfortunatelly I do not have time to search for it.

    My personnal comment would be that Legionnaires and SF are right but it's rather linked to the difficult post-war context and IC-France relations that France is not willing. Lybia and Afgha are skeep goats in that particular case.

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