Bosnia and Ivory Coast

While watching the news on Ivory Coast it may be good to remember that this is exactly what the Western cosmopolitans had in mind for Bosnia. Just as Bosnia Ivory Coast had a civil war between its main (clusters of) ethnic groups. And just as in Bosnia it ended with a Western-mediated peace.

Only this time there were no special provisions for the different groups. As each of the groups believed they were a majority they accepted the idea of a centralized state where winning the elections would mean the difference between being on top or being discriminated.

In the end the South lost (they claim due to election fraud). They didn't accept it and that resulted in the present stalemate. Now Western countries are using arms to impose their "solution". I am afraid that in the long term it will not work as well as they expect. There are already reports about mass murders by Northern troops in their EU/UN supported offensive. It seems those reports don't deter the Western country. After all the Northern candidate is a former IMF man and so he is supposed to be "our" man.

Postscript: Newsweek has an article ("Battle After Ballot") in which it wonders that the West might be doing more bad than good, both by getting involved in an ethnic conflict and by imposing "democracy" with violence.