Ivory Coast: Freemasons Key to Imperialist Control
by Gary K. Bush
le 5 janvier 2011
French Freemasons and their African lodge leaders play a key role in the current impasse in the Ivory Coast.
Virtually all the African leaders ranged against Laurent Gbagbo and supporting the elite cadre of French business and political leaders are Freemasons affiliated to the same lodges as the elite French business and political group. It is impossible to understand how Françafrique works without reference to the Masons.
French Masons represent the elite of French business and politics, Most of them were educated together at the same two elite schools and most pursue a career in the French government or French business. These schools are École Nationale d’Administration, the École Polytechnique and École Polytechnique.
Freemason lodges maintain a formidable, covert influence within the French judicial and police structures. All three Freemason lodges in France were caught influence peddling and false invoicing on state contracts. Freemasons in the judiciary hamper any investigations and muzzle the press.
As in France, Freemasonry is ubiquitous at the very top in many African states. For eg. Denis Sassou Nguesso, the Congolese president, is Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Congo – Brazzaville linked to the National Grand Lodge of France; President Mamadou Tanja of Niger; Chad’s Idriss Deby and François Bozizé of the Central African Republic are among at least twelve African presidents linked to the Masons. In November 2009 Ali Bongo, the new Gabonese President was ordained as the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Gabon (GLB) and the Grand Equatorial Rite, the two predominant Freemason orders in Gabon.[ii]
The Masons have always provided the leaders and the staff of French colonialism. François Xavier-Verschave described the secret control system of its leaders as “the secret criminality in the upper echelons of French politics and economy, where a kind of underground Republic is hidden from view.”
By tradition in France, foreign affairs are the French president’s private domain. The foreign affairs minister only applies his policies. France is the only Western country where foreign policy is not a debating topic in the national legislative bodies. The sovereignty of the French people does not count for anything even if it has elected the president directly. The Parliament has no checking powers and is quietly relegated to domestic matters.
The war of the French against the Ivory Coast was a war by Jacques Chirac against the Ivory Coast. It was his fit of pique which ordered the French ‘peacekeepers’ to attack and destroy the Ivory Coast air force. It was his order to send over a hundred tanks to surround the Hotel d’Ivoire and President Gbagbo’s house. It was his decision to allow his soldiers to open fire on a crowd of singing youths, totally unarmed and non-threatening, seeking only to stop the French from making a coup or killing President Gbagbo.
French agents have had no compunctions about ousting African Presidents or defending others against coups. Their role in attempting to overthrow Gbagbo is well documented. A recording of several meetings was copied from a French laptop which was captured which shows, inter alia, how the French behaved.
The French method of making a coup was well-documented in an intelligence report on a meeting in Burkina Faso. The parallels with Madagascar are clear. They decided to promote a coup in Abidjan on 22-33 March 2006.
Alassane Outtara [now backed by the West to replace Gbagbo] opened the meeting and introduced Pouchet. He spoke and said that he had come directly from Chirac with the message that “ADO (Ouattara) your son and brother will be President of the Republic of Côte d`Ivoire before the elections of 2005.” Chirac has promised “There will be no disarmament in Côte d`Ivoire without our agreement. It is necessary that the agreements of ACCRA III are voted on before they can insist on disarmament.
All France and JACQUES CHIRAC support ADO to lead him to taking power in five months; i.e. in March. We have recruited mercenaries who are currently in training in Mali and in Burkina Faso. In March we will lead ADO to power with the assistance of the mercenaries who are in training with Burkinabé officers and Malians. Our objective it is to put ADO in power”. “I shall come again in December, with President Compaore, and will introduce you to the mercenaries. Ouattara will return in March to take power.”
The next speaker was Blaise Compaore, the President of Burkina Faso, who thanked Pouchet and Chirac. He criticized the Ivory Coast government for ignoring the rights of Ouattara and said “It is my name which spoiled in this business. In Burkina my officers are doing remarkable work with the mercenaries to make them ready. I support you. We are moving to put things in place from there for you. Do not be afraid; we will win the battle in a little time. In five months all will be ready”.
There were several attempts at making a coup against Gbagbo over the next five years. Most were anticipated and prevented. Others died for lack of interest. In almost all these cases the active participants were envoys from France, combined with elements of the French (UN) peacekeepers and local African Presidents linked by their Masonic ties to the French business and political elites… The implementing parties and logistic suppliers were French agents working in the man French multinationals in Abidjan.
This is normal French neo-colonial behavior. It has always been done in the name of France but without any democratic debate. It advances French business interests and rewards the Presidency. This impasse in the Ivory Coast is just another French plot by the same people and using the same collaborators. However, this time the French have managed to hook in the ‘international community’ to support them.
In summary, the colonial pact maintained the French control over the economies of the African states; it took possession of their foreign currency reserves; it controlled the strategic raw materials of the country; it stationed troops in the country with the right of free passage; it demanded that all military equipment be acquired from France; it took over the training of the police and army; it required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc.). France not only set limits on the imports of a range of items from outside the franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from France. These treaties are still in force and operational.
It is probably very little surprise to other Africans that the attempts by Gbagbo to break free of these chains irritated the French. The African Presidents were kept in power by French armies. The economies were kept under the control of French businesses licensed to have monopolies. Other nations were kept out. The African presidents, in exchange, gave 85% of their national wealth to the French Treasury to hold for them and paid a regular ransom to French politicians for keeping them in office.
Pact Colonial
Not really having planned for it, in 1960 de Gaulle had to improvise structures for a collection of small newly independent states, each with a flag, an anthem, and a seat at the UN, but often with precious little else. It was here that Foccart came to play an essential role, that of architect of the series of Cooperation accords with each new state in the sectors of finance and economy, culture and education, and the military. There were initially eleven countries involved: Mauritania, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Dahomey (now Benin), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Niger, Chad, Gabon, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, and Madagascar. Togo and Cameroon, former UN Trust Territories, were also co-opted into the club. So, too, later on, were Mall and the former Belgian territories (Ruanda-Urundi, now Rwanda and Burundi, and Congo-Kinshasa), some of the ex-Portuguese territories, and Comoros and Djibouti, which had also been under French rule for many years but became independent in the 1970s. The whole ensemble was put under a new Ministry of Cooperation, created in 1961, separate from the Ministry of Overseas Departments and Territories (known as the DOM-TOM) that had previously run them all.
The key to all this was the agreement signed between France and its newly-liberated African colonies which locked these colonies into the economic and military embrace of France. This Colonial Pact not only created the institution of the CFA franc, it created a legal mechanism under which France obtained a special place in the political and economic life of its colonies.
The Pacte Coloniale Agreement enshrined a special preference for France in the political, commercial and defence processes in the African countries. On defence it agreed two types of continuing contact. The first was the open agreement on military co-operation or Technical Military Aid (AMT) agreements, which weren’t legally binding, and could be suspended according to the circumstances. They covered education, training of servicemen and African security forces. The second type, secret and binding, were defence agreements supervised and implemented by the French Ministry of Defence, which served as a legal basis for French interventions. These agreements allowed France to have predeployed troops in Africa; in other words, French army units present permanently and by rotation in bases and military facilities in Africa; run entirely by the French.
According to Annex II of the Defence Agreement signed between the governments of the French Republic, the Republic of Ivory Coast, the Republic of Dahomey and the Republic of Niger on 24 April 1961, France has priority in the acquisition of those “raw materials classified as strategic. In fact, according to article 2 of the agreement, “the French Republic regularly informs the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the other two) of the policy that it intends to follow concerning strategic raw materials and products, taking into account the general needs of defence, the evolution of resources and the situation of the world market.
According to article 3, “the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the other two) inform the French Republic of the policy they intend to follow concerning strategic raw materials and products and the measures that they propose to take to implement this policy.†And to conclude, article 5: “Concerning these same products, the Republic of Ivory Coast (and the two others) for defence needs, reserve them in priority for sale to the French Republic, after having satisfied the needs of internal consumption, and they will import what they need in priority from it.†The reciprocity between the signatories was not a bargain between equals, but reflected the actual dominance of the colonial power that had, in the case of these countries, organised “independence” a few months previously (in August 1960).
In summary, the colonial pact maintained the French control over the economies of the African states; it took possession of their foreign currency reserves; it controlled the strategic raw materials of the country; it stationed troops in the country with the right of free passage; it demanded that all military equipment be acquired from France; it took over the training of the police and army; it required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc.). France not only set limits on the imports of a range of items from outside the franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from France. These treaties are still in force and operational.
It is probably very little surprise to other Africans that the attempts by Gbagbo to break free of these chains irritated the French, The African Presidents were kept in power by French armies. The economies were kept under the control of French businesses licensed to have monopolies. Other nations were kept out. The African presidents, in exchange, gave 85% of their national wealth to the French Treasury to hold for them and paid a regular ransom to French politicians for keeping them in office.
What is the mystery to many on the African continent (if not among the lotus-eaters of the West) is why the United Nations and the international community would take sides with the Godfathers of France instead of the victims in Africa. This French political and Masonic system is certainly not the future for Africa and sending troops to kill innocent Africans in support of such brazen and deadly corruption is not everyone’s idea of a democratic process.
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[i] Networking webscites are booming, but they have not supplanted more traditional business networks, Economist 25/6/09
[ii] Freemason Presidents in Africa: Ali Bongo ordained Grand Master of Gabon, René Dassié, Afrik News 10/11/09
[iii] A strange inheritance, Claude Wauthie, Le Monde Diplo 9/97
[iv] Omar Bongo pocketed millions in embezzled funds, claims US cable, Angelique Chrisafis, Guardian 30/12/10
[v] Economist, op.cit.
Terrific article! So plus ca change….