| | On 25 September 2002, six days after unidentified rebels staged surprise attacks on Abidjan, Bouake and Korhogo in the Ivory Coast, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service for Africa aired an interview on its 'Network Africa' programme with one of the rebels, identified as 'Corporal Kwasi'. 'We started the rebellion because the current regime is a dictatorship hiding under the guise of democracy,' Corporal Kwasi declared. 'But the people living in Ivory Coast know that it is not a democracy.'
Soon thereafter the rebels' name, the Mouve-ment Patrotique de la Côum;te d'Ivoire (MPCI), was announced over the BBC. The interview with Corporal Kwasi was brief and vague, but it nonetheless provided some of the first clues as to the identity of the rebels and their motives. It cleared up, if only slightly, the murky and chaotic situation in the country. However, it also provided the rebels with valuable political capital, and granted them a degree of credibility not previously enjoyed. No longer were the rebels an unidentified group with uncertain aims; after Corporal Kwasi's interview on the highly respected and influential BBC, they became legitimate. |
