SUMMARY
Dioula is a joint misused name for various ethnicities and nationalities residing in, or originating from, the northern parts of the Ivory Coast. It does however not include people originating from Burkina Faso. Used correctly it refers to a small ethnic group residing in the northeastern parts of the country. The word itself means trader in the Senufo language but is mostly considered as a pejorative term by most northerners. The common markers of the Dioulas are religion, and language. The Dioulas speak the language Dioula, which is, after French, the most spoken language in the Ivory Coast. Despite this fact the Dioula ethnic group is not the largest, nor the most influential of the many ethnicities found in the country. The Dioula ethnicity originates from traders who travelled West Africa, and today the Dioula language is a remnant of those trade networks. Concerning religion the Dioula group adheres to Islam, separating them from the majority of the Ivoirians, who are Christian.
In Ivory Coast there is no one dominant ethnic group, but rather a number of equally strong groups, or congregations. Roughly the ethnic separation in the Ivory Coast is divided into the four corners of the country, were the Dioula group resides in the north-western parts. The core of the issue, concerning the violence that the Dioula group found itself entangled in, was a disruption of the segregation of the different ethnicities, when an increasing number of Dioulas, or as they are frequently refereed to, northerners, migrated to the western parts of the Ivory Coast to find employment in the cocoa industry. This migration, in combination with the decline in economy that hit the Ivory Coast at the turn of the century and a continuous demographic change put the issues of ethnicity, religion, origin and language to the fore at the beginning of the 2000’s.
Concerning leadership, Dioula is as mentioned above, a term applied that covers a variety of ethnicities and groups. It is therefore difficult to pin point one exclusive leader who possesses control over this disparate group. One prominent figure connected to the northern sphere of influence in the Ivory Coast is Alassane Ouattara, who was prime minister between 1990 and 1993. During the latter part of his term he was the de facto president since President Houphouët-Boigny fell ill, and later passed away. Following his passing there was a power vacuum, that inevitably led to a power struggle, which Ouattara found himself on the short end of Ouattatra ran for president in the 1995 elections, but was disqualified, for reason of not being eligible to run because of doubts as to his parent’s origin, being Ivorian, or Burkinabe. This controversy is very much a case in point in the Ivory Coast; national belonging. The possession of a valid ID card is paramount if a person is to be considered Ivorian. This has generally not been the case for the Dioula. They have not been eligible to vote, and have, despite living in the country been regarded as immigrants. Besides this prominent spokesperson, who is, albeit not considered a leader of the Dioulas as such, but could be seen as a protagonist for the Dioula cause, there is no formally organised leadership.
The Dioula, being loosely put together, and perhaps regarded as a group more by outside observers, has little or no ties to other groups or states. That said there are a number of ethnicities within the Dioula framework who indeed have connections to ethnic kin in Burkina Faso, but also in other parts of Western Africa. The rather ad hoc nature of the Dioula makes it difficult to asses and ascribe actions to the group. They have however, in news reports, and by other ethnicities, been labelled as a homogenous group. As the situation was during the turn of the millennia and the following years the Dioula were targeted as a group, and thereby retaliated as one. One can argue that the labelling of the Dioula group is more of a labelling of the other, the different, in this case the migratory workers who came from the northern parts of the country to seek employment in the prosperous cocoa industry. This influx, in combination with a declining economy led to a stigmatization, and polarization of the Ivorian society.
The Dioula have been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organised violence.
