In Nigeria, thousands have died in renewed clashes since President Olusegun Obasanjo was elected last year, ending 15 years of military rule. The election of a southern Yoruba and his efforts to diversify the government and military created unease among the country's northern Hausa and Fulani, who had traditionally dominated those institutions. Some Yorubas, in turn, fear Obasanjo is a stooge for the north because of his military background. In Senegal's troubled Casamance region, which is geographically and ethnically distinct from the rest of the country, separatist rebels have waged an 18-year fight for independence. And in Niger, tensions linger despite the end of years of desert warfare waged by Tuareg tribesmen, an olive-skinned people who don't consider themselves African.
Democracy comes in stages.
Learning how to deal with it on a nonviolent basis takes time. For years, however, Ivory Coast was spared the violence that convulsed its neighbors, steadied by a booming economy and a revered leader who managed to co-opt most of his opponents. But founding President Felix Houphet-Boigny allowed no opposition parties for most of his 33 years in power. When politics were liberalized in 1990, most of the parties that emerged were organized along ethnic and religious lines. There are some 60 different ethnic groups in the country of 19 million people.