title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Ivory Coast has historically received large numbers of immigrants from neighbouring West African countries, especially Burkina Faso, and the flow of immigration was sustained after independence, both due to Ivory Coast's relative prosperity and due to the favourable policies of Houphouët-Boigny's government: for example, between 1960 and 1972, any person born in Ivory Coast could receive Ivorian citizenship, regardless of their parents' nationality. A majority of immigrants were Muslim: the share of Muslims in the Ivorian population increased from approximately six per cent in 1922 to 38.6 per cent in 1998. By then, they outnumbered the country's Christians, and were particularly numerous in the north of the country. Although immigration slowed from the 1990s, the Muslim population continued to grow in demographic importance due to a widening fertility gap.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Academic analyses agree that a key root cause of the Ivorian civil war was the spread of nativist and xenophobic discourse, its mobilisation by opportunistic politicians, and the resulting ethnic tensions. Central in this regard was the rise of Ivoirité as an ideology and state policy under President Bédié, and its use to marginalise and exclude immigrants, their descendants, and certain groups of Ivorian citizens. Ethnic tensions, xenophobic sentiment, and related communal disputes in Ivory Coast predated Bédié's rule, but Houphouët-Boigny had been able to accommodate, manage, and suppress them. Under Bédié, however, the rise of Ivoirité politicised such disputes, making origin and religious affiliation "the prime markers of identity" in Ivory Coast. Land disputes were increasingly framed in ethnic terms, and became increasingly common in the late 1990s: Houphouët-Boigny's liberal land policies had extended access to land to both internal and foreign migrants, and rising urban unemployment in the 1990s – resulting in back-migration to rural areas – led to intensified competition over fertile land.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Sociologist Francis Akindès notes that Ivoirité under Bédié had undertones which valorised Akan identity (the ethnic group of both Bédié and Houphouët-Boigny) and Christian identity; but the central variant of Ivoirité was framed as a form of patriotism and used national origin as the measure of "Ivorianness". Yet adjudicating residents' claims to Ivorian nationality was a complicated task, resting on a controversial distinction between "indigenous" Ivorians and Ivorians "of immigrant ancestry". Groups perceived as foreign had long histories of migration to Ivory Coast, both before and during colonialism – Burkinabés, for example, had been represented among Ivorian residents since before states existed in either Burkina Faso or Ivory Coast – and many of their members had been citizens for multiple generations. In this context, even the more inclusive nationality-based variant of Ivoirité had a marked tendency to denigrate and exclude groups of Ivorian citizens, notably the Dioula population of northern Ivory Coast.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Ouattara was himself Dioula – though he insisted he was an Ivorian national – and drew much of his support base from the predominantly Muslim north, particularly poor immigrants and their descendants on northern agricultural plantations. In November 1994, ahead of the 1995 presidential election, Bédié had the National Assembly amend the electoral code to require that presidential candidates should be Ivorian-born with two Ivorian-born parents (where previously only one such parent had been required). This was viewed as a strategic move to avert a leadership challenge from Ouattara, who at that point remained Bédié's rival inside PDCI.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Former army commander Robert Guéï assumed power in December 1999, in a coup d'état which overthrew Bédié. The coup originated in a mutiny, itself occasioned by Bédié's refusal to release detained RDR members or to meet other demands of the relevant faction of the military. Guéï had been fired by Bédié in 1995, reportedly because he declined to deploy the military during pre-election public demonstrations, and, once in office, he said that the new military government would seek to reverse Bédié's changes to the electoral code. However, it did the opposite: in July 2000, the Ivory Coast adopted by referendum a constitutional amendment which, under article 35 of the constitution, would permanently restrict eligibility for the presidency to those "of Ivorian origin, born of a father and mother who are also Ivorian by birth". This provision was used to maintain Ouattara's disqualification, and the candidacy of other opposition leaders was also blocked. As a result, Gbagbo was the only major opposition figure allowed to challenge Guéï in the 2000 presidential election. Gbagbo won the election, although Guéï refused to cede power to him until forced to do so by violent public protests in which 206 people were killed and 1,207 injured. In the violence, FPI supporters reportedly targeted not only Guéï's forces but also supporters of Ouattara's RDR, as well as northerners and immigrants whom they assumed supported RDR.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: President Gbagbo took up the mantle of Ivoirité and further entrenched it in state institutions. According to Human Rights Watch, Gbagbo's security forces committed abuses against civilians, targeting – on the basis of their nationality, ethnicity, or religion – immigrants, their descendants, and Ivorians from the north. Moreover, in 2001, the FPI government introduced a new national identification system, under which residents applying for official identity documents were required to prove their nationality, including the locality of their place of birth, to a new National Identification Office (ONI, "Office national d'identification"). This policy affected the voting rights not only of immigrants but also of many northern Ivorians. Thus the political transition to Gbago's government did little to ease ethnic tensions. For related reasons, and as throughout Guéï's rule, the mood in the military remained generally mutinous, and Gbagbo faced opposition from both Guéï loyalists and Ouattara sympathisers within the army. An attempted coup in January 2001, which Gbagbo blamed on the interference of Burkina Faso, led to renewed attacks on Burkinabé residents by FPI supporters.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The primary rebel force in the civil war was the New Forces of Ivory Coast (FNCI, "Forces nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire"), created in December 2012 as a coalition between the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI, "Mouvement patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire"), the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO, "Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest"), and the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP, "Mouvement pour la justice et la paix"). Guillaume Soro led the MPCI, whose insurgency began the war, and he became the general secretary of FNCI. At least a significant portion of MPCI was aligned or sympathetic to the Rally of the Republicans (RDR, "Rassemblement des républicains"), Alassane Ouattara's opposition party, while MPIGO and MJP claimed allegiance to Ivory Coast's former military leader, Robert Guéï, who died at the beginning of the war.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The Ivorian government claimed that MPCI was supported by Burkina Faso, an allegation which Burkinabé President Blaise Compaore repeatedly denied. The International Crisis Group, however, regarded the allegation as plausible: sources in the Burkinabé government reported that arms had been delivered to the rebels by air, and Western intelligence proved that some of the arms used in the rebels' initial attacks had come from the Burkinabé Presidential Guard stocks. However, both International Crisis Group and Western intelligence reports gave less credence to Gbagbo's further accusation that Burkinabé troops had participated directly in the initial attacks. MPIGO and MJP were reported to have received assistance from the Liberian government, reflecting a partial spillover of the Liberian Civil War, and, according to a March 2003 report by Global Witness, 90% of MJP and MPIGO forces were Liberian or Sierra Leonean mercenaries, many of them ex-members of Charles Taylor's Revolutionary United Front.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: President Laurent Gbagbo was supported by loyalists in the state security services and National Armed Forces (FANCI, "Forces armées nationales de Côte d'Ivoire"). In addition, he reportedly recruited foreign mercenaries, some of whom had previously been affiliated with the South Africa-based Executive Outcomes, and including a number of Belarusian pilots. Various civilian militias supported Gbagbo and his political party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI, "Front populaire ivoirien") – the most important among them was the Young Patriots' Pan-African Congress (COJEP, "Congrès panafricain des jeunes et des patriotes"). In 2005, Human Rights Watch reported that the Ivorian government had also recruited foreign combatants, primarily from Liberia, and including child soldiers. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 2002 and 2004, the Ivorian government purchased arms from Angola, Belarus, Bulgaria, Israel, Romania, and Ukraine.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The French military launched its intervention in Ivory Coast, Opération Licorne, on 22 September 2002, three days after the start of the war, with an initial focus on protecting French and other foreign nationals. Originally a contingent of 700, Opération Licorne comprised 4,000 troops by July 2003. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deployed its own peace force on 18 January 2003.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The United Nations (UN) had an official presence in Ivory Coast from 6 February 2003, when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Albert Tévoédjrè as his Special Representative in Ivory Coast. From 27 June 2003, Tévoédirè was supported by the UN Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI, "Mission des Nations unies en Côte d'Ivoire"), established by Resolution 1479 of the UN Security Council, with a mandate to monitor implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord. The following year, Security Council Resolution 1528 replaced MINUCI with an ambitious peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI). UNOCI deployed on 4 April 2004 and helped France police the buffer zone between the belligerents. It had an initial authorised strength of 6,240 uniformed personnel, and was further expanded by Resolution 1609 in 2005 and Resolution 1682 in 2006. By mid-2007, it comprised just over 9,000 uniformed personnel from more than 40 countries. ECOWAS re-hatted its troops and handed over to UNOCI in April 2004, but, for practical and financial reasons, the Security Council allowed the French Operation Licorne to remain in place under its own chain of command.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The "opening salvo" in the war was a rebellion against Gbagbo's government by Ivorian troops, who on 19 September 2002 executed a well-coordinated simultaneous attack on three Ivorian cities, including Abidjan. It was reportedly planned by former pro-RDR or pro-Guéï dissidents in the military and in the Student Federation of Ivory Coast (FESCI, "Fédération estudiantine et scolaire de Côte d'Ivoire"). According to the International Crisis Group, the rebellion involved about 750 troops, but it reportedly originated in a smaller protest of about 200 soldiers, primarily from the north, who objected to their demobilisation by the government, viewing it as ethnically motivated.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: A severe response from the government – which included demolishing the homes of immigrant workers accused of supporting the rebellion – was supported by "ad hoc" pro-government militias. Guéï was shot dead on the day of the rebellion – according to his family, while having lunch – "in circumstances that lead many to believe the government wanted him eliminated". After Ouattara's house was burned down, he took refuge at the French ambassador's residence; while former President Bédié was accommodated at the Canadian ambassador's residence. Having failed to take Abidjan, the rebels – who later identified themselves as the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI, "Mouvement patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire") – retreated northwards, and they quickly established control over much of the north, including Bouaké and Korhogo.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Ivory Coast's former colonial power, France, was invested in the outcome of the conflict – given its significant business interests in Ivory Coast, and the presence of more than 20,000 French citizens there – but was extremely reluctant to intervene in support of Gbagbo. Nonetheless, on 22 September, France launched Operation Licorne, with an initial mandate focused on protecting and evacuating French nationals and other foreign nationals. Indeed, in the weeks after the rebellion, French and American forces evacuated 2,500 people – mostly foreign nationals – from Ivory Coast. Operation Licorne was initially staffed by the 650 troops regularly based in Ivory Coast under the terms of a bilateral defence agreement. These were soon supplemented by additional troops shifted from French bases in Gabon and other African countries, as well as by a deployment of 70 additional paratroopers in October. France emphasised the forces' protection mandate, saying repeatedly that it was not intervening in the conflict, but the presence of French troops soon became crucial to the government's security, for example in barring rebel advances on Yamoussoukro. It was also reported that France had agreed to provide Gbagbo's government with logistical support and tactical advice. However, both sides – the government and the rebels – accused France of supporting the other, and the French intervention faced opposition from a segment of the Ivorian public: on 22 October, French troops dispersed a demonstration outside their base, using grenades and tear gas to do so.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The conflict continued to intensify, as both sides recruited and armed thousands of civilians – and, on the government side, contracted foreign mercenaries. However, on September 29, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had launched peace negotiations in Accra, Ghana, under the mediation of a high-level contact group comprising representatives of Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. This initiative resulted on 17 October in a ceasefire between MPCI and the Ivorian government, as well as an agreement to continue substantive peace talks under ECOWAS auspices. Further bilateral talks were held in Lomé, Togo, in October and November, but failed to break a political deadlock: MPCI demanded Gbagbo's removal, fresh elections, and a review of the constitution.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: By then, moreover, MPCI was no longer the sole rebel group involved in the conflict. While MPCI continued to hold much of the north and the government much of the south, by the end of November, two rebel groups were operating in the west, near the Liberian border: the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP, "Mouvement pour la justice et la paix") and the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO, "Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest"). Both groups demanded Gbagbo's resignation and revenge for Guéï's death. On 28 November, MJP and MPIGO took control of Man, and French troops were drawn into hot conflict for the first time, recapturing the airport in a battle which killed ten rebels and injured one French soldier. On the government side, FPI supporters, led by the Young Patriots (COJEP, "Congrès panafricain des jeunes et des patriotes"), clashed frequently with opposition supporters in violent communal political demonstrations.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: By the middle of December 2002, 400 people had died in the conflict and more than 100,000 had been displaced. At that time, there were more than 2,500 French troops, including members of the Foreign Legion, in Ivory Coast; their mission had been enhanced, to include enforcing the 17 October ceasefire by maintaining a buffer zone between rebel forces in the north and government in the south. In December, the rebels regrouped politically, with MJP and MPGIO joined MPCI as junior partners in a new political coalition, the New Forces of Ivory Coast (FNCI, "Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire"), led by Guillaume Soro of the MPCI. This merger was viewed as a strategic choice to improve the rebels' bargaining position ahead of upcoming peace talks. Thereafter, the New Forces administered its northern territories in ten "comzones", each headed by a zone commander who was typically a former military officer.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: ECOWAS leaders had agreed on 18 December 2002 to deploy an ECOWAS Peace Force for Côte d'Ivoire, comprising 3,200 military personnel. The force was to arrive before the end of December and take over from France in monitoring the ceasefire. However, its deployment was delayed, and the first contingent of troops did not arrive until 18 January 2003 and consisted of only 172 soldiers. According to the International Peace Institute, the inadequacy of ECOWAS's intervention motivated France to lobby in the United Nations (UN) Security Council for a UN peacekeeping operation and, in January 2003, to spearhead peace talks.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: From 15 to 26 January 2003, the various parties – government, rebel forces, and opposition political parties – met at Linas-Marcoussis, near Paris, France, to undertake substantive peace negotiations. The talks were "a French-driven initiative with inputs from regional organizations and the UN": they were chaired by Pierre Mazeaud, the chairman of the French Constitutional Council, who was assisted by Kéba Mbaye (a Senegalese judge), Seydou Diarra (former Ivorian prime minister and African Union (AU) special envoy), Mohamed Ibn Chambas (the executive secretary of ECOWAS), and Ahmedou Ould Abdallah (the Special Representative for West Africa of the UN Secretary-General). The New Forces had inherited MPCI's position in the negotiations: the rebels demanded a fresh election, viewing as illegitimate the results of the 2000 election; while the Ivorian government insisted that Gbagbo should complete his presidential term.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The parties signed a compromise peace agreement, the Linas-Marcoussis Accord, on 26 January. The agreement provided for power-sharing through a Government of National Reconciliation: Gbagbo would remain in office, but Seydou Diarra would be appointed as a non-partisan consensus prime minister, with the understanding that Diarra would not run in the next presidential election. The power-sharing government would include representation for all the agreement's signatories: the three major political parties (Bédié's PDCI, Ouattara's RDR, and Gbagbo's FDI), the three major rebel groups in the New Forces (MPCI, MJP, and MPIGO), and four smaller political parties – Movement of the Forces of the Future ("Mouvement des forces de l'avenir"), Ivorian Workers' Party ("Parti ivoirien des travailleurs"), Citizens' Democratic Union ("Union démocratique et citoyenne"), and Union for Democracy and Peace in Ivory Coast ("Union pour la démocratie et la paix en Côte d'Ivoire"). Most controversially, the rebels would control the important ministries of defence and the interior. The ultimate purpose of the Government of National Reconciliation was to allow credible elections to take place in 2005, and the appendix to the agreement outlined a nine-point plan for reforms to be undertaken to this end, including security sector reform, land tenure reform, and – perhaps most importantly – an end to divisive policies on citizenship, national identification, and electoral eligibility. The rebels agreed to disarm in exchange for amnesty and political representation.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The agreement received international backing. On 4 February, the UN Security Council adopted unanimously its first resolution on the Ivorian crisis, calling, in Resolution 1464, for the implementation of the peace agreement, and expressing approval of the French and ECOWAS presence in Ivory Coast. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Albert Tévoédjrè as his Special Representative in Ivory Coast.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Inside Ivory Coast, however, FPI and government supporters regarded the Linas-Marcoussis Accord with hostility. Opposition came especially from the military, which rejected New Forces control of the interior and defence ministries and the integration of the rebels into the army. Opposition to the agreement also acquired strong overtones of anti-French sentiment: French neutrality during the early phases of Operation Licorne had already been viewed as suspect, and the Linas-Marcoussis Accord was interpreted, by its Ivorian critics, as providing confirmation that France was attempting to undermine Gbagbo's leadership. Gbagbo's supporters blamed France for coercing him to accept the agreement. Indeed, in "a clear move to distance himself" from the agreement – which he referred to as a "proposal" – Gbagbo had not signed it, but had sent another representative to sign on FPI's behalf.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Immediately after the accord was signed, the Young Patriots organised violent anti-French protests, apparently with Gbagbo's backing. A demonstration in Abidjan on 2 February drew 100,000 protesters, who objected to "French occupation" and to the power-sharing deal. The demonstrations continued on a daily basis, and at one point involved an attempt to seize the airport to prevent Diarra from returning to Abidjan to head the new coalition government. Amid attacks on French nationals, businesses, and bases, France carried out another wave of evacuations of French nationals. These protests in early 2003 marked the beginning of a surge in activity by Ivory Coast's so-called "patriotic movement", which continued to depend on mobilisation by the Young Patriots and to receive encouragement from Gbagbo, himself a longstanding nationalist. In the increasingly popular patriotic analysis, the crisis in Ivory Coast was a "war of second independence" from France's neocolonial influence, and international intervention in the crisis consisted in an attack on Ivorian sovereignty, particularly insofar as the Linas-Marcoussis Accord was viewed as recognising the legitimacy of the New Forces rebellion and as imposing constitutional change on Ivory Coast. Gbagbo was portrayed as a nationalist pioneer, persecuting for upsetting the status quo of French hegemony. In the months after Linas-Marcoussis, this narrative was used by Gbagbo to deny the legitimacy of international decisions, in favour of reasserting presidential prerogatives, and to justify his reluctance to implement the peace agreement.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: In a pattern that would be maintained in subsequent years, the signature of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord was followed by significant delays in its implementation, requiring the reopening of peace talks – though the Linas-Marcoussis Accord remained the basic framework within which all such talks took place between 2003 and 2006. On 7–8 March 2003, the first implementation stalemate was temporarily resolved during another summit in Accra, organised by ECOWAS and mediated by Ghanaian President John Kufuor, and therefore intended to mitigate the appearance of French domination of the peace process. The objective of the talks was to revise the power-sharing formula outlined in the Linas-Marcoussis Accord. At Accra II, the parties re-committed to implementing the initial agreement, and, to this end, the New Forces renounced its claims on the defence and interior ministries. Instead, a fifteen-member National Security Council would be established and would agree on candidates to fill those posts.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The parties signed a comprehensive ceasefire on 3 May, and, the same day, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1479, which established the UN Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI, "Mission des Nations unies en Côte d'Ivoire") to monitor implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord. MINUCI was headed by, and would assist, Tévoédirè, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative. MINUCI arrived in Ivory Coast on 27 June 2003; initially comprising 34 officers, it was planned to expand to 76 personnel by the end of the year. Notwithstanding the ceasefire, "extreme violence" continued in the western part of the country, necessitating in late May a joint operation involving elements of both government and rebel forces, as well as French and ECOWAS peacekeepers.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 4 July 2003, the government and New Forces announced publicly that the civil war was over, and that they had agreed to work together to implement the peace agreement. However, the violence did not entirely dissipate. In late August, Operation Licorne suffered its first casualties when two French soldiers were killed by rebels near Sakassou. The same week, French intelligence services in Paris arrested 10 people, including Ibrahim Coulibaly, whom they said had been plotting to assassinate Gbagbo and destabilise the peace. Moreover, the political conflict raged on. The New Forces refused to begin the demobilisation and disarmament process – or to allow government administrators to return to the north of the country – until Gbagbo had made permanent appointments to the sensitive ministries of defence and the interior. Gbagbo also had not fulfilled his promise to revise electoral eligibility requirements. Progress appeared imminent by September 2003. Ivory Coast reopened its border with Burkina Faso, and the UN downgraded Ivory Coast's security rating, reflecting an improvement in conditions. On 13 September, Gbagbo finally made permanent appointments to the defence and interior portfolios. However, he declined to appoint the defence candidate proposed by the National Security Council, retired General Ouassenan Koré. Angered by this unilateral deviation from the Accra II agreement, New Forces representatives announced they would protest the move by suspending their participation in the reconciliation government. They also said that Gbagbo had refused to delegate executive powers to the prime minister and reconciliation government, as stipulated by the Linas-Marcoussis Accord, and warned that the resumption of violence was a real possibility. By the end of 2003, disarmament had not been implemented – in contravention of a 1 October deadline – and military authority in the country remained bifurcated under a "de facto" north-south partition, while inter-ethnic violence continued in the west, particularly between local Guéré and Yacouba. By then, over 700,000 people had been displaced in the conflict.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 27 February 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1528, authorising the replacement of MINUCI with an ambitious peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), with a mandate to police the buffer zone between the belligerents. However, in the first half of 2004, events inside Ivory Coast did not bode well for the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Accord, as relations between Ivorian actors continued to deteriorate. In mid-February, Ivorian authorities issued a ministerial decree which would "Ivorianise" workplaces, requiring that companies could only hire foreigners if they submitted a plan to turn the post over to an Ivorian within two years. On 4 March, opposition party PDCI suspended its participation in the reconciliation government, accusing FPI ministers of taking unilateral decisions. On 10 March, one group of Young Patriots stormed the main Ivorian courthouse and physically attacked several magistrates; while another attacked the Hotel du Golf, the residence of the New Forces ministers. The same week, responding to violent demonstrations by students in Daloa, state forces killed one student and wounded 48 others.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 25 March, opposition parties organised a public demonstration in Abidjan to call on the government to implement the Linas-Marcoussis Accord. In response, the security forces and pro-government militias opened fire on the demonstrators, while other opposition supporters were rounded up by militias in subsequent days. In May, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded an inquiry into the march and aftermath, finding that: at least 120 people were killed, 274 wounded and 20 disappeared. These figures are by no means final... It is equally clear that many of the killings on these two days did not take place in the street but in the dwellings of would-be demonstrators or even innocent civilians targeted by the security forces simply because of their name, origin or community group. It was a well-known fact that police officers or other security officials or parallel forces would harass, try to rob, or search and arrest without warrants people in Abidjan even in the days preceding 25 March. However, these activities had greatly intensified since 23 March and contributed to the explosive environment. Credible accounts received by the Commission indicate that these actions too had been planned and directed by the security forces and later executed in cooperation and collusion with the parallel forces.In protest against the violence, the New Forces and Ouattara's RDR announced their withdrawal from the reconciliation government. In May, Gbagbo publicly lambasted the opposition for suspending their participation; shortly afterwards, it was announced that he had sacked (permanently) three opposition ministers: PDCI's Patrick Achi, the New Forces' Youssouff Soumahoro, and Soro, the leader of the New Forces. Soro called the move "tantamount to a coup d'état against the peace accords", and said that it would be impossible to establish peace in Ivory Coast until Gbagbo was removed from office.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Peace talks resumed in July 2004 in Accra in an attempt to revitalise the peace process. An agreement signed upon the conclusion of the talks once again committed the parties to implement the Linas-Marcoussis Accord, this time "with specific deadlines and benchmarks for progress". The talks focused on addressing key obstacles to the peace process – notably electoral eligibility, citizenship reform, and the disarmament programme. The rebels agreed to rejoin the reconciliation government, and Gbagbo agreed to revise article 35 of the constitution, which until then had disqualified Ouattara from standing in presidential elections.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: However, by October, it was apparent that the Accra III agreement had not broken the implementation deadlock: on 12 October, Gbagbo announced that he would not submit the revised article 35 for National Assembly approval until after the rebels had disarmed; the rebels announced, in response, that they would not disarm until real progress had been made towards credible elections. The New Forces therefore missed the October 15 deadline to begin disarmament, and in early November, as tensions mounted, they formally refused to disarm. By then, the New Forces had imposed a state of emergency in their territories, claiming to have found weaponry hidden in a commercial truck – which they said was a delivery from Gbagbo's forces to Soro's internal rivals in the north – and warning that "the war isn't over yet. It is going to resume shortly". A sustained assault on the press followed, with newspapers partial to the north being banned and two presses destroyed; dissenting radio stations were silenced.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 4 November, Gbagbo's forces violated the prevailing ceasefire, as the military launched air attacks against rebel positions in Bouaké and Korhogo. The Young Patriots launched another attack on New Forces residences at the Hotel du Golf, expelling Prime Minister Diarra. After the attacks, Soro of the New Forces declared the Linas-Marcoussis Accord and subsequent Accra agreements "null and void".


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 6 November, one or two Ivorian Sukhoi Su-25 bombed an Operation Licorne base in Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers and an American aid worker and injuring 31 others, the heaviest casualties suffered by a French operation since the 1983 Beirut barrack bombings. France rejected the Ivorian claim that the bombing had been accidental, and French President Jacques Chirac ordered the retaliatory destruction of both Ivorian Sukhoi Su-25 and five MI-24 ground attack helicopters – the entirety of the Ivorian air force's fleet. The French–Ivorian clashes which followed represented "a new peak" in the conflict and threatened to derail the peace process entirely, as pro-Gbagbo youths rioted against the French response and looted French-owned businesses, triggering yet another wave of Western evacuations: in two weeks, some 9,000 expatriates left the country. On 7 November, French forces opened fire on rioters in Abidjan, killing between 20 and 60 people according to French and Ivorian estimates respectively.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The clashes strengthened the pro-Gbagbo "patriotic" narrative that the conflict involved a "second war of independence" from France. On 13 November, Mamadou Coulibaly, the President of the Ivorian National Assembly, declared that the government of the Ivory Coast did not take any responsibility for the 6 November bombardment, and announced that the government intended to approach the International Court of Justice to hold France responsible for its destruction of Ivorian air force equipment and for the deaths that the French response had caused. In 2016, a French judicial investigation recommended that three French ministers – Michel Barnier, Dominique de Villepin and Michèle Alliot-Marie – be referred for prosecution for allegedly having obstructed an investigation into the initial Ivorian air raid. In 2021, a Paris court issued life sentences to two Ivorian officers and one Belarusian mercenary, who in absentia had been found guilty of carrying out the air raid.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1572 on 15 November, imposing an immediate arms embargo on Ivory Coast, though the effectiveness of the embargo is debatable. It also authorised targeted sanctions on Ivorian spoilers, and threatened to impose such sanctions if the belligerents did not return to peace negotiations timeously.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 3 to 6 April 2005, South African President Thabo Mbeki chaired peace talks in Pretoria, South Africa, arranged under African Union (AU) auspices with the intention of reviving the peace process. The resulting Pretoria Agreement, intended as a supplement to the Linas-Marcoussis Accord, established a cessation of hostilities and ended the state of war. Mbeki had been involved in the Accra III talks, and, by acknowledging Gbagbo's concerns about Ivorian sovereignty, was able to nudge Gbagbo to a deal on sensitive electoral issues – notably the eligibility in elections of all peace talk participants, including Ouattara; and international supervision of the next Ivorian elections. In June, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1603, calling on the UN Secretary-General to prepare to fulfil that supervisory role. Gbagbo also agreed to increase opposition representation on the Independent Electoral Commission and to disband pro-government militias. The New Forces and opposition parties mistrusted Mbeki, viewing him as a biased mediator, but did agree once again to disarm and to rejoin the reconciliation government. Rebel forces started to withdraw heavy weapons from the front line on 21 April, re-establishing the buffer zone, and the parties met in Pretoria again in June 2005 to review and reaffirm the agreement.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Nonetheless, and possibly due to intentional delays by Gbagbo, election preparations were slow, even as the end of Gbagbo's five-year presidential term – 30 October 2005, according to the constitution – approached. In early September, both the New Forces and the opposition parties said that elections held on 30 October as planned would not be free and fair. In early October, the AU's Peace and Security Council conceded that Gbagbo could remain in office for up to 12 months further. Despite objections from the PDCI and RDR, as well as its two smaller partners in the opposition Houphouëtist alliance, the UN Security Council followed suit. On 21 October, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1633, which called for the establishment of an international ministerial working group and mediation group – mandated to draw up a road map for holding elections – and demanded the appointment, by consensus, of a new prime minister in Ivory Coast. Following a delay, both directives were implemented, with Charles Konan Banny appointed the new prime minister in December 2005. On 15 December, the Security Council's Resolution 1643 extended the arms embargo and established a new ban against the trade of Ivorian diamonds, marginally affecting the revenues of the New Forces. Although two Young Patriots leaders and one New Forces commander were subject to UN targeted sanctions (a travel ban and asset freezes), the main protagonists avoided such measures; among other factors, discord had emerged in the African regional response, as the AU Peace and Security Council – and South Africa individually – opposed the coercive measures which ECOWAS favoured.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: At this stage, the security situation – even around the buffer zone – remained unstable, obstructing UNOCI's movement and operations. In mid-January 2006, UN bases in Abidjan, Daloa, Guiglo, and San-Pédro were besieged by thousands of pro-government demonstrators, after the Young Patriots took over the Ivorian state-run radio and television stations and sent out a call for civilians to attack UNOCI and the French. The "New York Times" reported that four people had died in the clashes. In early November 2006, the UN Security Council agreed to delay elections further, extending Gbagbo and Banny's terms for another "new and final" transition period of one year. Resolution 1721, lobbied for by France, also strengthened the powers of Prime Minister Banny, leading Gbagbo to warn that he would not carry out UN directives which were inconsistent with the Ivorian constitution.During this period, the Ivorian national football team was credited with boosting national reconciliation. In 2007, the team qualified for the 2008 African Cup of Nations in a game held in rebel-held Bouaké and attended by troops from both sides; similarly, in October 2005, the team's qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup sparked days of public celebration in Abidjan, and on some accounts was responsible for persuading the government and rebels to recommit to peace negotiations.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Shortly after the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1721, Gbagbo announced that he was preparing his own "new framework" to resolve the crisis, reflecting that, "Confronted by the failure of external solutions, it is time for Ivorians to assume total ownership of the peace process". The new framework revolved around "direct dialogue" between the New Forces and Gbagbo's FPI, to be undertaken bilaterally without international mediation. Bilateral pre-negotiations had in fact been underway in secret since mid-2006.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Although touted as a "home-grown" solution, the talks were facilitated by Burkinabé President Blaise Compaoré, with ECOWAS's endorsement, and Mbeki had also been involved in the pre-negotiations. None of the opposition parties were invited to participate, and Gbagbo and Soro held direct talks alone for the first time.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 4 March 2007, the parties – the FPI government and the New Forces – signed the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, their eighth peace agreement since 2002. The agreement, which represented a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict, entailed a new power-sharing arrangement, abandoning the notion of a consensus prime minister: instead, Soro was to become prime minister (thus marginalising opposition leaders Ouattara and Bédié) – but Gbagbo's constitutional prerogatives as president were also to be re-established. The agreement also implied a reduce role for international supervision: several international monitoring mechanisms agreed to after the Pretoria talks (including the establishment of a UN High Representative for the Election in Côte d'Ivoire) were eliminated, although the UN Secretary General's Special Representative retained the right to certify the electoral process. The agreement included mechanisms to expedite voter registration and identification so that a presidential election could be held in ten months. It also included provisions for the disarmament of combatants and, through a joint command centre, for the restructuring of the military and security forces.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Soro took office in early April, and formed a cabinet that retained many of the ministers who had served under his predecessor. On 16 April, Gbagbo declared that the war was over, as he, with Soro, presided over the first steps to dismantle the UNOCI buffer zone, an occasion celebrated by a joint parade of government and New Forces troops. On 18 June, the central government began its administrative redeployment in northern areas formerly held by rebels, with the first new prefect installed in Bouaké. Despite a fatal rocket attack on Soro's airplane on 30 June, the reconciliation process continued with the large "Peace Flame" disarmament ceremony on 30 July, in which the two leaders set fire to a pile of weapons, symbolising the end of the conflict. The ceremony also involved Gbagbo's first visit, since 2002, to the former rebel stronghold of Bouaké.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: On 27 November, Gbagbo and Soro met with Compaoré in Ouagadougou to discuss the implementation of the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement and set a deadline for elections. In late December, they met again, this time in Tiébissou to preside over the beginning of a nation-wide disarmament process, scheduled to unfold over three months as troops from both sides left the front and returned to barracks. When the buffer zone was fully dismantled in July 2008, it was replaced by a "green line" of international peacekeepers, split across seventeen observation points, who would gradually be replaced by joint Ivorian patrols including both New Forces and government troops. Disarmament and demobilisation encountered several hurdles. Opposition politicians Ouattara and Bédié expressed opposition to the sequencing of disarmament, suggesting that elections should take place first, while there were occasional riots by contingents of ex-rebels who demanded payment (or augmentation) of the demobilisation payments they had been promised by the new government. France, Japan, and the United States announced in May 2009 that they would make funds available to cover the election costs and the costs of the disarmament payments.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Preparations for the presidential election began in 2007, with Sagem, a French company, hired to administer the voters' roll; but, in October 2008, the New Forces suggested postponing the election for no more than a year, in order to provide more time for voter registration. In early November 2008, several Ivorian parties – including Gbagbo, Soro, Bédié, and Ouattara – met in Ouagadougou and agreed to postpone; the UN Security Council called for elections to be held no later than mid-2009. Despite an announcement in May 2009 that the election would be held on November 29, it did not take place until October 2010.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: According to 2009 estimates by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, in its deadliest years between 2002 and 2004, the war had between 933 and 1,689 casualties, with a best guess of 1,265 casualties. UNOCI suffered 36 casualties during the war: fifteen in 2005, thirteen in 2006, and eight in 2007. According to the UN Refugee Agency, approximately 750,000 people were forcibly displaced between 2002 and 2007, including 50,000 refugees who fled primarily to Liberia, Guinea, and Mali.


title: First Ivorian Civil War

text: Ivory Coast held its first presidential elections since 2000 in October 2010, but a dispute over the result led to renewed political crisis and to the beginning of the Second Ivorian Civil War. Soro did not run in the election, nor did the New Forces endorse a candidate. The Independent Electoral Commission declared Ouattara the winner, a result endorsed by international observers, but was contradicted in this respect by the Constitutional Council; both Gbagbo and Ouattara claimed victory and took the presidential oath of office. Hundreds of people were killed in the violence that followed, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. UN Security Council Resolution 1962 extended UNOCI's mandate and called on all parties to recognise Ouattara as Ivory Coast's rightful president. The second civil war ended with Gbagbo's defeat and arrest in April 2011, but, despite its brevity, had a higher death toll than the first: a 2012 national commission of inquiry recorded 3,248 fatalities.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. The word is derived from Latin "serpens", a crawling animal or snake. Snakes have been associated with some of the oldest rituals known to mankind and represent dual expression of good and evil.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In some cultures, snakes were fertility symbols. For example, the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew the fertility of Nature. During the dance, live snakes were handled, and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. "The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops." To the Hopi, snakes symbolized the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshiped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The anthropologist Lynn Isbell has argued that, as primates, the serpent as a symbol of death is built into our unconscious minds because of our evolutionary history. Isbell argues that for millions of years snakes were the only significant predators of primates, and that this explains why fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias worldwide and why the symbol of the serpent is so prevalent in world mythology; the serpent is an innate image of danger and death.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Furthermore, the psychoanalyst Joseph Lewis Henderson and the ethnologist Maude Oakes have argued that the serpent is a symbol of initiation and rebirth precisely because it is a symbol of death.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Using phylogenetical and statistical methods on related motifs from folklore and myth, French comparativist Julien d'Huy managed to reconstruct a possible archaic narrative about the serpent. In this Paleolithic "ophidian" myth, snakes are connected to rains and storms, and even to water sources. In regards to the latter, it blocks rivers and other water sources in exchange for human sacrifices and/or material good offerings.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Historically, serpents and snakes represent fertility or a creative life force. As snakes shed their skin through sloughing, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. The ouroboros is a symbol of eternity and continual renewal of life.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In some Abrahamic traditions, the serpent represents sexual desire. According to some interpretations of the Midrash, the serpent represents sexual passion. In Hinduism, Kundalini is a coiled serpent.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Serpents are represented as potent guardians of temples and other sacred spaces. This connection may be grounded in the observation that when threatened, some snakes (such as rattlesnakes or cobras) frequently hold and defend their ground, first resorting to threatening display and then fighting, rather than retreat. Thus, they are natural guardians of treasures or sacred sites which cannot easily be moved out of harm's way.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: At Angkor in Cambodia, numerous stone sculptures present hooded multi-headed nāgas as guardians of temples or other premises. A favorite motif of Angkorean sculptors from approximately the 12th century CE onward was that of the Buddha, sitting in the position of meditation, his weight supported by the coils of a multi-headed nāga that also uses its flared hood to shield him from above. This motif recalls the story of the Buddha and the serpent king Mucalinda: as the Buddha sat beneath a tree engrossed in meditation, Mucalinda came up from the roots of the tree to shield the Buddha from a tempest that was just beginning to arise.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The Gadsden flag of the American Revolution depicts a rattlesnake coiled up and poised to strike. Below the image of the snake is the legend, "Don't tread on me." The snake symbolized the dangerousness of colonists willing to fight for their rights and homeland, and was also symbolic of their separation from Europe, as it was an animal unique to America. The motif is repeated in the First Navy Jack of the US Navy.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Serpents are connected with venom and medicine. The snake's venom is associated with the chemicals of plants and fungi that have the power to either heal or provide expanded consciousness (and even the elixir of life and immortality) through divine intoxication. Because of its herbal knowledge and entheogenic association, the snake was often considered one of the wisest animals, being (close to the) divine. Its divine aspect combined with its habitat in the earth between the roots of plants made it an animal with chthonic properties connected to the afterlife and immortality. The deified Greek physician Asclepius, as god of medicine and healing, carried a staff with one serpent wrapped around it, which has become the symbol of modern medicine. Moses also had a replica of a serpent on a pole, the Nehushtan, mentioned in Numbers 21:8.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In many myths, the chthonic serpent (sometimes a pair) lives in or is coiled around a Tree of Life situated in a divine garden. In the Genesis story of the Torah and biblical Old Testament, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is situated in the Garden of Eden together with the tree of life and the serpent. In Greek mythology, Ladon coiled around the tree in the garden of the Hesperides protecting the golden apples.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Similarly Níðhöggr (Nidhogg Nagar), the dragon of Norse mythology, eats from the roots of the Yggdrasil, the World Tree.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Under yet another tree (the Bodhi Tree of Enlightenment), the Buddha sat in ecstatic meditation. When a storm arose, the mighty serpent king Mucalinda rose up from his place beneath the earth and enveloped the Buddha in seven coils for seven days, so as not to break his ecstatic state.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The Vision Serpent was a symbol of rebirth in Maya mythology, with origins going back to earlier Maya conceptions, lying at the center of the world as the Mayans conceived it. "It is in the center axis atop the World Tree. Essentially the World Tree and the Vision Serpent, representing the king, created the center axis which communicates between the spiritual and the earthly worlds or planes. It is through ritual that the king could bring the center axis into existence in the temples and create a doorway to the spiritual world, and with it power."


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Sometimes the Tree of Life is represented (in a combination with similar concepts such as the World Tree and Axis mundi or "World Axis") by a staff such as those used by shamans. Examples of such staffs featuring coiled snakes in mythology are the caduceus of Hermes, the Rod of Asclepius, the Staff of Moses, and the papyrus reeds and deity poles entwined by a single serpent Wadjet, dating to earlier than 3000 BCE. The oldest known representation of "two" snakes entwined around a rod is that of the Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida, who was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head, eventually becoming a god of healing and magic. It is the companion of Dumuzi (Tammuz), with whom it stood at the gate of heaven. In the Louvre, there is a famous green steatite vase carved for King Gudea of Lagash (dated variously 2200–2025 BCE) with an inscription dedicated to Ningizzida. Ningizzida was the ancestor of Gilgamesh, who, according to the epic, dived to the bottom of the waters to retrieve the plant of life. But while he rested from his labor, a serpent came and ate the plant. The snake became immortal, and Gilgamesh was destined to die.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Ningizzida has been popularized in the 20th century by Raku Kei (Reiki, a.k.a. "The Way of the Fire Dragon"), where "Nin Giz Zida" is believed to be a fire serpent of Tibetan rather than Sumerian origin. "Nin Giz Zida" is another name for the ancient Hindu concept Kundalini, a Sanskrit word meaning either "coiled up" or "coiling like a snake". "Kundalini" refers to the mothering intelligence behind yogic awakening and spiritual maturation leading to altered states of consciousness. There are a number of other translations of the term, usually emphasizing a more serpentine nature to the word—e.g. "serpent power". It has been suggested by Joseph Campbell that the symbol of snakes coiled around a staff is an ancient representation of Kundalini physiology. The staff represents the spinal column, with the snake(s) being energy channels. In the case of two coiled snakes, they usually cross each other seven times, a possible reference to the seven energy centers called chakras.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In Ancient Egypt, where the earliest written cultural records exist, the serpent appears from the beginning to the end of their mythology. Ra and Atum ("he who completes or perfects") became the same god, "Atum", the "counter-Ra", associated with earth animals, including the serpent: Nehebkau ("he who harnesses the souls") was the two-headed serpent deity who guarded the entrance to the underworld. He is often seen as the son of the snake goddess Renenutet. She often was confused with (and later was absorbed by) their primal snake goddess Wadjet, the Egyptian cobra, who from the earliest of records was the patron and protector of the country, all other deities, and the pharaohs. Hers is the first known oracle. She was depicted as the crown of Egypt, entwined around the staff of papyrus and the pole that indicated the status of all other deities, as well as having the all-seeing eye of wisdom and vengeance. She never lost her position in the Egyptian pantheon.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The image of the serpent as the embodiment of the wisdom transmitted by "Sophia" was an emblem used by gnosticism, especially those sects that the more orthodox characterized as "Ophites" ("Serpent People"). The chthonic serpent was one of the earth-animals associated with the cult of Mithras. The basilisk, the venomous "king of serpents" with the glance that kills, was hatched by a serpent, Pliny the Elder and others thought, from the egg of a cock.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The Rainbow Serpent (also known as the Rainbow Snake) is a major mythological being for Aboriginal people across Australia, although the creation myths associated with it are best known from northern Australia. In Fiji, Ratumaibulu was a serpent god who ruled the underworld and made fruit trees bloom. In the Northern Flinders Ranges reigns the Arkaroo, a serpent who drank Lake Frome empty, refuges into the mountains, carving valleys and waterholes, earthquakes through snoring.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The serpent, when forming a ring with its tail in its mouth, is a clear and widespread symbol of the "All-in-All", the totality of existence, infinity and the cyclic nature of the cosmos. The most well known version of this is the Aegypto-Greek ourobouros. It is believed to have been inspired by the Milky Way, as some ancient texts refer to a serpent of light residing in the heavens. The Ancient Egyptians associated it with Wadjet, one of their oldest deities, as well as another aspect, Hathor. In Norse mythology the World Serpent (or Midgard serpent) known as Jörmungandr encircled the world in the ocean's abyss biting its own tail.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In Hindu mythology Lord Vishnu is said to sleep while floating on the cosmic waters on the serpent Shesha. In the Puranas Shesha holds all the planets of the universe on his hoods and constantly sings the glories of Vishnu from all his mouths. He is sometimes referred to as "Ananta-Shesha," which means "Endless Shesha". In the Samudra manthan chapter of the Puranas, Shesha loosens Mount Mandara for it to be used as a churning rod by the Asuras and Devas to churn the ocean of milk in the heavens in order to make Soma (or Amrita), the divine elixir of immortality. As a churning rope another giant serpent called Vasuki is used.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In pre-Columbian Central America Quetzalcoatl was sometimes depicted as biting its own tail. The mother of Quetzalcoatl was the Aztec goddess Coatlicue ("the one with the skirt of serpents"), also known as Cihuacoatl ("The Lady of the serpent"). Quetzalcoatl's father was Mixcoatl ("Cloud Serpent"). He was identified with the Milky Way, the stars, and the heavens in several Mesoamerican cultures.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The demigod Aidophedo of the West African Ashanti people is also a serpent biting its own tail. In Dahomey mythology of Benin in West Africa, the serpent that supports everything on its many coils was named Dan. In the Vodou of Benin and Haiti, Ayida-Weddo (a.k.a. Aida-Wedo, Aido Quedo, "Rainbow-Serpent") is a spirit of fertility, rainbows and snakes, and a companion or wife to Dan, the father of all spirits. As Vodou was exported to Haiti through the slave trade, Dan became Danballah, Damballah or Damballah-Wedo. Because of his association with snakes, he is sometimes disguised as Moses, who carried a snake on his staff. He is also thought by many to be the same entity of Saint Patrick, known as a snake banisher.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The serpent Hydra is a star constellation representing either the serpent thrown angrily into the sky by Apollo or the Lernaean Hydra as defeated by Heracles for one of his Twelve Labors. The constellation Serpens represents a snake being tamed by Ophiuchus the snake-handler, another constellation. The most probable interpretation is that Ophiuchus represents the healer Asclepius.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Occasionally, serpents and dragons are used interchangeably, having similar symbolic functions. The venom of the serpent is thought to have a fiery quality similar to a fire-breathing dragon. The Greek Ladon and the Norse Níðhöggr (Nidhogg Nagar) are sometimes described as serpents and sometimes as dragons. In Germanic mythology, "serpent" (Old English: "wyrm", Old High German: "wurm", Old Norse: "ormr") is used interchangeably with the Greek borrowing "dragon" (OE: "draca", OHG: "trahho", ON: "dreki"). In China and especially in Indochina, the Indian serpent nāga was equated with the "lóng" or Chinese dragon. The Aztec and Toltec serpent god Quetzalcoatl also has dragon-like wings, like its equivalent in K'iche' Maya mythology Q'uq'umatz ("feathered serpent"), which had previously existed since Classic Maya times as the deity named Kukulkan.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In Africa the chief centre of serpent worship was Dahomey, but the cult of the python seems to have been of exotic origin, dating back to the first quarter of the 17th century. By the conquest of Whydah the Dahomeyans were brought in contact with a people of serpent worshipers, and ended by adopting from them the beliefs which they at first despised. At Whydah, the chief centre, there is a serpent temple, tenanted by some fifty snakes. Every python of the "danh-gbi" kind must be treated with respect, and death is the penalty for killing one, even by accident. "Danh-gbi" has numerous wives, who until 1857 took part in a public procession from which the profane crowd was excluded; a python was carried round the town in a hammock, perhaps as a ceremony for the expulsion of evils.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The rainbow-god of the Ashanti was also conceived to have the form of a snake. His messenger was said to be a small variety of boa, but only certain individuals, not the whole species, were sacred.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In many parts of Africa the serpent is looked upon as the incarnation of deceased relatives. Among the Amazulu, as among the Betsileo of Madagascar, certain species are assigned as the abode of certain classes. The Maasai, on the other hand, regard each species as the habitat of a particular family of the tribe.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In ancient Mesopotamia, Nirah, the messenger god of Ištaran, was represented as a serpent on "kudurrus", or boundary stones. Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork and still appear sporadically on cylinder seals and amulets until as late as the thirteenth century BCE. The horned viper ("Cerastes cerastes") appears in Kassite and Neo-Assyrian kudurrus and is invoked in Assyrian texts as a magical protective entity. A dragon-like creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian period until the Hellenistic period (323 BCE–31 BCE). This creature, known in Akkadian as the "mušḫuššu", meaning "furious serpent", was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem. It seems to have originally been the attendant of the underworld god Ninazu, but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu's son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Snake cults were well established in Canaanite religion in the Bronze Age, for archaeologists have uncovered serpent cult objects in Bronze Age strata at several pre-Israelite cities in Canaan: two at Megiddo, one at Gezer, one in the "sanctum sanctorum" of the Area H temple at Hazor, and two at Shechem.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In the surrounding region, serpent cult objects figured in other cultures. A late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a bronze statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand and a staff in the other. In 6th-century Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila. At the Babylonian New Year's festival, the priest was to commission from a woodworker, a metalworker and a goldsmith two images, one of which "shall hold in its left hand a snake of cedar, raising its right [hand] to the god Nabu". At the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Significant finds of pottery, bronze-ware and even gold depictions of snakes have been made throughout the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Bronze Age and Iron Age metallurgical centre of Saruq Al Hadid has yielded probably the richest trove of such objects, although finds have been made bearing snake symbols in Bronze Age sites at Rumailah, Bithnah and Masafi. Most of the depictions of snakes are similar, with a consistent dotted decoration applied to them.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Although the widespread depiction of snakes in sites across the UAE is thought by archaeologists to have a religious purpose, this remains conjecture.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In the Hebrew Bible the serpent in the Garden of Eden lured Eve with the promise of being like God, tempting her that despite God's warning, death would not be the result, that God was withholding knowledge from her. Although the serpent is identified as Satan in the Book of Revelation, in Genesis the serpent is portrayed merely as a deceptive creature or trickster, promoting as good what God had directly forbidden, and particularly cunning in its deception (Gen. 3:4–5 and 3:22).


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The staff of Moses transformed into a snake and then back into a staff (Exodus 4:2–4). The Book of Numbers 21:6–9 provides an origin for an archaic copper serpent, "Nehushtan", by associating it with Moses. This copper snake according to the Biblical text is put on a pole and used for healing. Book of Numbers 21:9 "And Moses made a snake of copper, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a snake had bitten any man, when he beheld the snake of brass, he lived."


title: Serpent symbolism

text: When the reformer King Hezekiah came to the throne of Judah in the late 8th century BCE, "He removed the high places, broke the sacred pillars, smashed the idols, and broke into pieces the copper snake that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. ()


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In the Gospel of John 3:14–15, Jesus makes direct comparison between the raising up of the Son of Man and the act of Moses in raising up the serpent as a sign, using it as a symbol associated with salvation: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life".


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The serpent is a recurrent motif in Islamic thought, appearing in both sacred texts and works of art. The creature is often seen as a symbol of evil. However, the serpent can also be seen as a positive figure. In Islamic tradition, the creature is often associated with wisdom and knowledge. In some works of Islamic art, the serpent is depicted as a guardian of the Quran, guarding the sacred text from harm. The serpent is a complex figure in Islamic thought, appearing as both a symbol of evil and a figure of wisdom. The creature provides a reminder of the dangers of temptation, but also represents the potential for knowledge and enlightenment.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Serpents are sacred and powerful in the thought of prehistoric cultures of Iran, having been portrayed as patrons of fertility, water and wealth in the ancient objects of Iran. They seem to have been worshipped along with the fertility goddesses from the fourth to first millennia BC, when their presence as mighty patrons and source of life and of immortality is seen in the art of Tall-i Bakun, Chogha Mish, Tepe Sialk, Jiroft culture, Shahr-e Sukhteh, Shahdad, Elamite art, Luristan art, etc.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: However, it seems that the symbolic concept of the serpent was corrupted in the cultures of the Iranian plateau over time by Western influence. In Abrahamic traditions, the serpent represents sexual desire, as he lured Eve with the promise of forbidden knowledge in the Garden of Eden. As a result of such influence, Aryan religions call the serpents diabolic; Azhi Dahake in the Avesta is a scary serpent, and Zahhak in the "Shahnameh" is an infernal creature with two snakes on his shoulders. This replacement might be due to communication between the inhabitants of Iran and believers in Abrahamic religions, and beyond that the conversion of matriarchy into patriarchy as the social structure of Iranian plateau cultures.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In Chinese creationism mythology, Nüwa is the mother goddess who created humans from clay. She is depicted as a half snake being.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The Minoan Snake Goddess brandished a serpent in either hand, perhaps evoking her role as source of wisdom, rather than her role as Mistress of the Animals ("Potnia Theron"), with a leopard under each arm.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Serpents figured prominently in archaic Greek myths. According to some sources, Ophion ("serpent", a.k.a. Ophioneus), ruled the world with Eurynome before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea. The oracles of the Ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess Wadjet.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Typhon, the enemy of the Olympian gods, is described as a vast grisly monster with a hundred heads and a hundred serpents issuing from his thighs, who was conquered and cast into Tartarus by Zeus, or confined beneath volcanic regions, where he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon is thus the chthonic figuration of volcanic forces. Serpent elements figure among his offspring; among his children by Echidna are Cerberus (a monstrous three-headed dog with a snake for a tail and a serpentine mane); the serpent-tailed Chimaera; the serpent-like chthonic water beast Lernaean Hydra; and the hundred-headed serpentine dragon Ladon. Both the Lernaean Hydra and Ladon were slain by Heracles.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi. She always was represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Python was the chthonic enemy of Apollo, who slew her and remade her former home his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Medusa and the other Gorgons were vicious female monsters with sharp fangs and hair of living, venomous snakes whose origins predate the written myths of Greece and who were the protectors of the most ancient ritual secrets. The Gorgons wore a belt of two intertwined serpents in the same configuration of the caduceus. The Gorgon was placed at the center, highest point of one of the pediments on the Temple of Artemis at Corfu.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Coronis, learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) back to life with healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius's care, Zeus killed him with a bolt of lightning. Asclepius' death at the hands of Zeus illustrates man's inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the gods. In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals. Non-poisonous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. The "Bibliotheca" claimed that Athena gave Asclepius a vial of blood from the Gorgons. Gorgon blood had magical properties: if taken from the left side of the Gorgon, it was a fatal poison; from the right side, the blood was capable of bringing the dead back to life. However, Euripides wrote in his tragedy "Ion" that the Athenian queen Creusa had inherited this vial from her ancestor Erichthonios, who was a snake himself and had received the vial from Athena. In this version the blood of Medusa had the healing power while the lethal poison originated from Medusa's serpents.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great and a princess of the primitive land of Epirus, had the reputation of a snake-handler, and it was in serpent form that Zeus was said to have fathered Alexander upon her. Aeëtes, the king of Colchis and father of the sorceress Medea, possessed the Golden Fleece. He guarded it with a massive serpent that never slept. Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason of the Argonauts, enchanted it to sleep so Jason could seize the Fleece. (See Lamia).


title: Serpent symbolism

text: When not driven by horses, the chariot of the Greek sun god is described as being pulled by fiery draconic beings. The most notable instance of this is observed in the episode in which Medea is given her grandfather's chariot, which is pulled by serpents through the sky.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: "Naga" (Sanskrit:नाग) is the Sanskrit/Pāli word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very large snake, found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The "naga" primarily represents rebirth, death and mortality, due to its casting of its skin and being symbolically "reborn".


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Hindus associated "naga" with Shiva and with Vishnu, who rested on a 100-headed "naga" and coiled around Lord Shiva's neck. The snake represented freedom in Hindu mythology because they cannot be tamed. In Buddhism, the serpent Mucalinda is associated as the protector of Lord Buddha. In Jainism, serpent is associated with the 23rd Tirthankara Parshvanatha.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Serpents, or "nāgas", play a particularly important role in Cambodian, Isan and Laotian mythology. An origin myth explains the emergence of the name "Cambodia" as resulting from conquest of a naga princess by a Kambuja lord named Kaundinya: the descendants of their union are the Khmer people. George Cœdès suggests the Cambodian myth is a basis for the legend of "Phra Daeng Nang Ai", in which a woman who has lived many previous lives in the region is reincarnated as a daughter of Phraya Khom (Thai for Cambodian) and causes the death of her companion in former lives who has been reincarnated as a prince of the Nagas. This leads to war between the "spirits of the air" and the Nagas: Nagas amok are rivers in spate, and the entire region is flooded. The Myth of the Toad King tells how introduction of Buddhist teachings led to war with the sky deity Phaya Thaen, and ended in a truce with nagas posted as guardians of entrances to temples.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Some Native American tribes give reverence to the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshiped in the Natchez Temple of the Sun, and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent-god. In many Meso-American cultures, the serpent was regarded as a portal between two worlds. The tribes of Peru are said to have adored great snakes in the pre-Inca days, and in Chile the Mapuche made a serpent figure in their deluge beliefs.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In one Native North American story, an evil serpent kills one of the gods' cousins, so the god kills the serpent in revenge, but the dying serpent unleashes a great flood. People first flee to the mountains and then, when the mountains are covered, they float on a raft until the flood subsides. The evil spirits that the serpent god controlled then hide out of fear. The Mound Builders associated great mystical value to the serpent, as the Serpent Mound demonstrates, though we are unable to unravel the particular associations.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Jörmungandr, alternately referred to as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent, is a sea serpent of Norse mythology, the middle child of Loki and the giantess Angrboða. According to the "Prose Edda", Odin took Loki's three children, Fenrisúlfr, Hel and Jörmungandr. He tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard. The serpent grew so big that he was able to surround the Earth and grasp his own tail, and as a result he earned the alternate name of the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent. Jörmungandr's arch enemy is the god Thor.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In the "Poetic Edda", Odin tells of eight serpents gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil: Nidhöggr, Gravvitnir, Moin, Goin, Grábakr, Grafvölluðr, Svafnir and Ofnir.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In folk and fairy tale traditions all over the world, the serpent and the snake appear as characters in several fairy tales, either a main character in animal fables and magic tales ("Märchen"), or as the donor who grants the protagonist a special ability or impart him with some secret knowledge.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: According to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, the serpent can appear in this capacity in the following tale types:


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Snakes entwined the staffs both of Hermes (the caduceus) and of Asclepius, where a single snake entwined the rough staff. On Hermes' caduceus, the snakes were not merely duplicated for symmetry, they were paired opposites. (This motif is congruent with the phurba.) The wings at the head of the staff identified it as belonging to the winged messenger Hermes, the Roman Mercury, who was the god of magic, diplomacy and rhetoric, of inventions and discoveries, and the protector both of merchants and that allied occupation, to the mythographers' view, of thieves. It is however Hermes' role as psychopomp, the escort of newly deceased souls to the afterlife, that explains the origin of the snakes in the caduceus, since this was also the role of the Sumerian entwined serpent god Ningizzida, with whom Hermes has sometimes been equated.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: In Late Antiquity, as the arcane study of alchemy developed, Mercury was understood to be the protector of those arts too and of arcane or occult "Hermetic" information in general. Chemistry and medicines linked the rod of Hermes with the staff of the healer Asclepius, which was wound with a serpent; it was conflated with Mercury's rod, and the modern medical symbol—which should simply be the rod of Asclepius—often became Mercury's wand of commerce. Another version is used in alchemy where the snake is crucified, known as Nicolas Flamel's caduceus. Art historian Walter J. Friedlander, in "The Golden Wand of Medicine: A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine" (1992), collected hundreds of examples of the caduceus and the rod of Asclepius and found that professional associations were just somewhat more likely to use the staff of Asclepius, while commercial organizations in the medical field were more likely to use the caduceus.


title: Serpent symbolism

text: Following the Christian context as a symbol for evil, serpents are sometimes featured in political propaganda. They were used to represent Jews in antisemitic propaganda. Snakes were also used to represent the evil side of drugs in such films as "Narcotic" and "Narcotics: Pit of Despair".


title: Serpent symbolism

text: The automobile brands AC Cobra, Ford Mustang Shelby, Zarooq Motors, Dodge Viper, and Alpha Romeo all feature snakes on their logos.


title: The Fast and the Furious (soundtrack)

text: The Fast and the Furious: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the first of two soundtracks to Rob Cohen's 2001 action film "The Fast and the Furious". It was released on June 5, 2001, via Murder Inc Records/Def Jam Recordings/Universal Music Group. Production was handled mostly by Irv Gotti, as well as twelve other record producers, including Channel 7, Damizza, Nick "Fury" Loftin and Swizz Beatz. It features contributions from the film star Ja Rule, along with Armageddon, Ashanti, Black Child, Boo & Gotti, Caddillac Tah, DMX, Faith Evans, Fat Joe, Funkmaster Flex, Limp Bizkit, Method Man, Nate Dogg, N.O.R.E., O-1, Petey Pablo, Redman, R. Kelly, Scarface, Shade Sheist, Tank and Vita. The album reached number seven on the "Billboard" 200, number five on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and went platinum in 2002 in both the United States and Canada.


title: The Fast and the Furious (soundtrack)

text: The lone single released from the soundtrack is "Put It On Me". Official music videos were done for "Put It On Me", "Furious" by Ja Rule, "POV City Anthem" by Cadillac Tah, "Good Life (Remix)" by Faith Evans and "Justify My Love" by Vita.


title: Natalie J. Robb

text: Natalie Joy Robb (born 3 December 1974) is a Scottish actress and singer. She played the roles of Trish McDonald in the Scottish Television soap opera "Take the High Road" (1990–1999) and Jude Carlyle in the BBC soap opera "Doctors" (2001–2004). Since 2009, she has portrayed the role of Moira Barton in the ITV soap opera "Emmerdale". Her other television roles include "Dream Team" (2000–2001) and "The Bill" (2004–2005).


title: Natalie J. Robb

text: Robb was born on 3 December 1974, as the youngest of three, she has an older sister and brother. As a child, Robb attended weekend drama groups in Glasgow, where she was discovered by director Alan Macmillan, later going to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Robb was also in a band called The Kinky People.


title: Natalie J. Robb

text: Robb made her screen debut as a nine-year-old, starring in an STV docudrama alongside Tom Conti. At 13, she was awarded the BBC Young Entertainer of the Year award on kids' TV show, "Going Live!". At the age of 14, she was cast in the role of Trish McDonald in the Scottish soap opera "Take the High Road". She then appeared in the Sky One series "Dream Team". Afterwards, she spent three years as Jude Carlyle in the BBC daytime soap opera "Doctors". Years after her exit from "Doctors", Robb admitted that she did not know how she coped on the series due to the medical terminology. She surprised herself when her brain "managed to take in all the information of the doctor jargon". However, she used her knowledge and experience from "Doctors" when she came into contact with a pregnant woman in labour who had collapsed and was bleeding. On the experience, Robb explained: "She was really panicking about losing the baby, obviously. For some reason, maybe because of "Doctors", I was very calm." She left the series for a role as an undercover journalist posing as a police officer PC Andrea Dunbar in "The Bill". Robb appeared in "EastEnders" in July 2006 as Gemma Clewes, the mistress of Max Branning (Jake Wood). In July 2008, she appeared in "" with Jean-Claude Van Damme, where she played Ramona Garcia. In 2009, she played the part of a counsellor in the BBC school drama "Waterloo Road". Later in 2009, it was announced that Robb had joined the cast of "Emmerdale" as part of a new farming family, the Bartons. Robb made her "Emmerdale" debut as Moira Barton on 17 July 2009.


title: Daniel Humm

text: Daniel Humm (born September 21, 1976) is a Swiss chef and restaurant owner; he is chef/owner of Eleven Madison Park.


title: Daniel Humm

text: His cuisine is focused on locally sourced ingredients, with an emphasis on simplicity, purity, and seasonal flavors. A native of Switzerland, he was exposed to a range of food at a very young age, and began working in kitchens at the age of 14. From there he spent time in some of the finest Swiss hotels and restaurants before earning his first Michelin star at the age of 24.


title: Daniel Humm

text: In 2003, Humm moved to the United States to become the executive chef at Campton Place in San Francisco where he received four stars from the "San Francisco Chronicle". Three years later, he moved to New York to become the executive chef at Eleven Madison Park, and in 2011 he and his business partner Will Guidara purchased the restaurant from Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group. In 2017, Eleven Madison Park became number 1 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants.


title: Daniel Humm

text: Over the course of Humm's tenure, he and Eleven Madison Park have received numerous accolades, including four stars from "The New York Times", six James Beard Foundation Awards (including Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant in America), three stars from the Michelin Guide, and the #1 spot on The World's 50 Best Restaurants. In 2011, Humm and Will Guidara purchased Eleven Madison Park from Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, and the following year also opened the critically acclaimed NoMad New York which garnered three stars from "The New York Times", one Michelin Star, and a James Beard Foundation Award. In 2018 Humm and Guidara opened NoMad Los Angeles, their first restaurant outside of New York City. Humm and Guidara parted ways in July 2019 and Humm announced in January 2020 that Make It Nice is no longer a partner with the NoMad group of hotels in New York, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas.


title: Daniel Humm

text: In late 2019, Humm opened Davies and Brook, his first restaurant outside the US at London's historic Claridge's. He is the owner of the Make It Nice group and the author of four books: "Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook", "I Love New York: Ingredients and Recipes", "The NoMad Cookbook" and "Eleven Madison Park: The Next Chapter".


title: Daniel Humm

text: Humm is a co-founder of Rethink Food, a New York City-based nonprofit aimed at creating a more equitable, sustainable food system. When the COVID-19 pandemic led to Eleven Madison Park temporarily shutting down, Humm partnered with Rethink to keep a dozen chefs on staff, preparing and delivering meals to first responders and food-insecure communities throughout New York. At its peak, Eleven Madison Park was producing 3,000 meals a day to be served throughout underserved neighborhoods in The Bronx and Brooklyn.


title: Daniel Humm

text: In October 2020, Humm launched Eleven Madison Home, a dine-at-home meal kit; each kit funded ten meals to food-insecure New Yorkers through Rethink Food. In April 2021, Humm and Rethink launched Eleven Madison Truck, a food truck to serve 2,000 meals a week in neighborhoods throughout the Bronx and Brooklyn, funded by diners at Eleven Madison Park. Each dinner purchased at the restaurant funds five free meals to food-insecure New Yorkers.


title: Daniel Humm

text: In November 2021, he left Claridges after they rejected his proposal for a vegan menu due to concern about the potential response from regular customers.


title: Conviasa

text: Línea Aérea Conviasa (legally "Consorcio Venezolano de Industrias Aeronáuticas y Servicios Aéreos, S.A.") is a Venezuelan airline with its headquarters on the grounds of Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Venezuela, near Caracas. It is the flag carrier and largest airline of Venezuela, operating services to domestic destinations and to destinations in the Caribbean and South America.


title: Conviasa

text: In January 1997, Venezuela's former flag carrier, Viasa, ceased operations after 37 years of service due to prolonged financial problems. In May 2001, the idea to create a new flag carrier for Venezuela was proposed, but in December 2002, the project was put on hold until October 1, 2003. On March 31, 2004, then President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, signed a decree that formally established the airline. This decree was published in the nation's official gazette the next day.


title: Conviasa

text: On November 28, 2004, Conviasa's inaugural flight was made with a De Havilland Canada Dash 7 aircraft flying from the airport in Charallave to the Santiago Mariño International Airport, on Margarita Island. On December 10, 2004, Conviasa formally began its national and international operations. Conviasa was originally run by the now defunct Ministry of Production and Commerce, but it has since been taken over by the Ministry of Infrastructure.


title: Conviasa

text: On April 17, 2006, José David Cabello replaced Wilmer Castro Sotelo as head of Conviasa. On June 30, 2006, Jose David Cabello Rondon replaced Ramon Alonzo Carrizalez Rengifo as the Minister of Infrastructure and on July 18, 2006, Franklin Fernandez Martinez became president of Conviasa.


title: Conviasa

text: Following the crash of Flight 2350 on September 17, 2010, the government of Venezuela grounded all Conviasa flights so that it could perform a technical review of the airline's fleet. The airline said that the temporary suspension would remain in effect until October 1, 2010. Flights were then re-instated.


title: Conviasa

text: Decree No. 7838 of the Official Gazette No. 39,558 published on Wednesday, provides for the appointment of Colonel citizen (AVB) Jesús Rafael Viñas García, President of the Venezuelan Consortium Trading Company Aircraft Industries and Air Services SA (CONVIASA) under the Ministry of Popular Power for Transportation and Communications.


title: Conviasa

text: On April 3, 2012, Conviasa has been banned from flying to countries in the European Union because of safety concerns. It said that Conviasa failed to show it had taken adequate steps to prevent future accidents, but had this restriction lifted on 10 July 2013.


title: Conviasa

text: Conviasa is under the authority of the Ministry of Aquatic and Air Transport. The airline is owned by the Venezuelan government (80%) and the regional government of Nueva Esparta (20%). Conviasa has its headquarters on the grounds of Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Venezuela, near Caracas. Originally Conviasa had its headquarters on Margarita Island. At one time Conviasa had its headquarters in the East Tower of Parque Central in Caracas.


title: Conviasa

text: In August 2016, it has been reported that over 80 percent of Conviasa pilots quit their jobs due to low and outstanding payments and the airline had to reduce operations down to around 16 flights per day subsequently. Additionally, several of the company's aircraft have been stored unused since several months.


title: Conviasa

text: On May 5, 2017, Conviasa was forced to suspend all international operations due to a lack of foreign currency to pay for international aircraft insurance. Also in May 2017, Wamos Air terminated its contract with Conviasa on short notice. Wamos Air operated a single Boeing 747-400 for Conviasa between Caracas and Madrid. In autumn 2019, Conviasa started again many early terminated international routes back for its network.


title: Conviasa

text: On February 7, 2020 the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") added Conviasa and its fleet of 40 aircraft to the Specially Designated Nationals list. In practice this makes it extremely unlikely that Conviasa will be able to source replacement parts for its fleet of airworthy and grounded B737 aircraft. Additionally, US Nationals are prohibited from flying on Conviasa's domestic and international flights. Finally, to the extent that other countries abide by OFAC policy, those countries (Brazil, France, UK) will refuse to sell Conviasa replacement parts for Embraer and Airbus aircraft, prohibit its nationals from flying Conviasa, and will cancel Conviasa-serviced routes to their respective countries (Panama, Mexico, Bolivia, and Ecuador).


title: Conviasa

text: In July 2020, Conviasa bought a 23-year old Airbus A340-300 to supplement its single A340-200, as well as to reinforce air cargo and long radius. In March and June 2022, Conviasa received two 20-year old Airbus A340-600s as part of the company’s fleet expansion, also announcing that the company will receive a A340-500 in the following months. Conviasa however, retired their last commercial A340-200 in October 2022. This means Conviasa will be the only commercial operator that operated all models of the Airbus A340.


title: Rebecca West

text: Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books for "The Times", the "New York Herald Tribune", "The Sunday Telegraph" and "The New Republic", and she was a correspondent for "The Bookman". Her major works include "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; "A Train of Powder" (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in "The New Yorker"; "The Meaning of Treason" (first published as a magazine article in 1945 and then expanded to the book in 1947), later "The New Meaning of Treason" (1964), a study of the trial of the British fascist William Joyce and others; "The Return of the Soldier" (1918), a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, "The Fountain Overflows" (1956), "This Real Night" (published posthumously in 1984), and "Cousin Rosamund" (1985). "Time" called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. She was made CBE in 1949, and DBE in 1959; in each case, the citation reads: "writer and literary critic". She took the pseudonym "Rebecca West" from the rebellious young heroine in "Rosmersholm" by Henrik Ibsen. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal.


title: Rebecca West

text: Rebecca West was born Cicily Isabel Fairfield in 1892 in London, England, and grew up in a home full of intellectual stimulation, political debate, lively company, books and music. Her mother, Isabella, a Scotswoman, was an accomplished pianist but did not pursue a musical career after her marriage to Charles Fairfield. The Anglo-Irish Charles had been a Confederate stretcher-bearer at the siege of Richmond in the US Civil War, and had returned to the UK to become a journalist of considerable reputation but financial incompetence. He deserted his family when Cicily was eight years old. He never rejoined them, and died impoverished and alone in a boarding house in Liverpool in 1906, when Cicily was 14. The rest of the family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Cicily was educated at George Watson's Ladies College. She had to leave school in 1907 due to a bout of tuberculosis. She chose not to return after recovering from the illness, later describing her schooling at Watson's as akin to a "prison".


title: Rebecca West

text: West had two older sisters. Letitia ("Lettie"), who was the best educated of the three, became one of the first fully qualified female doctors in Britain, as well as a barrister at the Inns of Court. Winifred ("Winnie"), the middle sister, married Norman Macleod, Principal Assistant Secretary in the Admiralty, and eventually director general of Greenwich Hospital. Winnie's two children, Alison and Norman, became closely involved in Rebecca's life as she got older; Alison Macleod would achieve a literary career of her own. West trained as an actress in London, taking the name "Rebecca West" from the rebellious young heroine in "Rosmersholm" by Henrik Ibsen. She and Lettie became involved in the women's suffrage movement, participating in street protests. Meanwhile, West worked as a journalist for the feminist weekly "Freewoman" and the "Clarion", drumming up support for the suffragette cause.


title: Rebecca West

text: In September 1912, West accused the famously libertine writer H. G. Wells of being "the Old Maid among novelists." This was part of a provocative review of his novel "Marriage" published in "Freewoman", an obscure and short-lived feminist weekly review. The review attracted Wells's interest and an invitation to lunch at his home. The two writers became lovers in late 1913, despite Wells being both married and twenty-six years older than West. Their 10-year relationship produced a son, Anthony West, born on 4 August 1914. Wells was behind her move to Marine Parade, Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, where she lived between 1917 and 1919. Their friendship lasted until Wells's death in 1946.


title: Rebecca West

text: West is also said to have had relationships with Charlie Chaplin, newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook, and journalist John Gunther.


title: Rebecca West

text: West established her reputation as a spokeswoman for feminist and socialist causes and as a critic, turning out essays and reviews for "The New Republic", "New York Herald Tribune", "New York American", "New Statesman", "The Daily Telegraph", and many more newspapers and magazines. George Bernard Shaw said in 1916 that "Rebecca West could handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could and much more savagely." During the 1920s, West began a lifelong habit of visits to the US to give lectures, meet artists, and get involved in the political scene. She was a great friend of the novelist G.B. Stern, and Stern and Clemence Dane stayed with her in America in 1924. There, she befriended CIA founder Allen Dulles, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Ross of "The New Yorker", and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., among many other significant figures of the day. Her lifelong fascination with the United States culminated in 1948 when President Truman presented her with the Women's Press Club Award for Journalism, calling her "the world's best reporter."


title: Rebecca West

text: In 1930, at the age of 37, she married a banker, Henry Maxwell Andrews, and they remained nominally together, despite one public affair just before his death in 1968. West's writing brought her considerable wealth, and, by 1940, she owned a Rolls-Royce and a grand country estate, Ibstone House, in the Chiltern Hills of southern England. During World War II, West housed Yugoslav refugees in the spare rooms of her blacked-out manor, and she used the grounds as a small dairy farm and vegetable plot, agricultural pursuits that continued long after the war had ended.