“Initially, the reason why the civil war broke out was because people from the North felt excluded from the political system. And they couldn’t have a Northerner as a candidate to run for office, namely Alassane Dramane Ouattara, the current president, who according to literature is a Burkina national. The main reason is exclusion of the people of the North, the majority of whom are Muslim. So the North was excluded from the political system by the Southerners. The majority of people in the South are Christian. But the main reason, the reason put forth to prevent Alassane Ouattara, it was only one candidate, Alassane Ouattara, they say ‘no he is not from Côte d'Ivoire, and he cannot run [for] office. He can go run for office in Burkina Faso, because he’s from Burkina.’ He does not have a Burkinabé passport. So people from the North felt excluded and decided to levy [arms] against the central government in Abdijan.”