'Mandela's tailor' in business but worried over I Coast xenophobia
   by Bryan Pearson

   ABIDJAN, Jan 30 (AFP) - Pathe Ouedraogo, better known as "Nelson
Mandela's
tailor", has continued to make a living in Ivory Coast despite the rising
tide
of anger against Burkina Faso nationals, but says he is worried about his
compatriots being hounded out of town.
   Ouedraogo believes his fame at being one of the supppliers to the South
African former president of his trademark "Mandela shirts" is one of the
reasons Ivorians have not attacked his businesses in Abidjan.
   Many other Burkinabe, however, have not been as lucky and have had their
shops burnt or been physically or verbally abused by youths marching
through
the streets chanting "Ivory Coast for Ivorians."
   "If they touch my countrymen, they touch me," Ouedraogo told AFP in his
busy factory in the heart of Abidjan's sprawling Treichville suburb. "In
fact
if they touch any foreigner, they touch me."
   Among the many workers who bustle around his factory from morning till
night, seven days a week turning out his latest creations, are Burkinabe,
Ghanaians, Nigerians, Malians and -- importantly -- Ivorians.
   "If they drive me out, it will be their loss," he said. "The Ivorians I
employ will be out of work. But I have businesses all over Africa. I can
start
again anywhere."
   A Burkinabe who has lived in Abidjan since 1969, Ouedraogo believes he
is
well regarded by the authorities because his business brings in foreign
currency and his links with Mandela a measure of prestige.
   He travels to fashion shows representing Ivory Coast rather than Burkina
Faso, where he was born in the tiny village of Guibare, 87 kilometres (54
miles) from the capital Ouagadougou, 47 years ago.
   He is optimistic the xenophobia which has swept Ivory Coast since an
abortive coup on the night of January 7, which government aides have blamed
on
foreigners, will subside and the flight of Burkinabe back home -- some
reports
put the figure at 10,000 a week -- will slow.
   "There are too many of us," he said. "It's impossible to chase us all
out."
   According to the latest census -- in 1998 -- 26 percent of Ivory Coast's
population of 15.4 million are foreigners. Around two million are Burkinabe.
   "My business is important to Ivory Coast," Ouedraogo said. "Even
President
(Laurent) Gbagbo has begun to wear my shirts," he added, fishing out recent
newspaper clippings which show the Ivorian leader sporting the flowing,
multi-coloured shirts that Mandela popularised.
   Pride of place in the factory is a large picture on the wall which shows
Ouedraogo shaking hands with a beaming Mandela, who is wearing one of the
tailor's creations.
   "Since Mandela -- I call him my father -- started wearing my shirts,
everyone wants them, even President (Olusegun) Obasanjo of Nigeria," he
said.
   Another plaque on the wall boasts a picture of a smiling United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan alongside a letter signed by the UN chief
thanking Ouedraogo for his shirts.
   Like many other Burkinabe, poverty forced Ouedraogo in 1969, at the age
of
16, to head for Ivory Coast -- then the economic powerhouse of west Africa
--
in search of work.
   Arriving in Abidjan penniless, he offered to work in a tailor's shop in
return only for a meal and to be allowed to sleep on the factory floor at
night. Riches, inevitably, grew out of the rags.
   Today he has boutiques across Ivory Coast, in Gabon, Burkina Faso, Mali
and
Senegal and the Pathe'O trademark is known throughout Africa and even
further
afield.
   His shrewdest move was to send some of his shirts to Mandela with South
African singer Miriam Makeba in the early 1990s soon after the South
African
anti-apartheid leader was freed from jail.
   The gesture was meant, he said, purely to thank Mandela for his stand
against apartheid. "We used to learn about him when I was at school. He was
always my hero.
   "The next thing, I saw him on television wearing my shirt. I couldn't
believe it."
   bp/jlr

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