number of other members questioning the alliance. However the issue was not resolved at the second party congress. Chaos in the Ivory Coast: 1949 Unlike other parts of the French empire (notably Madagascar and Indochina), independence movements in French Africa had remained largely peaceful. This changed in 1949 when French authorities used divisions between Houphouët-Boigny and other politicians to begin active and violent suppression of the RDA in the colony. The catalyst for the chaos was the removal of Étienne Djaument by Houphouët-Boigny from the RDA in early 1949. Djaument responded by forming a rival party, the Bloc Démocratique Eburnén. At the first meeting of this rival congress, supporters of Houphouët-Boigny responded with protests or rioting and in the resulting clash one person was killed and a number were injured. The French authorities, and the French colonists in the colony, used this opportunity to foment general unrest between the RDA party and its opponents and then used the unrest to justify the arrest of RDA members and violent suppression of party activities. This pattern of partisan outbursts, French violence against RDA supporters at these incidents, and the mass arrests of RDA supporters continued throughout 1949 and into early 1950. Although an arrest warrant was issued for Houphouët-Boigny, he was able to use immunity as a member of the National Assembly to avoid arrest. In December 1949, the RDA and its supporters began a general strike involving many different groups of workers, a boycott of European goods sold in the country, and a hunger strike in the prisons. The tension came to a head on 28 January 1950 when Victor Biaka Boda, an RDA member of the National Assembly, disappeared in the Ivory Coast. Upset by this event, the RDA held a protest in Dimbokro which resulted in a French army shooting of 13 Ivorian civilians. The next day (February 1), the French declared all RDA meetings illegal throughout all of French West Africa. The end result of the year of violence was over 50 dead and 3000 RDA partisans imprisoned. Although RDA members of the National Assembly stopped going to sessions because they were largely ignored, following the French Army shooting in Dimbokro, Senghor led much of the African membership to demand an inquiry into the incident. The French government secretly informed RDA politicians in March that it had no intentions of implementing the 1 February decree banning all activities