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Standoff ends with Gbagbo’s capture

April 11, 2011   ·   216464 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fsomalilandpress.com%2Fstandoff-ends-with-gbagbos-capture-21646Standoff+ends+with+Gbagbo%27s+capture++2011-04-11+19%3A04%3A33Mo+Guledhttp%3A%2F%2Fsomalilandpress.com%2F%3Fp%3D21646

SYDNEY — IVORY COAST’S former leader Laurent Gbagbo was captured by French forces last night after a 10-day battle for Abidjan.

Mr Gbagbo, whose refusal to step down after losing a presidential election in November triggered a civil war, was handed to forces loyal to the president-elect, Alassane Ouattara, a government adviser said.

Mr Ouattara has been based at the Golf Hotel in Abidjan since the dispute began four months ago.

”He has been handed to the Republican Forces,” the adviser, Apollinaire Yapi said. ”He is here at the Golf Hotel. He arrived by road and he is with several members of his family.”

The arrest was confirmed by the French ambassador to Ivory Coast, Jean-Marc Simon.

Mr Gbagbo’s capture comes after United Nations and French helicopters fired on his residence in Abidjan yesterday, following a call from Mr Ouattara to ”neutralise” the former president’s heavy weapons.

Troops loyal to Mr Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of the election, had failed in various attempts to seize Mr Gbagbo’s house since April 5.

Mr Gbagbo, 65, had ruled the world’s top cocoa producer for a decade, weathering a coup attempt in 2002 and a subsequent civil war that left the country split between a rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

The insurgents became the Republican Forces this year, backing Mr Ouattara, 69, and sweeping south in the past month before entering Abidjan on March 31.

Support from Ivory Coast’s army and police had allowed Mr Gbagbo to resist four months of international pressure to step down. The UN, the African Union, the European Union and the US called on him to hand over power to Mr Ouattara. Mr Gbagbo alleged voter fraud and said he won the election.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, had suggested earlier that Mr Gbagbo’s camp had fooled Western powers by pretending to engage in surrender negotiations last week. ”They in fact used that time to regroup their forces and redeploy heavy weapons,” Mr Ban said on Sunday.

As the fighting continued, so has the evidence of atrocities on both sides. The UN’s 9000 peacekeepers have been unable to make a significant intervention.

What had seemed to be a morally simple contest between democrat and dictator is becoming altogether murkier and the reputation of Mr Ouattara has taken a battering.

A Human Rights Watch report said forces loyal to him had killed hundreds of civilians, raped his rival’s supporters and burnt villages in the country’s west. Survivors described how the soldiers ”summarily executed and raped perceived Gbagbo supporters in their homes, as they worked in the fields, as they fled, or as they tried to hide in the bush”.

The former history professor and longtime opponent of the late dictator Felix Houphouet-Boigny came to power in 2000 after he won an election in which Robert Guei also claimed victory. Thousands of protesting supporters enabled Mr Gbagbo to enforce his victory.

The 2002 uprising and prolonged conflict led to him extend his presidential mandate, which was supposed to end in 2005.

A peace deal signed in 2007 between Mr Gbagbo and the rebel New Forces led to the installation of Guillaume Soro as prime minister.

Mr Soro joined Mr Ouattara’s administration after the November 28 vote.

Mr Gbagbo’s capture paves the way for Mr Ouattara, a former prime minister under Houphouet- Boigny and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, to move into the presidential palace in Abidjan.

Bloomberg, Guardian News & Media, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) | 11 April 2011
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By Mo Guled

Tags: Gbagbo, Ghagbo's capture, Ivory coast, President Ouattara