Gbagbo arrest sends 'strong signal' to dictators ... The capture of Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo sends a strong signal to dictators that they cannot ignore the will of their people, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left) said Monday. Clinton told reporters his arrest "sends a strong signal to dictators" in the region and beyond that they "may not disregard" the voice of their own people in free and fair elections. – AFP
Dominant Social Theme: Africa is a better place with one less tyrant and such individuals have got to respect the will of the electorate.
Free-Market Analysis: Now that former president Laurent Gbagbo has been captured by his rival Alassane Ouattara, the mainstream media is predicting a return to normalcy for the Ivory Coast. It is no doubt hoped by many in the West that Hillary Clinton's specific warning shall encourage democracy throughout the continent, as there are supposedly some 30 elections to be held in that vast region in the near future. The question emerges however as to whether Gbagbo's removal was done in such a way as to enforce the message that the West and the UN wanted to send or detract from it. This is the issue we examine below.
Start with a summary. The recognized story is that Ouattara – as we've written previously – won the Ivory Coast election but his rival Gbagbo refused to step down. Now some five months later, Ouattara has captured Gbagbo and proposes to put him on trial for what turned into a violent confrontation between the two leaders and their respective armed backers.
It's been a tragedy for Ivorian citizens. Perhaps a million or more have been displaced and thousands killed during the struggle between the two men. What was an election in a somewhat impoverished, tiny country has become world news; its resolution officially been turned into a larger object lesson: Respect the UN and its mandate. And listen to your wiser, Western elders.
Yet there are other interpretations as well. An analysis by CNN, no less, in an article entitled "Civil war may continue despite Gbagbo's arrest," points out there are reasons to wonder whether real peace shall return to the Ivory Coast anytime soon. "Ouattara takes over a deeply divided country," writes CNN's Amar C. Bakshi, "and accusations that his forces committed serious crimes while advancing towards Abidjan will complicate any reconciliation effort."
Bakshi explains that even U.N.-certified results show that 46 percent of the population voted for Gbagbo, and therefore the Ivory Coast, a small nation that produces much of the world's cocoa, is fairly evenly divided over the results. Not only that, but in removing Gbagbo and eventually placing him on trial, the opposition risks creating further divisions. The reports of atrocities cut both ways. Bakshi adds the following:
Human Rights Watch said forces loyal to Ouattara had killed hundreds of civilians, raped over 20 women and girls perceived as belonging to Gbagbo's camp and burned at least 10 villages in western Ivory Coast ... Religious and tribal faultlines in the West mirror the divide between Gbagbo, whose traditional powerbase is in the Christian and animist south, and Ouattara's Muslim, northern-based forces.
"The conflict in Cote d'Ivoire is not simply one between two presidential candidates, but between two entrenched ethno-political factions which won't be ended simply because Gbagbo gives up," said Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, managing director at DaMina Advisors. Bottom line: the world should not take its eye off Ivory Coast just because Gbagbo has been detained.
Even Baskshi's post doesn't explore the full ramifications of what has just taken place. As we've reported previously, what continues to be left out of this story by the mainstream media reporting on it (thousands of articles by now) was that Gbagbo questioned the initial results of the election in a legal manner, or at least one that observed the niceties of Ivory Coast judicial process.
The query was brought before the Ivorian Supreme Court which threw out certain results and declared Gbagbo the winner. It was at this point that the UN stepped in and declared that Ouattara was the winner nonetheless. In doing so, the UN nullified Gbagbo's complaint to the Ivorian Supreme Court and the decision of the Court itself. (Even if the court was corrupt, it would seem that this would have been the place to begin an inquiry.)
Gbagbo's refusal to abide by the UN's decision is what eventually set off the bloodshed. But Gbagbo, a history professor by training who supposedly reads classics in the original Latin and Greek, may have had other more personal reasons to confront Ouattara. The two men have a history going back several decades. They have been political rivals but also they embody, as the CNN article points out, the larger schisms of Ivory Coast society.
Ouattara was not apparently born in the Ivory Coast and constitutionally was barred from running for over a decade. Somehow, eventually, he ran anyway, as the recent election shows. In power previously, as the result of an appointment, he (or his regime) had Gbagbo and his wife arrested and tortured – or so we've read in several news articles. This could explains some of the bad blood between the two men as Gbagbo blames Ouattara directly for his plight and the attacks on his wife.
Having decided that Ouattara had won the election, the UN and the French who initially colonized the Ivory Coast had a fine line to walk. For four months, outside forces negotiated with Gbagbo asking him to step down. But eventually Ouattara had had enough. With the help of French troops and UN forces, he fought back from the hotel where he had taken refuge and managed to gain control of most of the important cities.
Unfortunately, Ouattara's forces including mercenaries left behind a string of murders and rapes that are now being investigated. (Gbago's troops are accused of atrocities as well.) Additionally, these forces had difficulty making the final attack to bring Gbagbo and his family out of the presidential palace where they hiding. Ultimately, it took the combined massed might of both French and UN troops to excavate Gbagbo. The French have claimed that they did not set foot in the presidential palace and that Ouattara's forces handled the final assault.
MORE
Showing posts with label Gbagbo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gbagbo. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
UN-backed Muslim forces slaughter Christians in Ivory Coast
Backed by French and United Nations military forces, and approved by President Barack Obama, Muslim militias loyal to opposition leader Alassane Ouattara are on a rampage in the Ivory Coast that, according to news reports and officials, has left over a thousand Christians dead so far in an effort to oust current President Laurent Gbagbo.
Though conflicts have been a regular occurrence in recent decades, the current civil war engulfing the West-African former French colony stems from a contested presidential election held in November. The original vote count indicated a narrow victory for Ouattara, a U.S.-educated Muslim from the largely Islamic Northern part of the country who has worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West African States.
But after the nation’s Constitutional Council discovered evidence of alleged voting fraud and ballot stuffing, it nullified the results, re-counted the votes, and declared Gbagbo the winner. Gbagbo, who has ruled the Ivory Coast since 2000, is a leftist Catholic from the largely Christian Southern part of the country. He is claiming to be the legitimately elected President and is refusing to leave power.
The UN, Obama, and the French government, however, maintain that Gbagbo should step down and allow Ouattara to assume the presidency. And at least the French and the UN are using armed force to make sure that happens, providing military support to Islamic militias loyal to Ouattara while bombing the Ivory Coast’s soldiers and equipment from the air.
Reports of brutal massacres have been pouring out of the country, intensifying in recent days as the struggle becomes more violent. One of the most barbarous attacks left around 1,000 civilians dead in Duékoué at the hands of Ouattara supporters as they advanced on the capital. Even Ouattara’s international supporters blasted the slaughter.
The victims, members of a pro-Gbagbo Christian tribe, were reportedly fleeing their homes to a nearby Catholic mission. But according to news reports, they were mowed down or hacked to death with machetes shortly before arriving at the compound.
"I can't go home, the rebels have guns. I don't have a gun," 25-year-old refugee Djeke Fulgence told the U.K. Guardian from a camp across the border, where he fled with his wife and children. "They kill people and rape women. They can kill children and then they take the small children to go and fight. It's impossible. I can't go back."
Over 30,000 civilians are estimated to be taking refuge at the mission to escape the violence. But reports indicate that food and water supplies are running low. Meanwhile, up to a million refugees have reportedly fled their homes, with an estimated hundred thousand crossing the border into Liberia.
As both sides blame each other for human-rights abuses, even the UN has now jumped in and urged Ouattara’s forces to show “restraint” after reports of looting, abductions, and ill-treatment of civilians by his supporters went public. Talk of prosecuting those responsible for the atrocities at the International Criminal Court is already making headlines.
But as the UN helicopters were bombarding Gbagbo forces earlier this week, critics of the international body’s military support for Ouattara blasted the campaign. The Russian government, for example, said the UN and the French government had no right to intervene on one side in the dispute.
“The UN peacekeepers and supporting French forces in Ivory Coast have started military action taking the side of Ouattara, carrying out air strikes on the positions held by supporters of Gbagbo. We’re now looking into the legality of this situation because the peacekeepers were authorized to remain neutral — nothing more,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “An emergency briefing in the UN Security Council has been held upon our request, but we have not received any concrete answers. We will keep looking into the matter.”
In the United States, conservative critics of the international intervention have also attacked efforts to oust Gbagbo. World Net Daily described the situation as “the forced Islamist takeover of [the Ivory Coast] government.” It also noted that UN and U.S. government leaders were “ignoring the nation's own procedures that determined Laurent Gbagbo, a Christian, legitimately was re-elected president.”
WND also compared the situation to another recent “Muslim-Christian battle” in Africa. In 2007, Obama backed Kenyan Muslim Raila Odinga, a socialist currently serving as Prime Minister following a power-sharing agreement. After Odinga lost the election and accused his opponent of rigging the vote, his Islamic supporters went on a rampage that included burning churches, hacking more than a thousand Christians to death with machetes, and eventually displacing an estimated 500,000 people. To placate the rioters, an agreement eventually allowed Odinga to serve as Prime Minster.
In another recent foreign dispute, Obama backed socialist Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya. The leftist Hugo Chavez ally was lawfully removed from office through established constitutional procedures for violating the law. But Obama demanded that he be reinstated.
In the Ivory Coast conflict, like in the Kenya dispute, Obama also expressed support for the Muslim candidate. And despite the Ivory Coast Constitutional Council’s ruling, which is supposed to be the final word on election results, Obama demanded that Gbagbo leave power.
"Tragically, the violence that we are seeing could have been averted had Laurent Gbagbo respected the results of last year's presidential election," Obama said on April 5, without mentioning the Constitutional Council’s ruling. "To end this violence and prevent more bloodshed, former President Gbagbo must stand down immediately, and direct those who are fighting on his behalf to lay down their arms.”
But despite the administration’s declared support for Ouattara, prominent U.S. lawmakers blasted the international intervention and criticized Obama’s choice of sides. In an interview with the U.S. government-funded Voice of America news service, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma said it was clear that Ouattara was chosen by the French government and that “quite frankly, they rigged the election.” Inhofe also said the original election results purportedly showing that Ouattara won were statistically impossible.
Citing the massacre in Duékoué, Sen. Inhofe called the situation “a reign of terror by Ouattara” that was being “supported by the French.” He also said the Obama administration “had it wrong” and that letters he had sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the matter were ignored.
Inhofe accused the UN of violating its charter, too. “They went in and immediately assumed that it was a legitimate election and, yet, we have all the evidence to the contrary,” he told VOA. “By the way, there are a lot of people in Africa who agree with me.”
MORE
Though conflicts have been a regular occurrence in recent decades, the current civil war engulfing the West-African former French colony stems from a contested presidential election held in November. The original vote count indicated a narrow victory for Ouattara, a U.S.-educated Muslim from the largely Islamic Northern part of the country who has worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West African States.
But after the nation’s Constitutional Council discovered evidence of alleged voting fraud and ballot stuffing, it nullified the results, re-counted the votes, and declared Gbagbo the winner. Gbagbo, who has ruled the Ivory Coast since 2000, is a leftist Catholic from the largely Christian Southern part of the country. He is claiming to be the legitimately elected President and is refusing to leave power.
The UN, Obama, and the French government, however, maintain that Gbagbo should step down and allow Ouattara to assume the presidency. And at least the French and the UN are using armed force to make sure that happens, providing military support to Islamic militias loyal to Ouattara while bombing the Ivory Coast’s soldiers and equipment from the air.
Reports of brutal massacres have been pouring out of the country, intensifying in recent days as the struggle becomes more violent. One of the most barbarous attacks left around 1,000 civilians dead in Duékoué at the hands of Ouattara supporters as they advanced on the capital. Even Ouattara’s international supporters blasted the slaughter.
The victims, members of a pro-Gbagbo Christian tribe, were reportedly fleeing their homes to a nearby Catholic mission. But according to news reports, they were mowed down or hacked to death with machetes shortly before arriving at the compound.
"I can't go home, the rebels have guns. I don't have a gun," 25-year-old refugee Djeke Fulgence told the U.K. Guardian from a camp across the border, where he fled with his wife and children. "They kill people and rape women. They can kill children and then they take the small children to go and fight. It's impossible. I can't go back."
Over 30,000 civilians are estimated to be taking refuge at the mission to escape the violence. But reports indicate that food and water supplies are running low. Meanwhile, up to a million refugees have reportedly fled their homes, with an estimated hundred thousand crossing the border into Liberia.
As both sides blame each other for human-rights abuses, even the UN has now jumped in and urged Ouattara’s forces to show “restraint” after reports of looting, abductions, and ill-treatment of civilians by his supporters went public. Talk of prosecuting those responsible for the atrocities at the International Criminal Court is already making headlines.
But as the UN helicopters were bombarding Gbagbo forces earlier this week, critics of the international body’s military support for Ouattara blasted the campaign. The Russian government, for example, said the UN and the French government had no right to intervene on one side in the dispute.
“The UN peacekeepers and supporting French forces in Ivory Coast have started military action taking the side of Ouattara, carrying out air strikes on the positions held by supporters of Gbagbo. We’re now looking into the legality of this situation because the peacekeepers were authorized to remain neutral — nothing more,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “An emergency briefing in the UN Security Council has been held upon our request, but we have not received any concrete answers. We will keep looking into the matter.”
In the United States, conservative critics of the international intervention have also attacked efforts to oust Gbagbo. World Net Daily described the situation as “the forced Islamist takeover of [the Ivory Coast] government.” It also noted that UN and U.S. government leaders were “ignoring the nation's own procedures that determined Laurent Gbagbo, a Christian, legitimately was re-elected president.”
WND also compared the situation to another recent “Muslim-Christian battle” in Africa. In 2007, Obama backed Kenyan Muslim Raila Odinga, a socialist currently serving as Prime Minister following a power-sharing agreement. After Odinga lost the election and accused his opponent of rigging the vote, his Islamic supporters went on a rampage that included burning churches, hacking more than a thousand Christians to death with machetes, and eventually displacing an estimated 500,000 people. To placate the rioters, an agreement eventually allowed Odinga to serve as Prime Minster.
In another recent foreign dispute, Obama backed socialist Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya. The leftist Hugo Chavez ally was lawfully removed from office through established constitutional procedures for violating the law. But Obama demanded that he be reinstated.
In the Ivory Coast conflict, like in the Kenya dispute, Obama also expressed support for the Muslim candidate. And despite the Ivory Coast Constitutional Council’s ruling, which is supposed to be the final word on election results, Obama demanded that Gbagbo leave power.
"Tragically, the violence that we are seeing could have been averted had Laurent Gbagbo respected the results of last year's presidential election," Obama said on April 5, without mentioning the Constitutional Council’s ruling. "To end this violence and prevent more bloodshed, former President Gbagbo must stand down immediately, and direct those who are fighting on his behalf to lay down their arms.”
But despite the administration’s declared support for Ouattara, prominent U.S. lawmakers blasted the international intervention and criticized Obama’s choice of sides. In an interview with the U.S. government-funded Voice of America news service, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma said it was clear that Ouattara was chosen by the French government and that “quite frankly, they rigged the election.” Inhofe also said the original election results purportedly showing that Ouattara won were statistically impossible.
Citing the massacre in Duékoué, Sen. Inhofe called the situation “a reign of terror by Ouattara” that was being “supported by the French.” He also said the Obama administration “had it wrong” and that letters he had sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the matter were ignored.
Inhofe accused the UN of violating its charter, too. “They went in and immediately assumed that it was a legitimate election and, yet, we have all the evidence to the contrary,” he told VOA. “By the way, there are a lot of people in Africa who agree with me.”
MORE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
