Ivory Coast power struggle ends as Gbagbo captured

IVORY COAST strongman Laurent Gbagbo was finally captured by opponents after months of fighting and hundreds of deaths caused by his refusal to step down.

Troops loyal to the country’s internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara cornered him in his bunker after French tanks had helped them fight their way in.

Ouattara’s aides immediately promised that Gbabgo would not be harmed but would face trial for “crimes against humanity”.

The arrest came after days of heavy fighting during which French and UN helicopters fired rockets at his presidential residence.

One soldier said: “We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker. He was there with his wife and his son. He wasn’t hurt, but he was tired and his cheek was swollen from where a soldier had slapped him.”

Gbagbo was taken to the Golf Hotel, where Ouattara has been trying to run his presidency since winning the November 28 election.

Officials want him to sign a document that formally hands power over to Ouattara.

Youssoufou Bamba, who was appointed UN ambassador by Ouattara, said Gbagbo will face justice.

He predicted that fighting that has racked the former French colony will stop as soon as all of the pro-Gbagbo forces learn of his capture.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said the arrest ended months of unnecessary conflict and he pledged UN support to the new government.

It will be very difficult for Ivory Coast to mount a domestic court to try Gbagbo, said Richard Downie, an Africa expert at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, adding that it would “probably be a lightning rod for more unrest”.

“[Ouattara] didn’t want to come to power this way, though the barrel of a gun,” Downie said.

“He was elected fairly and freely. But this is the situation he was dealt. It’s going to be incredibly difficult for him to bring the country together.”

Ouattara’s ambassador to France, Ali Coulibaly, said: “It’s a victory... considering all the evil that Laurent Gbagbo inflicted on Ivory Coast.” He emphasised the man in power for a decade would be “treated with humanity”.

“We must not in any way make a royal gift to Laurent Gbagbo in making him a martyr,” Coulibaly said. “He must be alive and he must answer for the crimes against humanity he committed.”

Some critics had accused Gbagbo of clinging to power in part to avoid prosecution by the International Criminal Court which has begun preliminary examination of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ivory Coast.

Ivory Coast was divided into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south by a 2002-2003 civil war. The country was officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal. The long-delayed presidential election was intended to help reunify the nation but instead unleashed months of violence.

Gbagbo, who won 46% of the vote, held power for a decade and already had overstayed his mandate by five years when the election took place. When the country’s election commission and international observers declared he lost the election after it was finally held, he refused to step down.

He defied near-universal pressure to cede power to Ouattara. The two set up parallel administrations that vied for control of the West African economic powerhouse. Ouattara drew his support from the UN and world powers. Gbagbo maintained his hold over the country’s military and security forces who terrorised his opponents.

Gbagbo had described efforts to oust him from power as tantamount to a foreign coup d’etat.

Yesterday the French government sought to distance itself from Gbagbo’s arrest saying its forces were not involved in it.

Other West African nations had considered military intervention to remove Gbagbo, but those efforts never materialised and sanctions imposed on Gbagbo and his inner circle by the US and European Union failed to dislodge him.