dagblog - Comments for "Côte d’Ivoire"

In Belated Inauguration,

artappraiser — Sun, 22 May 2011 01:33:47 +0000

In Belated Inauguration, Ivory Coast’s President Urges Unity
By Adam Nossiter, New York Times, May 21/22, 2011

DAKAR, Senegal — Alassane Ouattara was formally inaugurated Saturday as Ivory Coast’s president in a ceremony in the West African nation’s capital, Yamoussoukro, nearly six weeks after his predecessor was forcibly removed from office with the help of French and United Nations military strikes.
Mr. Ouattara called for reconciliation and peace in a country that was once one of Africa’s richest but that has been devastated by years of unrest, political division and civil war.
“The time has arrived for Ivorians to come together,” Mr. Ouattara, a former economist and banker, said in a speech that did not deviate from his habitually austere manner. “Dear brothers and sisters, let’s celebrate peace. Like the great people we are, we are going to reunite. Yes, we are going to come together. Let us learn to live together again.”
The country is still reeling from a four-month armed standoff that killed as many as 3,000 people, according to officials and human rights groups, and that sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing violence into neighboring lands. About 160,000 are still in exile in Liberia, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and regional governments had crippled the economy as President Laurent Gbagbo who decisively lost the presidential election in November, refused to give up office.
Life is slowly returning to a semblance of normalcy. Banks have reopened, the nation’s vital cocoa exports have resumed and civil servants have returned to their desks with two months’ back pay.
Mr. Ouattara must govern under the burden of multiple handicaps....
.

Gbago captured:Former Leader

artappraiser — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:34:28 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

Gbago captured:

Former Leader of Ivory Coast Is Captured to End Standoff
By Adam Nossiter, New York Times, April 11, 2011, 11:51am ET

Laurent Gbagbo was captured on Monday after a weeklong siege of his residence and was placed under the control of his rival, Alassane Ouattara.

The Lede: Video of Gbagbo’s Arrest on Ivorian TV

Laurent Gbagbo detained by Ivory Coast opposition forces
By David Smith in Abidjan, Kim Willsher in Paris, and Sam Jones, The Guardian, 11 April 2011 16.00 BST

Detention by fighters loyal to Ouattara comes after more than 30 French armoured vehicles join advance on Abidjan residence

US: ICoast's Gbagbo used

artappraiser — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:13:38 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

US: ICoast's Gbagbo used 'ruse to regroup and rearm'
Agence France Presse – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The United States on Saturday condemned renewed violence by Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo's forces, calling his attempt to negotiate "a ruse to regroup and rearm."
"It is clear that Gbagbo's attempts at negotiation this week were nothing more than a ruse to regroup and rearm," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.
"Gbagbo's continued attempt to force a result that he could not obtain at the ballot box reveals his callous disregard for the welfare of the Ivoirian people, who will again suffer amid renewed heavy fighting in Abidjan," Toner said.
Gbagbo's forces on Saturday attacked the headquarters of his rival, UN-recognized president Alassane Ouattara, in a major escalation of the battle for control of the country.
A UN spokesman and witnesses told AFP the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, where Ouattara has been holed up since disputed November elections, came under attack from about 5:00 pm local time (1700 GMT).
It was the first time since the start of the west African nation's political crisis that the hotel had come under direct attack.....

Gbagbo's forces attack Ouattara's Ivory Coast base
By Ange Aboa in Abidjan, Reuters, April 9, 2011 8:42am IST

Forces loyal to Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo stepped up a counter-attack on presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara on Saturday by firing on his hotel headquarters in Abidjan....

Despite a fierce rebel onslaught, Gbagbo's soldiers have held onto swathes of the city, and are now growing bolder.

A U.N. spokesman in Abidjan said the attack on the Golf Hotel, which Ouattara has made his base since the election, involved heavy weapons that appeared to have been fired from Gbagbo's heavily defended residence.

"This was not a fight, but a direct attack by Gbagbo's forces, who fired RPGs and mortar rounds, from positions near Gbagbo's residence, at the Golf Hotel," said U.N. spokesman Hamadoun Toure.

He said one U.N. peacekeeper had been hurt, and that U.N. forces had responded by firing on those positions....

A Friendly Little Dictatorship in the Horn of Africa
Why the world doesn't care about Djibouti's autocracy.
By Aly Verjee, Foreignpolicy.com, April 8, 2011

....If the story ended there, Djibouti would be a sad if predictable tale of autocracy -- little different from Gabon, Syria, or Azerbaijan. With no natural resources to speak of, this microstate, more famous for its scuba diving than its diverse politics, is barely a footnote on the world agenda.

But to the West, and particularly the United States and France, Djibouti matters. It matters a lot. As the forward operating base of U.S. Africa Command, Djibouti's Camp Lemonnier is a friendly piece of real estate in the Horn of Africa, which includes Eritrea, Somalia, and Yemen. Approximately 2,000 U.S. troops are based at Lemonnier, in addition to the naval forces that periodically call at the port of Djibouti. With the nearest friendly African port located in Mombasa, Kenya -- 1,700 miles away -- the United States, NATO, and the European Union have no alternative to using Djibouti's harbor as a sanctuary to conduct anti-piracy operations.

Its unfettered cooperation on anti-piracy operations has endeared Djibouti to many other members of the international community. A score of countries -- including Japan, Germany, and Russia -- rely on the port of Djibouti to sustain their naval presence in East African waters. At the mouth of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is strategically located to protect some of the world's busiest shipping lanes....

As the only U.S. military toehold on the continent, Djibouti is also a vital link in the war on terror...The CIA is rumored to maintain facilities in country:....

And France has interests there, too: Its largest overseas military presence remains in this former colony....

Nightmare in Abidjan
A history in pictures of the Ivory Coast's crisis.
By Elizabeth Dickinson, Foreignpolicy. com, April 7, 2011

US Christian right flies the flag for Laurent Gbagbo
Ivory Coast leader – a Christian – is the real election winner and not Muslim rival Alassane Ouattara, claim key evangelicals
Ed Pilkington in New York,. guardian.co.uk, 7 April 2011 18.34 BST

In the US, several key evangelical leaders have been flying the flag for Gbagbo, claiming that he was the rightful victor of the November election and billing him as a Christian bulwark against the spread of Islam.

Foremost among those is Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, an evangelical Christian with close links to the Gbagbo regime. He has been lobbying Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, arguing in a letter to her that "it is mathematically impossible for President Gbagbo to have lost the election by several hundred thousand votes."

Other commentators have made much of the fact that Gbagbo and his wife, Simone, are evangelical Christians and that his rival, Alassane Ouattara, who won the internationally monitored election, is Muslim. On Fox News, Glenn Beck contrasted the "current Christian president" with the "Muslim" Ouattara, whom he said was responsible for all the recent killing.

The televangelist Pat Robertson went further, calling Gbagbo a "very fine man". He described Ivory Coast as a "country run by a Christian that is going to be in the hands of a Muslim, so it's one more Muslim nation building up the ring of sharia law."

Robertson's words chimed with those of the French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, who said that Ouattara's victory would put Ivory Coast "under Muslim influence". He accused France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, of launching "an act of international piracy" against Gbagbo out of a desire for oil....

....Last Thursday, we started

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 20:07:59 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

....Last Thursday, we started hearing that troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara....were coming. This city waited in an agonized calm. And then, at twilight, they passed under our windows. My son and I crept to a window and peeked through the curtains to watch them.
Armed men walked by silently, their strides determined, followed by vehicles with their headlights off. It was like something from a movie. They were headed to Cocody, the wealthy suburb where the state television has its headquarters. Later, we heard shots. The assault on Gbagbo partisans was beginning.
In my apartment building, my neighbors are on both sides of the political debate, yet harmony reigns. We know that we shouldn’t talk politics — we can be wise if we have to be.
On Sunday, as president of the building’s board, I organized an emergency meeting....

Continued @

From the Windows of Abidjan,

By Fatou Keïta, a novelist, for The New York Times Op-Ed Section, April 6, 2011.

Interesting that R2P only is

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:42:13 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

Interesting that R2P only is still their story and the French and the UN are sticking to it:

Opposition Forces Move on Ivory Coast Strongman
By Adam Nossiter and Alan Cowell, New York Times, April 6, 2011

....News reports, quoting Mr. Gbagbo’s representatives, said French forces had joined the assault, opening fire from helicopters and a nearby rooftop. The United Nations and France had attacked targets at his residence, his offices and two of his military bases on Monday, in what they called an effort to destroy his heavy weapons and protect the civilians who had been targeted by them.

But French officials denied that either French or United Nations forces were involved in attacks on the presidential residence on Wednesday.

“We’re not involved, and neither is Onuci,” said Bernard Valero, the French Foreign Ministry spokesman, referring to the United Nations Mission in Ivory Coast. “It is Ouattara’s guys.”....

Scratch that, maybe it will

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:33:46 +0000

In reply to Will become a tutorial for

Scratch that, maybe it will be a tutorial on dealing with alternate unviverses:

Ivory Coast ex-president Laurent Gbagbo denies offer to surrender

Forces of Alassane Outtara surround presidential palace in Abidjan but incumbent says he will only agree to peace talks

By Selay Kouassi in Abidjan and David Smith in Johannesburg
Guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 April 2011 08.55 BST

I am reminded of the ironically titled Operation Nifty Package,re: Noriega/1989

Will become a tutorial for

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:20:34 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

Will become a tutorial for future IR classes, an example of where diplomacy may be useless; he refused to even start talking until force was used:

Ivory Coast Leader Swayed by Force as He Considers Exit
By Adam Nositter and Scott Sayare, New York Times, April 6, 2011

TAKORADI, Ghana — Holed up in a bunker under his residence, Ivory Coast‘s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, clung to office on Wednesday as he negotiated a potential surrender, shorn of support among his generals while French and United Nations officials demanded his departure and opposition forces encircled him.
“Everybody’s dropped him,” Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, said in a radio interview in Paris, “his stubbornness is absurd.”

“The only thing that remains for him is to negotiate the conditions of his departure,” Mr. Juppé said, hours after Mr. Gbagbo said in an interview with French television that he was still the legitimate ruler and wanted talks with his political adversaries.

Adm. Édouard Guillaud, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that he expected Mr. Gbagbo to surrender within hours. “He has no other choice,” Admiral Guillaud said.

“The negotiations began yesterday and continued through the night. Unfortunately, I do not see an outcome at the moment. Despite that, I think it is only a matter of hours,” he said in a broadcast interview on Wednesday.

Mr. Gbagbo’s departure would end a four-month standoff that has underscored both the strengths and limits of international diplomacy. For months, Mr. Gbagbo has refused to step down after losing a presidential election last year, angrily defying global condemnation and hard-hitting sanctions as his nation spiraled back into civil war.

In the end, it came down to force. The international stance, taken by African and Western countries alike, greatly weakened Mr. Gbagbo’s ability to govern. But his willingness even to discuss the terms of his exit came only after opposition forces swept across the country and France and the United Nations entered the fight, striking targets at his residence, his offices and two of his military bases in what they called an effort to protect civilians....

Related thoughts confession:

artappraiser — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:01:59 +0000

In reply to How can you deny the

Related thoughts confession: when I saw the following picture at top of The Telegraph's Ivory Coast LIve Blog, I thought: we're going to see something influenced by it in the next Paris fashion shows:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01865/iv_1865103c.jpg

How can you deny the

jollyroger — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:43:06 +0000

In reply to Sarkozy's

How can you deny the nostalgia that drifts over one at the familiar rhythm of the rhumba of the colonizer and the colonized, as it subltly pervades the modern musical mashup...

Sarkozy's

artappraiser — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:01:22 +0000

In reply to Côte d’Ivoire

Sarkozy's involvement:

France's Sarkozy, Ouattara speak, French attacks ease,
Reuters, Apr 5, 2011 10:15am GMT

PARIS, April 5 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara on Tuesday after U.N. and French helicopters fired the previous evening at bases of troops loyal to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

Sarkozy's office said he spoke to Ouattara twice on Tuesday morning to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast, where forces loyal to Ouattara have launched a major assault on the presidential palace, shaking Gbagbo's grip on power.

French helicopters fired on heavy weapons camps and armoured vehicles in the former French colony late on Monday, an operation Sarkozy said he authorised in response to a U.N. request, but there were no French strikes so far on Tuesday.

"There have not been new strikes by the Licorne force this morning," armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard told Reuters, referring to France's 1,650-strong Licorne, or "Unicorn" force which destroyed rocket-propelled grenade launchers and television transmitters with missiles.

"Last night, heavy weapons were destroyed so the threat to civilians is lower today," he said, adding that the U.N. resolution still stood and France could be asked to support further action if more threats are identified. Burkhard said around 2,000 French nationals....