Ivory Coast - my Forum Posts from Sammyboy.com

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Congratulations to Ivory Coast’s people and fighters, ex-president captured

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1981018/

Ouattara wins the fight, but now his hard work begins

MARCO CHOWN OVED

ABIDJAN— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Apr. 11, 2011 8:24PM EDT Last updated Monday, Apr. 11, 2011 8:32PM EDT

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He looked like anyone might after being pulled out of a bunker after 12 days: a little haggard, bags beneath his eyes, like he hadn’t taken a shower in a while. But the capture of Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo was anything but routine, and whether this country will be able to bounce back from the depths of violence, propaganda and hate that he dragged it into is anything but certain.

More related to this story

• Ivory Coast strongman Gbagbo surrenders after weeks of bloody fighting
• Gbagbo vs. Ouattara: Tale of the tape
• French troops on move near Ivory Coast capital

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Who is Laurent Gbagbo?

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Ivory Coast strife continues

Hours after finally taking control of the country, President Alassane Ouattara said a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would investigate accusations of atrocities against civilians by both sides. He called for calm and urged militias to disarm. “Our country has turned a painful page in its history,” he said in an evening address broadcast on both television and radio.

Mr. Ouattara cut short speculation of an international criminal prosecution against his rival and announced that an investigation would be opened on Mr. Gbagbo, his wife and their entourage. He assured them that they would receive a fair trial.

A message from Mr. Gbagbo in custody had been broadcast earlier, calling for an end to fighting.

Since winning the presidential election last November, Mr. Ouattara has had the support of the international community behind him, but no amount of diplomatic or financial pressure could convince Mr. Gbagbo to cede power.

In order for Mr. Ouattara to assume office, he would need two rounds of aerial bombardments by United Nations and French helicopters, as well as the assistance of a French armoured column, which secured the area around Mr. Gbagbo’s residence Monday morning before Mr. Ouattara’s men came to arrest him.

Mr. Gbagbo’s advisers say French special forces entered the compound and orchestrated the arrest, something that French military and government officials vehemently deny.

What’s certain is that French military support was essential to finishing this 19-week standoff for the president’s office, and Mr. Ouattara will have a very difficult time convincing the 46 per cent that voted for his opponent that he isn’t a Western stooge.

“[Mr. Ouattara] didn’t want to come to power this way, through the barrel of a gun,” said Richard Downie, an Africa expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “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.”

Even after images of Mr. Gbagbo and his wife, Simone, in custody were broadcast on television, the people of Abidjan didn’t descend into the streets in celebration.

“There’s been too much fighting, there are too many armed men still in the streets,” said Idrissa Ouedraogo, a resident of the pro-Ouattara Adjame neighbourhood. “We need to wait to make sure these men have been captured before any party can begin.”

Last month, on the four-month anniversary of his election, Mr. Ouattara gave up on diplomacy. His forces swept down from the northern half of the country and quickly advanced hundreds of kilometres and conquered dozens of cities meeting very little resistance. But their attack ground to a halt on the edge of Abidjan, where Mr. Gbagbo’s most hard core and loyal fighters were stationed with the tanks, machine guns and mortars they had been using to terrorize the civilian population.

Two weeks of fighting in the country’s biggest and most strategically important city has left its scars.

The twisted wreckages of burned cars and the deformed security grills of looted storefronts run on for kilometres.

Corpses littered the sides of the main boulevards, some of them charred by makeshift cremation. A pair of legs protruded from a dumpster in the downtown business core, an image that would be almost comical if it weren’t so gruesome.

Hundreds of destitute civilians carrying buckets formed lines at gas stations and any other place where they could find water. Gunmen still guarded the two bridges that link the northern and southern halves of the city. They stopped passing vehicles looking for Frenchmen.

More than 1 million people have fled the fighting and at least 500 people had been killed before the Mr. Ouattara’s advance even began. Those who have died since might never be counted.

Rights groups say the majority of those killed were supporters of Mr. Ouattara targeted by Mr. Gbagbo’s heavily armed security forces in the lower-class neighbourhoods of Abidjan. In one incident, eight unarmed women were shot down at a demonstration with a 50-calibre machine gun. The bullet casings are as big as empty toilet paper rolls.

Shortly afterwards, at least 25 people were killed when a busy marketplace was shelled with 81-mm mortars.

“Laurent Gbagbo has been credibly implicated in crimes against humanity and other atrocities for which he should be held to account,” said Daniel Bekele, the Africa director of Human Rights watch. “He should not be granted a golden exile in a country that would shield him from national or international prosecution.”

But Mr. Gbagbo’s troops aren’t the only ones who should be investigated, he said, citing evidence of a mass grave containing more than 100 bodies in the west of the country. Human Rights Watch reported that Mr. Ouattara’s forces were behind it and other atrocities in the west of the country.

“To end over a decade of abuse and impunity, Mr. Ouattara’s new government needs to ensure that all those responsible for the crimes that have characterized this painful period of Côte d’Ivoire’s history face fair justice, regardless of their rank or political allegiance,” Mr. Bekele said.

The European Union lifted its sanctions preventing ships from docking at Ivory Coast’s ports and doing business with some of it's major companies, setting the stage for an economic recovery.

More than 100,000 tonnes of cocoa beans are waiting to be exported after a two-month ban, which could bring a much-needed injection of cash into the economy.

But as the French armoured column returned to base Monday night, their mission accomplished, gunfire still rung out through the city.

Ivory Coast may have had help in toppling its strongman, but Mr. Ouattara will almost surely have to go it alone rebuilding the trust, the rule of law and the economy that this country needs.

Special to The Globe and Mail

KEY MOMENTS IN THE IVORY COAST SAGA

It all began four months ago …

Five turning points in the four-month aftermath of Ivory Coast’s presidential election

1. Ivory Coast’s election commission announces on Dec. 2, 2010, that former premier Alassane Ouattara won the Nov. 28 runoff presidential election with 54.1 per cent of the vote comparied with 45.9 per cent for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

2. The Constitutional Council, run by an ally of Mr. Gbagbo, rejects the results as rigged and declares Mr. Gbagbo as the winner on Dec. 3. The UN, however, endorses Mr. Ouattara’s win.

3. Mr. Gbagbo refuses to cede power or leave the presidential palace, but Mr. Ouattara has himself sworn in as president and begins appointing ministers and ambassadors from his headquarters of Abidjan’s seaside Golf Hotel as forces loyal to each begin to wage gun battles.

4. Mr. Gbagbo begins negotiating his surrender after pro-Outtara forces overtake much of the country and French forces under UN authority carry out strikes against his troops on April 4. But this proves to be a delaying tactic, allowing him to barricade himself in a bunker on the grounds of the presidential palace as his forces to regroup.

5. With help again from French forces, troops loyal to Mr. Ouattara storm the bunker April 11, and arrest Mr. Gbagbo and his wife.

Associated Press

uy..

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Originally Posted by wikiphile

They are just trading one corrupt leader for another via violence, why are you so happy about that?

To be frank and practical one can not get TOO GREEDY in Reforming own country. There are limitations that you can not over come, so you can only do within what is still possible.

I congratulated the Ivory Coast’s people for the fact that they secured their future by affirming a CHANGE or REFORM, by getting rid of people they ought to rid and PUNISH. They already captured their ex-president a corrupted dictator. That is already many steps ahead of us Singaporeans. I must congratulate them.

There are limitations on the replacement available within their country at this time, they have to accept this. We are just the exactly same as well in this aspect.

What is achieve so far, and with the price paid so far, is they can be confidently sure, and sufficiently experienced that they can remove a corrupted long ruling dictator with force and paying the necessary price. That means in the future they can do just the same again. Aka round 2 round 3 ... as far as necessary. They are no longer stuck in a permanently ruling greedy and corrupted dictatorship.

Things are of course not yet perfect, but they have been able to move forward. That is way better than us.

It is impractical and naive indeed if Reformist or People expected on-single-step-to-PERFECTION straight reform. There is no such thing at all. Things moves forward a step at a time and you only get not more than the price you had paid for.

Some times things may even seemed worst in some aspects after the initial steps or reform, you have to be patient and understand what is to be expected. You can not be myopic.

In our case, if we could rid LEEgime and captured the key bastards after paying the necessary price, it is a great leap forward already. And certainly like the people of Ivory Coast, we also lack any ideal replacement. The replacements are very limited, and inexperience, and we may not even trust or like them. It is a fact! We have reached a scenario that if we don't rid LEEgime, we are totally out of control of OUR country, we rid them then at least we got back the most basic rights - the control. With that we have got to appreciate the achievement and the necessary price, instead of being inpatient and greedy.

If we expected heaven after just pushing a few steps, then we are just being impractical, naive and immature like a little spoil brat - admittedly we have too many of such spoil brats in SG. They are burdens to reform and progress among many other important things.

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Originally Posted by wikiphile

You crazy old man, you only look at them changing one leader for another you didn't see the blood they shed and the sufferings they went through just to exchange one corrupted African for another.

May be you belong to the group that gave an overly high value to blood. I won't agree to these, and there is no point to argue. Fact remains that BLEEDING had been the necessary battery juice of political changes that SHAPED the entire world. There are just some naive and kind people in the recent century to believe that world can be shaped / changed / reformed so ideally without bleeding.

I strongly think that these people are wrong unacceptable and needs to be corrected. As long as human can continue to exist on this planet, sufficient human killings and bleeding is not only necessary and the only true way to balance overpopulation against the existence of vital resources and environment. The total extinction (we presently face) is mainly contributed by those people who had for past 1 or 2 centuries overly preserve human lives and indulged themselves in foolish joy of self-deceiving kindness & feeling noble and holly.

Blood is meant to be shed in this world as a cause of natural and way of live in this living planet since days of Jurassic billion years before silly human exist, when men came, there were no such problem since oldest stone age until the era before colonialism. Then after the colonists had done sufficient exploitations and conquering, they started to spread their own hypocratic Obscurantism through religious missions and (seriously flawed) education. They aren't aware that they caused global population to explode so quickly within just only decades. A crisis that men had never faced, in entire history counting like 12000 years back. In the eco system there is FOOD CHAIN, and bleeding is a standard phenomena of feeding within natural food chain. Stupid human have no idea nor capability but nevertheless tried to modify the system, just to indulge themselves to enjoy their own spiritual satisfaction - which itself is unique only to men, to be indeed a flaw / defect / malfunction, non-existence in any other known forms of lives, which is causing the mass-extinction of entire globe of lives.

In natural world life is a battle for survival every min. Men self-deceived and indulged themselves that they could or desire to live without any suffering or face death or bleeding. You read your own post! You expect to change power and balance painlessly and cheaply, you are indulging yourself and falsely believing in this arbitrary and unnatural way to be the norm. This is only installed in your mind via flawed education & obscurantism!

On this planet, human used to be food to animals like tigers / lions / snakes / sharks etc. in caveman's era.. but we changed that, now we are eating these animals to extinction. This is a drastic change of power and alteration of food chain. The process is not only painfully long, it took high price including huge amount of blood and sufferings and bears lots huge consequences, and it is not necessarily right nor natural.

If you want political power to change, and believed that ballots is the only way to change, your minds are already corrupted and poisoned by Obscurantism and, you are tightly limited, you are wrong, your success is unnatural and not expected to sustain even if achieved.

Fortunately, people from Ivory Coast, Libya & many other places are still able to do things without following limitations of obscurantism. If human had the chance to continue to exist for many more centuries, I think the mistakes of these obscurantism, will subside itself via and conforming the natural rule of survival, and selection.

I am not interested to argue the morality or any arbitrary concepts of Rights etc.

uy..

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Re: Congratulations to Ivory Coast’s people and fighters, ex-president captured

My point on the process of reform is this - for a country under a corrupted dictatorship, where power is gripped firmly and then past to successors or within family tree, the very first step is to have a breakthrough apart from the power grip. Weather or not with any ideal replacement is really secondary. Reformist and people must not be confused between long & short term objectives of the reform.

It is absolutely not the right idea here, that the immediate lack of ideal replacement could meant that we continue to keep the existing corrupt bastards' regime. We must firstly secure our rights and power to replace and punish the greedy bastards, and then further ensure that similar efforts will continue into the future. And only after some time, we can have hope for clean and upright leaders to rise for the country.

Using the example of Ivory Coast, weather they have a clean and upright new president or not is a longer term issue, for the fight and the capturing of the deposed president, it is a significant breakthrough - that people are now sure that they have this control over their own country, that corrupted dictator can be caught and punished by the people. And therefore, if there was ANY corrupted dictator after this one, the assurance that the people enjoy from now on, is to be able to grab the bastards and shoot them!

To ensure that the future presidents are clean is a longer term efforts, which comes after the initial breakthrough. Weather you have to grab and shoot 1 or 10 more bastards, it may be either you future duty as citizens, or the duties of your grandchildren.

In the longer term, in a country that corrupted greedy dictators are always punished by people, the chance stands better for upright and clean president to rise which COULD ONLY COME AFTER the corrupted greedy bastards had been shoot and sunken by the strength of the people.

uy..