Ouattara urges peace after Ivory Coast rival held
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ABIDJAN |
(Reuters) - Ivory Coast's internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara, called for peace after his rival was arrested with the help of French forces, but he faces a huge task reuniting a country shattered by civil war.Ouattara, who won a November presidential election according to U.N.-certified results, can finally begin asserting his authority over the West African country after his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo was captured Monday, ending more than four months of stand-off that descended into all-out conflict.
Gbagbo, who had refused to step down after 10 years in power, was arrested after French forces in the former colony closed in on the bunker where he had been holed up for the past week, and placed under the control of Ouattara's forces.
That has left Ouattara as the sole leader in charge of the country, although many analysts say it may not be enough to end the fighting that has bloodied the world's top cocoa grower.
"I call on my fellow countrymen to abstain from all forms of reprisal and violence," Ouattara said in a speech on his TCI television late Monday, calling for "a new era of hope."
"Our country has turned a painful page in its history," he said, urging marauding youth militias to lay down their weapons and promising to restore security to the battered nation.
Ethnic violence has festered during Ouattara's lengthy tug-of-war with Gbagbo, particularly in the west of the country, with hundreds of people killed as both sides in the conflict committed atrocities against civilians, aid groups say.
Ouattara said Gbagbo, his wife and aides who have been detained will face justice. But he also promised a South African-styled Truth and Reconciliation Commission to shed light on all crimes and human rights abuses.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Ouattara to form a national unity government to help reconcile the country's divisions, his spokesman said.
A Gbagbo aide said only negotiations with Gbagbo's camp would spare further turmoil.
"There must be negotiations, talks with Gbagbo who is the only one who can prevent Ivory Coast from plunging into violence," Pascal Affi N'Guessan, head of Gbagbo's FPI party, told Radio France International.
HUMANITARIAN CHALLENGE
An end to the standoff could pave the way for a quick resumption of cocoa exports from the world's top grower nation, and raise hopes for payments on the country's defaulted Eurobond, analysts said.
London cocoa prices were little changed early Tuesday after heavy losses since mid-March, while the Eurobond traded down slightly.
In the commercial capital Abidjan, where people have been trapped in their homes with little food or water as fighting raged for 10 days, Ouattara faces a more immediate challenge.
Dwindling supplies as well as frequent power cuts and a shortage of medicines have fueled fears of a humanitarian disaster unless authorities can act swiftly.
The French government announced Tuesday it would give Ivory Coast 400 million euros in financial aid to help residents and restart public services in Abidjan. The World Bank said it hoped it could move forward on writing off the country's debt.
Ouattara said he had asked his police and gendarmerie forces as well as U.N. and French troops to help restore security.
Gbagbo, looking submissive and startled, briefly spoke on Ouattara's TCI television and called for an end to the fighting after his arrest.
But it is not clear whether pro-Gbagbo militias, which vowed to fight to the bitter end and still control parts of Abidjan, would heed calls to lay down their weapons. Nor was it clear if the 46 percent of Ivorians who voted for Gbagbo in the election would accept his defeat.
In a sign of continued high tensions, residents in the northern Abidjan neighborhood of Yopougon said armed militias were still roaming the streets there.
"Last night there were gunshots around 2300 (2300 GMT)," Jacques Kouakou, a resident, told Reuters by telephone. "When we woke up this morning we found that 14 youths from the neighborhood had been shot dead."
LEGITIMACY
The November poll was meant to draw a line under a 2002-03 civil war which left the country split in two. Instead, it reignited the conflict, killing more than 1,000 people and displacing one million. The final death toll is likely to run into the thousands.
Ouattara's legitimacy may be tarnished by accusations that his forces killed hundreds as they swept through the country to reach Abidjan, something that his aides deny.
He also faces questions about the role played by the French military in securing his rival's arrest.
A column of more than 30 French armored vehicles moved on Gbagbo's residence in Abidjan early Monday after French and U.N. helicopter gunships pounded the compound overnight.
Witnesses said Ouattara's forces, which had failed to dislodge Gbagbo despite mounting a fierce attack on his bunker last week, joined French ground troops advancing on the compound.
France and Ouattara's camp insisted it was Ouattara's forces that arrested Gbagbo, eager to counter claims by Gbagbo's aides that Ouattara is nothing more than a foreign-backed stooge.
"We have seen a coup organised by the French army," said N'Guessan.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday French forces -- now numbering more than 1,600 in the former colony -- had no need to stay in Ivory Coast over the long term.
U.N. officials said Gbagbo would be moved to a secure location outside of Abidjan in the country's north. Ouattara said all measures had been taken to ensure his physical security, and that his rights would be respected.
(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Braun and Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Vicky Buffery and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Bate Felix and Silvia Aloisi in Dakar; Writing by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Jon Boyle and Jeffrey Heller)
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