5th April, 2011
There were conflicting reports on the correct political situation in Ivory Coast Tuesday evening as one report said Ivory Coast’s sit tight ruler, Laurent Gbagbo may have finally surrendered after several months of defying the world to leave office after losing an election to his opponent, Alassane Ouattara. But in what may be an anti-climax, Gbagbo, holed in his bunker, in the presidential palace retorted that he was not thinking of going yet. In a remark that will further incense the world, Gbagbo even claimed that he won the election that the entire world believed that his opponent was the true winner.
Gbagbo spoke on telephone to a French TV station, LCI at about 5.30 pm today, at a time the world thought he was negotiating his exit.
“I won the election and I am not negotiating my departure,” Gbagbo said by telephone. It was not clear if Gbagbo was merely grandstanding, as a number of his generals have already surrendered to the United Nations.
“One might think that we are getting to the end of the crisis,” Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission to Ivory Coast said by phone. “We spoke to his close aides, some had already defected, some are ready to stop fighting. He is alone now, he is in his bunker with a handful of supporters and family members. So is he going to last or not? I don’t know.”
Toure said that the U.N. had received phone calls Tuesday from the three main Gbagbo-allied generals, saying they were planning to order their troops to stop fighting.
“They asked us to accept arms and ammunition from the troops and to provide them protection,” he said.
According to a Reuters news story today, Gbagbo has surrendered and has asked for United Nations protection, quoting an internal U.N. document.
“…President Gbagbo has also surrendered and has asked UNOCI’s protection,” the document to U.N staff said.
Gbagbo was negotiating his departure following a fierce assault by forces loyal to his presidential rival backed by U.N. and French helicopter air strikes.
Surrounded by troops backing Ivory Coast’s democratically elected leader, Gbagbo was said to have huddled in a bunker with his family Tuesday..
France’s foreign minister said Gbagbo would be required to relinquish power in writing after a decade as president, and must formally recognize his rival Alassane Ouattara, the internationally backed winner of the November election that plunged the West African nation into chaos.
The talks about Gbagbo’s departure terms were still ongoing Tuesday evening directly between Gbagbo and Ouattara, according to a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly., the Associated Press said.
Forces loyal to Ouattara on Tuesday seized the presidential residence where Gbagbo tried to wrest last-ditch concessions, said a senior diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Ouattara has urged his supporters to take Gbagbo alive.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told a parliamentary commission that military chiefs in the former French colony also have given orders for a cease-fire.
United Nations and French forces opened fire with attack helicopters on Gbagbo’s arms stockpiles and bases on Monday after four months of political deadlock in the former French colony in West Africa. Columns of foot soldiers allied with Ouattara also finally pierced the city limits of Abidjan.
“One might think that we are getting to the end of the crisis,” Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission to Ivory Coast said by phone. “We spoke to his close aides, some had already defected, some are ready to stop fighting. He is alone now, he is in his bunker with a handful of supporters and family members. So is he going to last or not? I don’t know.”
Toure said that the U.N. had received phone calls Tuesday from the three main Gbagbo-allied generals, saying they were planning to order their troops to stop fighting.
“They asked us to accept arms and ammunition from the troops and to provide them protection,” he said.
After the November election, which he lost to, Gbagbo refused to cede power to Ouattara even as the world’s largest cocoa producer teetered on the brink of all-out civil war as the political crisis drew out, with both men claiming the presidency. Ouattara has tried to rule from a lagoonside hotel, while Gbagbo stubbornly refused every olive branch extended to him, until today when he found that the game was up