Ouattara urges peace after Ivory Coast rival held

Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo changes his clothes after being arrested. Photograph: Reuters

ABIDJAN, (Reuters) – Ivory Coast’s internationally  recognised 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.

Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo changes his clothes after being arrested. Photograph: Reuters

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 Laurent Gbagbo was  captured on 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 leaves 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 over  the past few weeks.

“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 on 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 to 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.

SECURITY VACUUM

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 fuelled fears of a humanitarian  disaster unless authorities can act swiftly.

Ouattara called for calm and 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, who  promised to fight to the bitter end and still control parts of  Abidjan, will heed calls to lay down their weapons. Nor was it  clear if the 46 percent of Ivorians who voted for Gbagbo in the  election will accept his defeat.

“Ouattara has to play this very carefully, to manage  tensions at home and placate the domestic constituents of Gbagbo  and so resolve not just the electoral dispute but also in effect  a 10-year-long civil war,” said Mark Schroeder at political risk  consultancy Stratfor.

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.

“The current problem of Abidjan is a security vacuum,” said  Ivan Simonovic, assistant secretary-general at the Office of the  U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York.

“Most police and gendarmerie are not at their (posts) and  until today we have had a number of cases of looting, of raping  and of murders in the areas of Abidjan controlled by either of  the sides to the conflict,” he said.

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.

FRENCH ROLE

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 armoured vehicles moved on  Gbagbo’s residence in Abidjan early on Monday after French and  U.N. helicopter gunships pounded the compound overnight.

Witnesses said Ouattara’s forces, who 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.

“Just after 3 o’clock, the ex-president Laurent Gbagbo  handed himself over to (Ouattara’s) Republican Forces of Ivory  Coast. At no moment did French forces enter either the garden or  the residence of Gbagbo,” French armed forces spokesman Thierry  Burkhard said.