Net Closes on Besieged Ivorian Strongman amid Heavy Fighting

Laurent Gbagbo is on the verge of being forced to relinquish the presidency of Côte d'Ivoire that he has clung on to for four months despite losing the election on 28 November 2010. Tired of waiting for diplomatic efforts to succeed in persuading the incumbent to step down, Alassane Ouattara's newly constituted Republican Forces of Côte d'Ivoire have surged through the half of the country they did not already control in the space of just four days. As troops and key supporters melted away, Gbagbo's crumbling regime was mainly defended by the elite presidential guard surrounding his residence and the presidential palace. It was not immediately clear whether Gbagbo was at either location, but his representative in Paris, Toussaint Alain, insisted this morning that he was still on Ivorian territory. Although Ouattara has promised that Gbagbo will not be harmed if he agrees to leave, allowing himself to be captured would be entirely consistent with a bizarre policy of denial and refusal to face the truth, especially over the last couple of weeks. Ouattara's spokesperson Patrick Achi told Reuters: "[Gbagbo] hasn't shown any signs of giving up. I don't think he will see the game is up, because he really believes God will save him."

Deserted by Armed Forces

When the African Union (AU) mediation panel finally ruled that Gbagbo had to step down (see Côte d'Ivoire: 11 March 2011: AU Confirms Ivorian Election Result, Envoy Calls for Outside Force), he rejected their verdict and even the very principle of power-sharing. The only slight concession was a vague offer of "inter-Ivorian dialogue", and such intransigence finally persuaded Ouattara that the only option was force. Even his troops have been taken aback by the lack of resistance, which has been minimal and mainly been offered by militias and mercenaries, according to eyewitness reports. The regular Defence and Security Forces have hardly fired a shot, preferring to defect en masse to the FRCI or simply to shed their uniforms. Yesterday, these desertions reached the top brass, with army chief of staff General Philippe Mangou seeking sanctuary in the South African embassy with his wife and five children. A day earlier, Mangou had appeared on state television reading out an appeal for anyone "willing to die for their country" to enlist in the army. The call, directed at activists who had registered in their hundreds two weeks earlier, went largely unheeded, and Mangou's defection has been followed by several other high-ranking officers and officials, making the eventual military outcome virtually certain.

The FRCI moved into Abidjan last night and swiftly took over the airport, cutting off the main possible escape route for Gbagbo loyalists before handing control to troops from the United Nations Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI). Ouattara's men then seized state television channel RTI which had been one of the main sources of propaganda for the incumbent regime. A deadline of 1900GMT was set for Gbagbo to step down but there was no response. Indeed, very little at all has been heard from Gbagbo for some time and he has not been seen in public for weeks, a lack of profile and leadership which at least partly accounts for the scale and speed of his supporters' desertions. A long-awaited television address, trailed from as far back as two weeks ago, was eventually scheduled for Wednesday (30 March), but then abruptly postponed after the fall of political capital Yamoussoukro. Early yesterday, RTI claimed Gbagbo was at his home in the suburb of Cocody and would "address his fellow citizens in the coming hours", but the fall of RTI put paid to that. Ouattara's government also announced the closure of all borders until further notice and a curfew in Abidjan from 9pm to 6am until Sunday (3 April), by which time they expect to capture Gbagbo, with Ouattara's prime minister Guillaume Soro pledging to "go and fetch him and he will face international prosecution".

Outlook and Implications

The threat to bring Laurent Gbagbo before the International Criminal Court might be the best outcome he can hope for at the moment. His refusal to accept the outcome of the election has been directly responsible for a conflict which has caused around 500 deaths so far—at a very conservative estimate—and more than a million people to have fled their homes. He has a lot to answer for to the Ivorian people, as do a number of other leading hard-liners, particularly the four targeted two days ago by UN sanctions–Gbagbo's wife Simone, Interior Minister Desiré Tagro, Foreign Minister Alcide Djédjé and Pascal Affi N'Guessan, leader of Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party. The longer Gbagbo resists, and puts off the pacification of Abidjan, the more intense will be the bitterness and desire for revenge against him and his main backers, but also against civilian supporters of the regime.

The last four months have been punctuated by the murder and oppression of civilian supporters of Ouattara at the hands of the FDS and Young Patriots militia group. Two notorious incidents could be used as the basis for prosecution of key figures—the killing of 25 people in Abobo after shells were fired at a market, and the gunning down of seven female protesters at a peaceful march. However, the UN, humanitarian organisations and eyewitnesses had reported that random massacres had been stepped up in the last few days in Abidjan, while further slayings in other regions are starting to come to light, such as the murder of 37 West African immigrants in a western village. This has all fuelled a desire for revenge, and the UN human rights office has already expressed its alarm at reprisals being carried out. Stopping this from spreading is going to be an immensely difficult task for the FRCI and particularly for UNOCI, which has faced a stream of criticism from Ouattara's side for not playing its peacekeeping role adequately. While the lack of fighting and untouched infrastructure in most locations elsewhere in the country has prepared the ground for social and economic activity to resume reasonably quickly, events in Abidjan have left gaping wounds which will take far longer to heal.