Ivory Coast's Gbagbo Handed To Rebels

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo and his wife Simone are in the custody of Alassane Ouattara at the Golf Hotel in Abidjan and have requested U.N. protection, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said on Monday.

Gbagbo refused to step down when Ouattara won last November's presidential election, according to results certified by the United Nations, reigniting a civil war that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and uprooted a million people.

"I can confirm that former President Gbagbo and his wife are presently in the Golf Hotel under the custody of Mr. Ouattara's forces," the head of U.N. peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, told reporters after addressing the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors.

He added that the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country, known as UNOCI, had accepted a request from Gbagbo to ensure his and his wife's security.

Le Roy said there was still fighting in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa exporter, as there remained "pockets of resistance." However, he hoped that resistance would soon end.

"The chief of Gbagbo forces ... called us to say that he wants to surrender the weapons," he said. "I hope that is going on while I speak."

"The crisis is not over at all," Le Roy said. "There is still a huge humanitarian crisis."

Le Roy referred to a report by the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch, which said both Ouattara's and Gbagbo's forces had been guilty of unjustifiable attacks against civilians. He said that report was "very worrying."

Ouattara's U.N. envoy Youssoufou Bamba on Saturday rejected allegations that Ouattara's forces raped and killed civilians suspected of supporting Gbagbo but said the new Ivorian government would support an investigation of any allegations raised.

Click for Restrictions.

WATCH a video of the former leader, courtesy of the AP:

Comments

[goddessNdiva]

11:12 PM on 04/25/2011

If the Ivory Coast got it's independence from France than why do they French have an Army base?

Yeah...tick tack to deleting this comment.

[goddessNdiva]

11:51 PM on 04/25/2011

No deletes yet...lol.

Come on moderator...I challenge my comment violating HP rules.!!!

[kennyfasugbe]

02:59 AM on 04/14/2011

“"Watch me eat crow..." Mu'ammer Gadaffi

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=2bP8HQdB_­MQ&feature­=related”

[goddessNdiva]

06:49 AM on 04/13/2011

What would be nice is if the French army would leave Africa. If the Ivory Coast was independent than why is there a French army in that country?

Prey tell....

[goddessNdiva]

07:00 AM on 04/13/2011

tick tock....when this comment be deleted...lol.

[Hajnal]

08:05 AM on 04/13/2011

Yawn.

[ivan ko]

04:33 PM on 04/12/2011

Gbagbo under arrest it looked a lot like Saddam Hussein under arrest.

[ethiopia1a]

01:03 PM on 04/12/2011

Disunited United nations. One veto vote is equals 92 or more. US and UN should leave double standards alone. The so called American interest and not the Ivorian, Iraqi, Afghan, Even African interest.

[kennyfasugbe]

03:00 AM on 04/14/2011

Revolution video. Enjoy if you are on the side of change~!

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=2bP8HQdB_­MQ&feature­=related”

[Katanga1960]

10:45 AM on 04/12/2011

This is déjà vu all over again:Lumumba! It is disheartening how the media is misleading the public the world over (Al Jazeera setting the Qatari agenda, SkyNews setting the UK right-wing agenda, the BBC a mouth-piece of the foreign office, foxnews, hum...ha!h!ha! ), Gbagbo was demonized for having said no to France's Chirac and later the dwarf who replaced him where Félix Houphouet Boigny(the dictator who was maintained in power by France and that Gbagbo opposed) used to say yes. Gbagbo brought democracy to Cote D`Ivoire & not what has been said in the media.The curse for Africa is Obama, he has an inferiority complex and takes extreme positions on African matters without any understanding whatsoever. He has allowed France to dictate his African foreign policy without consulting history and considering realities on the ground: Wherever people speak french on the African continent, there is no peace, there has never been! France has never allowed Africans to enjoy peace and has been looting them for centuries as confirmed in this video by Jacques Chirac http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjW-nN7cYec No honest soul, unless misled, can confirm that Ouattara whose wife is white and french & who has dual-nationality (He was in public office in neighboring Burkina-Faso where one of his parents is a native ), nobody can prove he won the election. Ouattara had control of the north of the country (The rebel-stronghold) where he got more votes than the registered voters.

[Frances 56]

09:17 AM on 04/12/2011

3 hours agoElaine Frances Hansen
I used to believe in liberal interventionism but no more. In every recent instance - including the example of the former Yugoslavia - it has involved Western powers wading in to a domestic dispute, in support of whichever side is flavour of the month, and deciding that country's destiny "on behalf of" its people. In the process, it has repeatedly constituted civil wars as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" in order to justify its own actions. In many instances, such intervention has created long-term and serious problems that are unresolvable in the short term (by which I mean the next decade or three) and may well erupt again into carnage at some future date. Thus Kosovo is now a festering sore in the heart of Europe; Iraq is one big blood-spattered mess; native Ivorians have now lost their own country to a northern Muslim population that largely consists of first and second generation immigrants; and Libya is ... well, who knows? Hardly a great success story so far.
Peoples need to shape their own destinies. Just as in the West, this will involve bloody civil wars and revolutions - the necessary convulsions of history in the making, and no different to those that European countries and the US have gone through over hundreds of years and in a number of instances within living memory. The destinies of other peoples are not ours to shape from the cappuccino bars and armchairs of the West.

[joeyfoto]

05:38 PM on 04/13/2011

Elaine Frances Hansen wrote:
"I used to believe in liberal interventionism but no more."

Your position is elegantly and clearly expressed in a heart-felt way.
I will proudly become a fan (#27), even though I profoundly disagree.

At least on a case-by-case basis, I believe military intervention can lead to more humane outcomes. For example, Kosovo may be "a festering sore in the heart of Europe," but ethnic cleansing has ceased, at least for the moment and a country that has been a pawn since before it was absorbed into the Roman empire, has a clear and constitutional identity as a secular society. This is a rough neighborhood, yet I support the principle from Jewish tradition that says: "There is no good war — there is no bad peace." I think that Cote-d'Ivoire is tough call, that came down on the side of democracy and against a senile and corrupt potentate, who refused to turn over the keys to government after he lost an election... which was deemed fair by African standards and supported by the African Union.

Libia is too soon to determine.

People do need to shape their own destinies, but the influence of arms dealers and oil seekers, can be counter-balanced, to some extent, with enlightened leadership. I know that there is no oversupply of "enlightened leadership" but that is no reason to abandon the ideal, when some lives can be saved and some countries futures can be improved.

[politicalguy94]

08:23 AM on 04/12/2011

The Ivory Coast used to be a prosperous country, standing out among other poorer countries around it, until civil war fueled by tensions between the country's different ethnic groups damaged its growth and prosperity. With the Ivorian political crisis over, Pres. Ouattara has to reconcile the tensions and differences between the ethnic groups, which were once again bitterly divided after the country's disputed election and the crisis that followed, to unite the country and once again return Ivory Coast to the growth and economic prosperity it had before.

[Derek Lantin]

09:04 AM on 04/12/2011

I agree; the differences between groups are both religious and tribal. Healing those will be difficult.
Restarting the economy should be more straightforward. No doubt the EEC and US will now lift sanctions and so the cocoa market can be re-openend.

[leftybass]

08:18 AM on 04/12/2011

Wait a second, itsn't that Fred Sanford's friend Skillet ?

[Angry Cloud]

08:17 AM on 04/12/2011

When ever I hear the song "Papa Was Rolling Stone" I picture a guy like that.

[Phytoresearcher]

07:53 AM on 04/12/2011

Why couldn't the US use the same strategy in Iraq versus invading with the entire armed forces and devastating a country and a people, two countries if you include the effect the war has had on the US economy and middle class, just to stop one man.

[thelipstickfemme]

08:29 AM on 04/12/2011

That was not going to happen since the Ivory Coast is a colonial outpost of France. As you know, USA and France are married, therefore it is France's call in being the front-runner in the decision making. So, the USA has many fires to put out that are costing us zillions of tax payer dollars.

[Chef Dracula]

04:46 AM on 04/12/2011

USA tortures, too. Bear that in mind.

[normk]

05:38 AM on 04/12/2011

Ya, and Bush did it first...

[Chef Dracula]

05:54 AM on 04/12/2011

Really? Oh dear. You're new on Earth aren't you?

[jokamachi]

04:24 AM on 04/12/2011

Let's see: he tortures and kills just about anybody he wants for as long as he wants and now he's begging the U.N. to intervene to save his sorry butt.

Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

[kennyfasugbe]

03:18 AM on 04/12/2011

"Watch me eat crow..." Mu'ammer Gadaffi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bP8HQdB_MQ&feature=related

[kennyfasugbe]

03:16 AM on 04/12/2011

The revolution is televised. And, the blood-soaked dictators are running for cover.

“"Watch me eat crow..." --Mu'ammer Gadaffi

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=2bP8HQdB_­MQ