Ivory Coast Gbagbo Capitulates!

He had not been seen in public for weeks. Laurent Gbagbo appeared yesterday in white vest and green shirt on the screens of TCI, television pro-Ouattara. Surrounded by his wife, Simone, several men, including his son Michael, the outgoing president Ivorian wipes his body in a room at the Hotel du Golf, where he was detained in the afternoon. He went to 13 hours. It’s the end of four months of civil war which has made at least 800 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands of Ivorians on the roads of the exodus.

“Garden”. The arrest of Laurent Gbagbo was preceded by an intense attack on Sunday night and yesterday morning, the presidential residence in the district of Cocody and administrative district of Plateau (center of Abidjan). Two MI-24 helicopters of UNOCI and four Gazelles of the French Licorne forces have stepped up strikes to destroy heavy weapons in the camp Gbagbo. According to the story of Colonel Thierry Burkhard, spokesman of the French General Staff, “200 to 250 French soldiers and troops of UNOCI Togo” also participated in operations that took part in Unicorn armored and Nations United. A resident of the residential district of Cocody, told Reuters he saw yesterday morning, a column of at least 30 French armored vehicles, followed by soldiers, to move towards the presidential residence. The building has also been largely destroyed and bodies of soldiers lying on the ground, according to several sources.

“Around 11 am, 300 soldiers surrendered. they belonged to the Republican Guard in Treichville (south of Abidjan), “said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the UN Operation in Ivory Coast (ONUCI). “Their leader, General Bruno Dogbo Wheat, UNOCI has personally called to say he wanted a peaceful end to all this.” But the official hastened to add that “no soldier has taken part in UN the arrest. “

The same argument was put on the French side. The Defence Minister, Gerard Longuet, and Colonel Burkhard, hammered yesterday that “no time, French forces have entered the garden, or the presidential residence of Mr Gbagbo.”

“Big”. But nobody is fooled. “Of course it was the French who did everything, they called the republican forces of the Ivory Coast at the end to pick it,” says a source close to the president. It seems that the UN and French forces have largely cleared the ground and paved the way for a speedy resolution of the crisis. Because these days, the forces pro-Ouattara entries in Abidjan on March 31 against the trampling of the faithful last square of Gbagbo. Yesterday, a Western military source believed to know, “UNOCI and Licorne arrested Gbagbo, who was handed over to the legitimate authorities of the Ivory Coast. But we know who holds the operational capacity to carry out such an operation (the French, ed.) The longer the delay, the more we might make a martyr. Furthermore, we could not wait, the humanitarian situation is appalling in Abidjan. The military status quo was untenable, Abidjan would turn into Monrovia. “

“Witches”. After his capture, the former head of state was placed at his request in the custody of the UN police as “pockets of resistance” continued fighting in the Ivorian economic capital. And several witnesses reported scenes of lynching when a hundred members of the regime captured – including Simone Gbagbo and Michael, the eldest son – appeared in the lobby of the Hotel du Golf. Gbagbo had reached a safe place through a backdoor.

Yesterday evening, in a statement broadcast on television TCI his rival Alassane Ouattara, he hoped “we stop arms” and that “falls within the civil part of the crisis.” Hours earlier, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, had “launched a rallying cry of the pro-Gbagbo”, before promising that there would be no “witch hunt”.

But the president Alassane Ouattara would quickly decide the fate of its legal predecessor. Yesterday evening, after talking with several generals rallied, “Ado” was to address the Ivorians in his first real speech of President.