Another One Bites the Dust
Another tyrant has been stripped off his power––Laurent Gbagbo, who had served as Côte d’Ivoire’s fourth President for well over ten years, had been sent to prison after trying unsuccessfully to evade the United Nations, which was out for his blood.
Gbagbo was born in the village of Mama, on May 31st of 1945. Before entering the world of politics, he was a history professor and a nonprofessional chemist and physicist––he earned his doctorate at Paris Diderot University in 1979. The next year, he was appointed as the Director of the Institute of History, Art, and African Archeology at the University of Abidjan. In 1982, he organized what is now the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).
His imprisonment now isn’t exactly his first time in jail. He was first arrested in the early ‘70s and then later again in the early ‘90s. Gbagbo was even exiled in France for the most part of the ‘80s. He came back to Côte d’Ivoire on September of 1988 and was subsequently elected as the FPI party’s Secretary-General.
Following the establishment of multiparty politics, Gbagbo was the lone candidate who campaigned against Houphouët-Boigny on October 1999. Gbagbo lost, earning less than 20 percent of votes. That same year, he––along with eight other FPI members––managed to win a seat in the National Assembly. In the span of 1990 to 1995, he had a seat in the Ouragahio District in the Gagnoa Department, and served as the president of the FPI Parliamentary Group. He was sentenced to jail in 1992 and was charged with instigating violence, although he was released a short time later.
In 1996, he was again elected a seat in the Ouragahio National Assembly and as President of the FPI. For the 2000 presidential election, the FPI again chose Gbagbo as their candidate. Robert Guéï refused to allow anyone––particularly Alassane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bédié––to run against him, except for Gbagbo. Gbagbo established himself as president on October of 2000.
The first Ivorian civil war broke out in 2002. Rebels, who dubbed themselves “Forces Nouvelles,” from the northern area had successfully seized the cities of Bouaké, and Korhogo. The Forces Nouvelles wanted a just election––their candidate, Alassane Ouattara, had been denied the right to run for president after Gbagbo and his followers accused Ouattara of not being “a real Ivoirian.”
A peace agreement had popped up somewhere, which ultimately shattered when Gbagbo refused to agree to a democratic election. In November 2004, he commanded air strikes against the rebels following the rebels’ refusal to disarm. On November 6, one of the air strikes hit French soldiers––9 had been killed. The Ivoirian government decreed it was a mistake, but the French believed that it was all deliberate and retaliated by taking down most Ivoirian military aircraft. Gbagbo’s supporters had brutally attacked the French and even Ivorian who had French origins.
The government and the rebels signed a peace deal on March 4, 2007 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. As a result, the Forces Nouvelles’ leader, Guillaume Soro, was established as Prime Minister. On July 30 2007, Gbagbo traveled to the north for “the peace flame,” a disarmament ceremony which involved the burning of weapons to symbolize the end of war. Gbagbo declared the war has ended and said that the sovereignty should move on and focus on the elections planned for 2008.
Again, Gbagbo was the FPI presidential candidate, running against Alassane Ouattara. Officially, Gbagbo’s term ended in 2005, but kept delaying an election. The planned 2008 election was postponed to 2010.
In December 2010, the Ivory Coast Election Commission (CEI) announced that Ouattara was the winner, garnering over 54 percent of the vote. Gbagbo and his party cried foul play and demanded that votes from nine regions be annulled. The Constitutional Council, incidentally headed by a supporter of Gbagbo, excluded votes from the said nine regions, particularly the areas where Ouattara had been leading in the polls. Without the votes, Gbagbo came out the winner, garnering 51 percent of votes. Once again, tumult began to rise, and Hilary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told the government to “act responsibly and peacefully.”
After much turmoil, which includes Gbagbo banning foreign news media to broadcast from within the country and Gbagbo demanding that the UN and French troops leave the country (which some perceived as part of a plan to kill ethnicities from the northern area), Gbagbo was finally put in his place. He was arrested on April 11, 2011, and later, told his supporters to quit fighting. The entire world cheered with this good news, even U.S. President Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton said that Gbagbo’s arrest will send a strong signal to the dictators and tyrants everywhere, that “They may not disregard the voice of their people.”
References:
· Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2011). Laurent Gbagbo. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Gbagbo. Last accessed June 30 2011.
· Global Post. (July 9 2011). All is not well in Ivory Coast. Available: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/110629/ivory-coast-ouattara-gbagbo. Last accessed July 9 2011.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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