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Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of ivory Coast's presidential elections, prepared for an assault to dislodge Laurent Gbagbo from his bunker on Tuesday.
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: April 7, 2011
ACCRA, Ghana — Opposition forces in Ivory Coast besieged the residence of the nation’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, for a second consecutive day on Thursday, hoping to seize him alive for a possible trial after he refused French and United Nations demands to step down.
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Detained supporters of strongman Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Wednesday.
An all-day assault on Mr. Gbagbo’s heavily guarded and well-armed redoubt on Wednesday, complete with tanks and antiaircraft defenses, marked a new and perhaps ultimate phase in the international campaign to dislodge a man who has clung to power long after losing an election and the world’s recognition as a legitimate leader.
The violence spread overnight to the Japanese ambassador’s residence, where clashes between the two sides forced the diplomat, Yoshifumi Okamura, and several members of his staff to take refuge in a safe room before a dramatic rescue by helicopter-borne French and United Nations troops, according Japanese news reports on Thursday.
As the fighting swelled and ebbed on Wednesday, millions of residents of Abidjan, once one of the world’s major ports, suffered another day of privation. Water, food and electricity all waned on the fifth day of the battle for the city. Sporadic explosions boomed over the city overnight, news reports said.
Relief officials spoke of a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, as daily life — already squeezed by international sanctions — ground to a virtual halt, the streets remained dangerous even for simple shopping trips and armed partisans roamed.
The aim of the opposition assault on Wednesday was “to seize Gbagbo physically and, if he is alive, to bring him to justice,” said Apollinaire Yapi, a spokesman for Alassane Ouattara, who is recognized internationally as the winner of the presidential election last year.
Mr. Gbagbo has rejected the outcome, which was endorsed by the United Nations, the African Union and other international bodies, a move that reignited civil war.
Only a day earlier, a resolution to the crisis had seemed imminent, as Mr. Gbagbo appeared to enter into discussions brokered by France and the United Nations over his possible surrender. The negotiations came after attacks by French and United Nations helicopters destroyed much of his armory on Monday, leading his generals to tell troops to stop fighting and hand in their weapons on Tuesday.
Some Western officials said at the time that only the details of Mr. Gbagbo’s departure remained to be worked out. But the discussions led nowhere.
France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told Parliament on Wednesday that “negotiations, which lasted for hours yesterday between Mr. Gbagbo’s entourage and Ivory Coast authorities, have failed because of Gbagbo’s intransigence.”
“They have been interrupted,” he said, “and President Ouattara decided to ask his forces, the Republican Forces, to move on to the offensive against their presidential enemy.”
Mr. Juppé added that neither France nor the United Nations had taken part in the assault on Mr. Gbagbo’s residence on Wednesday.
By nightfall, the seesawing battle remained inconclusive, with Mr. Gbagbo still dug in, despite bouts of shooting and shelling that at times were “like hell,” a nearby resident said. The operation was a difficult one, Ouattara officials said, because Mr. Ouattara had insisted that Mr. Gbagbo be extracted alive in order to be tried.
Around the strongman were his most loyal defenders, “the ones that are ready to die for him,” said a minister in Mr. Ouattara’s government, Patrick Achi, as well as some remaining heavy weaponry.
In the bunker with Mr. Gbagbo were his wife, children, grandchildren and ministers in his erstwhile government, Mr. Achi said.
The night before, Mr. Gbagbo’s gravelly, tired voice sounded from the bunker in a rambling and defiant interview with the French television station LCI. In it he stated that he had not lost the election, that he was the victim of French aggression and that he was committing to no “political decisions” about stepping down.
Mr. Gbagbo, a former university historian, once jailed for his opposition to the government of the country’s founder, professed astonishment at the outbreak of civil war, and drew on the vocabulary of xenophobia and virulent anti-French nationalism that has won him the militant allegiance of thousands of citizens.
“I still don’t understand how an electoral dispute in Ivory Coast can bring on the interference of the French Army,” Mr. Gbagbo told the interviewer. “I find it absolutely incredible that the life of a country is played out, in a game of poker, in foreign capitals.”
In an interview with another French broadcaster on Wednesday, Mr. Gbagbo continued to reject suggestions that he was planning to leave.
“We’re not quite at that stage yet,” he said. “What are we talking about? My going from where to where?”
Mr. Gbagbo also renewed a call for political talks and a cease-fire.
Comments like those outraged Ouattara officials, who suggested that they inspired Wednesday’s assault.
“He was giving interviews saying he didn’t recognize Ouattara’s victory,” said Mr. Yapi, and the effect was to “encourage his partisans.”
He added: “It’s more than cruel. It’s cowardly, and it’s mad.”
Ouattara officials were scornful of the fruitless discussions. Mr. Achi contended that Mr. Gbagbo was stalling and “reorganizing himself to better organize his defense.”
On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court posted a statement on its Web site saying that its prosecutor had been conducting “a preliminary examination” in Ivory Coast into “alleged crimes committed there by different parties to the conflict.”
The reference applied not only to Mr. Gbagbo’s campaign of repression against civilians, but also to more recent reports of mass killings of civilians in western Ivory Coast, where hundreds of bodies were found in a town controlled by Mr. Ouattara’s forces.
The United Nations has said that about 200 of the dead were killed by fighters allied with Mr. Ouattara, an assertion he has denied. If proved true, however, the killings could significantly tarnish Mr. Ouattara’s reputation overseas, where he is widely viewed as holding the moral high ground in the standoff with Mr. Gbagbo.
Meanwhile, Abidjan’s residents were suffering, with medical supplies running out and the wounded flooding the few open medical centers. In some neighborhoods, residents sounded increasingly desperate — particularly in Cocody, where the presidential residence is located and Wednesday’s combat took place.
“The shooting was very violent,” said a Cocody resident named Latif, who declined to give his last name out of fear of reprisals. “Machine-gun fire. Explosions. It seemed like it was going on in our living room. The whole house trembled.”
Latif said that during lulls his children played outside. But when the explosions start, he said, they cry, “Mama! Mama!” At that point, “We gather them all up and put them in their rooms,” Latif said.
“This is becoming very, very painful,” he said. “There’s nothing left to eat. No electricity since this morning. Psychologically, we are very, very frightened.”
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