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Military force is the only option in Cote d'Ivoire
Friday, 25 February 2011 02:28
By Tony BelloAs the standoff in Ivory Coast continues with Laurent Gbabgo's refusal to stand down as President, the prospect of a commando style military intervention to push him out becomes more and more appealing.
A brief history of the proximate cause of the standoff in Ivory Coast, its attempted solutions and some eternal arguments about it will be in order. In November of 2010, presidential elections were held in Ivory Coast. On December 2nd, 2010, the Independent Electoral Commission of Ivory Coast (CEI) declared Alassan Ouattara the winner, with 54.1%.
Laurent Gbagbo, the leftist leaning incumbent President, in power for ten years, who garnered 45.9% of the votes refused to accept the verdict of the CEI.
Gbagbo used Ivory Coasts' Constitutional Council led by his handpicked crony, Paul Yao N'Dre to nullify the elections results from Ouattara's strong hold in the north, to tip the balance in his favor, and declaring Gbagbo the winner with 51%.
Ouattara and Gbagbo have sworn themselves in as Presidents. Outarra is holed in a hotel and Gbagbo is at the presidential palace, both pretending to rule the world's largest producer of cocoa.
The international community, led by the African Union, ECOWAS, UN, France, United States, Britain and IMF spoke with one voice in recognizing Alassan Ouattara. Thabo Mbeki and Railer Odinga were sent as emissaries to Ivory Coast to convince Gbagbo to step down, but without any success.
As a final chance to urge Mr. Gbagbo to step down peacefully, a delegation of three West African Presidents made up of Mr. Pires of Cape Verde, Boni Yayi of Benin and Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma were sent to Ivory Coast to pressure Gbagbo out of office.
After the meeting, Benin's President, Boni Yayi, said 'all went well'. But a Laurent Gbagbo adviser, Abdon Bayeto, later told the BBC that 'the message he [Mr Gbagbo] had for them was to tell them that he was democratically elected and recognised by our constitution'. Like the final kicks of a dying African despot, Gbagbo is desperately clutching to a straw.
Sanctions have been imposed on Ivory Coast by the international community to starve Gbagbo of cash to pay his military and civil servants. There have also been talks of power sharing, similar to the ones between Morgan Tsvangira and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga in Kenya.
Political solution, appeasement, sanctions and power sharing are not the way to go, concerning the standoff in Ivory Coast. At this point, there isn't much that can be done, short of a military solution led by ECOWAS.
The big players here are Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Burkina Faso. Unfortunately, Ghana has undermined the ECOWAS position of a final solution in a military option. In a diplomatic faux pax John Evans Attah Mills, Ghana's President, refused to back the military option in his last press conference with the media.
This was on the heels of the fifteen member ECOWAS communiqué that Ghana signed, agreeing to the military option if all other solutions fail to get Gbagbo to stand down. Gbagbo is a very stubborn leader who will not put his country first by stepping down, unless he is forcefully outsted.
The mlitiary option will cause minimum loss of lives because Gbagbo is protected by a 'rag tag' band of soldiers. Besides, Ivory Coast does not even have a formidable air force. Neither appeasement nor sanctions is the way to force Gbagbo out of office. Sanctions will only go as far as blocking Gbagbo's yes men from international travel.
It will not stop Ivroy Coast's cocoa exports or accessing cash from the Ivorian or sub regional bank. There are ten thousand UN troops in Ivory Coast in addition to nine thousand French troops. The United Nations has rebuffed Gbagbo's call for it's troops to leave Ivory Coast. The UN and France must stay out of the military option, as this must be purely handled by ECOWAS.
This Ivorian albatross poses a serious threat to stability in the West African sub-region. Ivory Coast's economy contains 40% of the whole sub region. Not only that, there is still a significant number of expatriate workers from neighboring countries in Ivory Coast. Gbagbo must not be allowed to prevail; otherwise it will serve as a positive signal to prospective leaders who are nursing the idea of stepping down, after been defeated in an election.
As events unfold in Ivory Coast there is a major lesson to be learned. Maybe a provisional, interim and transitional government needs to be created in future elections to step in during election periods, and mandated to hand over power to the declared winner.
Source: Ghanaian Chronicle
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Comments
Myself I would propose an 18 month Joint executive/government...thereafter the option of a GE..if the agreement fails by the decision of either party.
I think the situation needs time and the ability for Ivory Coast to function again as a viable nation.
Who knows..? they may even learn to live with each other?
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