Gbagbo unbowed by sanctions, international pressure

By Michael Logan Dec 21, 2010, 9:48 GMT

Nairobi/Abidjan - While the European Union was busy this week announcing sanctions against Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo for refusing to leave power, the defiant leader got on with sanctions of his own.

Troops loyal to Gbagbo are preventing food, water and medical supplies reaching Abidjan's Golf Hotel, from where his rival Alassane Ouattara - the man the world recognises as the rightful winner of last month's presidential polls - is trying to run an alternative government.

'At these barricades, they began to refuse access to lorries bringing food and water to the Golf Hotel, thus cutting off supplies to civilians and blue helmets located on the premises,' YJ Choi, the United Nation's special representative to Ivory Coast, said.

The blockade is just one of many signs Gbagbo has no intention of backing down in the escalating crisis, which is testing the international community's ability to force out a defeated president who clings to power.

The European Union is to ban Gbagbo and key officials from travelling to the bloc and plans to freeze any assets held there, the United States is also planning sanctions and everyone from former colonial ruler France to regional West African bloc ECOWAS have called on the leader to step down.

Additionally, the UN Security Council on Monday defied Gbagbo's weekend order for the UN peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast (ONUCI) and French troops backing it to leave, extending the mandate by another six months.

So far, these efforts have proven fruitless as the world's largest cocoa grower teeters on the brink of a return to the 2002 civil war that split it into the mainly Muslim north and Christian south.

An unfazed Gbagbo - backed by the military and in control of state media - is portraying the international pressure as colonial-style interference in Ivory Coast's sovereignty as he tightens his grip on the country he has ruled since 2000.

Abidjan has been under military lockdown since Thursday, when security forces opened fire on pro-Ouattara protestors.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Sunday said more than 50 people had been killed since then, and warned pro-Gbagbo militia were abducting hundreds of people and carrying out extrajudicial killings.

Gbagbo clearly has no fear of the 10,000 UN peacekeeping staff and their passive, protectionist mandate. According to Choi, armed youths have been forcing their way into the homes of UN staff under the pretext of searching for weapons, and the UN headquarters itself in Abidjan came under fire on Friday.

On Monday, Gbagbo's feared youth leader Charles Ble Goude - who is under UN sanctions for violent acts carried out against peacekeepers in 2006 - fired up a rally of thousands of youths by mocking the international community.

However, portrayals of Gbagbo as a leader unwanted by the vast majority of his population are off also off the mark.

While Ouattara's power base lies in the former rebel north, Gbagbo has significant backing in the south, where Abidjan and the levers of power lie. Even before the election results was rejigged by the constitutional council to hand him victory, Gbagbo won 46 per cent in the poll.

In face of such circumstances, Patrick Achi, spokesman for Ouattara's presidency, does not believe sanctions will budge Gbagbo and wants stronger action from the UN to head off civil war.

'I don't think anyone in the international community wants to be held responsible for that, when we can stop it now,' he told the German Press Agency dpa.

Former northern rebel group New Forces has so far limited its role to providing security at the Golf Hotel for Ouattara and Guillaume Soro - prime minister and leader of the group. However, it has hinted at military action should the UN fail to protect civilians.

It is hard to see a peaceful solution to the impasse. Neither man seems prepared to negotiate a power-sharing deal such as the one that brought Kenya out of its bloody post-election crisis in 2008, and Gbagbo has made it clear he will not stand aside.

Strong military intervention from the UN, ECOWAS or the African Union is considered an equally remote possibility, despite some African calls for such force.

According to Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa programme at Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, the short-term outlook is further north-south polarisation and growing violence.

'The likeliest outcome is that Mr Gbagbo remains president while facing increasingly severe regional and international sanctions and increased insurgency,' he wrote in a recent opinion piece for British broadcaster, the BBC.

Such a scenario is also bad news for the region, which many fear could be destabilised by renewed conflict and an exodus of Ivorian refugees.