Forces loyal to the president-elect of the Ivory Coast on Wednesday attacked the residence of embattled strongman Laurent Gbagbo, who was clinging precariously to power a day after his military commanders offered to surrender, news agencies reported.
Witnesses and aides to President-elect Alassane Ouattara told Reuters and the Associated Press that pro-Outtara forces had entered the gates of Gbagbo’s residence, where Gbagbo was reportedly holed up in an underground bunker.
Heavy arms fire rang out Wednesday near the home of the country's strongman who remained holed up in a subterranean bunker, as forces backing his rival assaulted the residence to try to force him out. (April 6)
The United Nations operates peacekeeping missions in 15 locations around the world, but the use of force against a conventional army — such as Laurent Gbagbo’s in Ivory Coast — is rare.
“At the current moment they have not yet captured Gbagbo but it will happen soon,” Outtara spokeswoman Affoussy Bamba told AP. “They opened the gates and noted that the residence is surrounded by heavy weaponry. . .Now the objective is to capture him.”
Although military strikes earlier this week by France and the United Nations weakened Gbagbo’s hold on power, French and U.N. officials said they were not part of the attacks on the residence Wednesday.
On Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and other officials insisted that Gbagbo was on “the brink” of yielding power, according to the Reuters news agency. But Gbagbo was defiant, telling a French television station, LCI, in a telephone interview from his residence, “I won the election, and I am not negotiating my departure,” according to the Associated Press.
The events in the commercial capital of Abidjan marked the end of a four-month standoff between Gbagbo’s forces and the United Nations, which led international efforts to persuade him to step down.
They also represented an extraordinary military initiative by France and the United Nations to help dislodge an entrenched African leader who has ruled the once prosperous, cocoa-producing country since 2000.
The United Nations and France portrayed their role in Ivory Coast as a limited military operation aimed at protecting civilians and preventing sniper fire and mortar attacks against U.N. personnel. During the past week, Gbagbo’s forces have injured 11 U.N. peacekeepers, including four who were seriously injured by a rocket-propelled grenade attack against a U.N. armored personnel carrier.
But a series of French and U.N. helicopter gunship attacks against Gbagbo’s military bases and other vital installations softened Gbagbo’s last lines of defense, paving the ground for a final military offensive by forces loyal to Ouattara, the Ivory Coast’s internationally recognized president-elect.
“The military battle is over,” Youssoufou Bamba, Ouattara’s U.N. envoy, said Tuesday. Gbagbo’s forces “have no ammunition, and they are surrendering. I understand they are now negotiating the terms of the surrender” with the French government. “For our part, we want Gbagbo’s military to surrender without conditions.”
Even Gbagbo’s backers acknowledged that his days were numbered. Zakaria Fellah, a foreign policy adviser to Gbagbo, said he believed Gbagbo’s most fervent supporters would continue fighting but conceded that “mathematically, the game is over.”
Fellah, who said he spoke Tuesday morning to Gbagbo’s wife, Simone, insisted that Gbagbo would not surrender from the bunker at his house where he took shelter. He “is not negotiating anything. This is a fight to the end for him, his wife and what you guys call his hard-line supporters,” Fellah said. “She said, and I’m quoting, ‘It would be a beautiful end.’ I don’t know what it means, but I think they are ready to die.”
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