Friday, April 22, 2011

COTE D'IVOIRE - Gbagbo plays extensions

It seems that the Republican Forces of Alassane Ouattara (ADO) have felt able to capture with the ease of Abidjan while taking Ivorian cities within the country. Now they are starting to become disillusioned because, obviously, Laurent Gbagbo will not fall with expected ease. Moreover, the outgoing president appears to have succeeded, with complete mastery, transforming what remains of fortresses impregnable bastion where in real went aground, until now, all forces deployed by the camp since Ouattara their economic onslaught on the capital early last week.

The battle for control of Abidjan is likely to take some time. Normally, we will say. It was on one side the outgoing president, who opposes a categorical niet give any idea of the presidential chair, he holds strong and illegally, despite threats and entreaties of each other. On the other hand, is elected president and recognized by the entire international community, outraged at having been bullied so long as three months after the second round of presidential elections in Ivory Coast, in fact, it does is not always the head of state who is really in Côte d'Ivoire.

Both show a strong desire to fight and may the worst in the Ivorian crisis already catastrophic is yet to come. After the battering of Republican Forces in recent days that have failed, despite their intensity and frequency, to extract from Gbagbo nor the palace, nor the president nor the gendarmerie camp Agban , there is a kind of calm, but in reality, the thing looks more like the calm before the storm.

And it promises to be stormy: the two protagonists in the Ivorian crisis, ADO and Gbagbo, are sharpening their weapons every turn. Ouattara to attack with more violence, and Gbagbo to defend himself with more fury. And as the two sides determination is intact, no doubt that future exchanges will gain in intensity, combativeness and probably also in ferocity.

Already, there has been an high number of casualties. It is about a thousand graves and civilian casualties in western Ivory Coast. And the war news, as it is fashionable in this case is obviously raging. Who kills civilians? Multiplying the mass graves? Plundering, stealing and rape in these cities now stripped of any security force? The true face of things, if it is discovered one day, probably will prove later.

For now, it suffices to recall that the truth is, in general, the first casualty of any war. And in the meantime others will fall, also victims of this dirty fratricidal war which nobody really did need it. Neither Gbagbo nor Ouattara. And returns, like a sad refrain, the nagging question repeatedly asked, but whose answer is unknown why the incumbent president resigns he not? After the most faithful of his followers have turned coat, after it has lost much of its fighters, after all these calls for him thrown by luminaries of the human community in Africa and other continents, after seeing all these dead littering the streets of Abidjan and its suburbs ...

Why? Hopefully it really unexpected that military performance would develop miraculously the last quarter of its faithful? He deliberately chose to die a martyr? If yes, a martyr to what? Or has it really been convinced, as some think, by some guru held power by divine right and that no one can snatch from the hands? To date, Côte d'Ivoire is in doubt and she will have to turn a page in its history indelibly stained blood of some of his son victims of his son balls.

Assuming that the military republican Alassane Ouattara eventually win the battle fratricidal Abidjan, the president-elect himself first challenge will be to achieve a colossal: the reconciliation of a divided nation, torn, part of population dedicates a morbid hatred to another. It will not be easy.

And that's really the yardstick by which the judge. Already, the massacres of Duékoué are a black stain on the reputation building of an elected president but not yet installed. We implore God that this great country does not sink into chaos more than that in which he finds himself mired for too long.

Unfortunately it seems to be on its way. Almost inevitably.

No comments:

Post a Comment