[ 2011-04-11 ]

Laurent Gbagbo being helped to button his shirt moments after his capture

UN, Ivorian troops smoke Gbagbo out of bunker
Laurent Gbagbo, the self-declared president of
Ivory Coast, was arrested Monday, potentially
ending a civil war that has claimed hundreds of
lives in the cocoa-producing West African nation.

After days of holding out, his compound was
stormed by troops on Monday, according to Ivorian,
French and U.N. sources.

Gbagbo's refusal to accept that he lost a
presidential election to Alassane Ouattara last
year plunged the country into civil war.

He was arrested "to stop these killings, this
fighting," the country’s ambassador to the UN
Bamba said, adding that he thinks the conflict
will stop as news of Gbagbo's capture spreads.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
Monday that the political transition in Ivory
Coast "sends a strong signal to dictators and
tyrants. ...They may not disregard the voice of
their own people."

"There will be consequences for those who cling to
power," Clinton warned.

It was not immediately clear who captured Gbagbo.

Bamba and the French Embassy in Ivory Coast said
Gbagbo was seized by forces loyal to Ouattara, the
man whom the international community recognizes as
the country's rightful president.

But a Gbagbo adviser, Ahoua Don Mello, said
earlier that the French military had stormed
Gbagbo's residence.

"The French army is there right now," he said.

Col. Thierry Burkhard, a French Ministry of
Defense spokesman in Paris, said no French troops
entered the presidential palace.

Gbagbo was taken to the Golf Hotel, the
headquarters of both Ouattara and the United
Nations, in Abidjan, the country's main city, a
U.N. spokesman said.

U.N. forces were not involved in the raid on
Gbagbo's residence, said Hamadoun Toure, a
spokesman for the U.N. mission.

He had earlier said the mission did not extend to
extracting the former president from his
stronghold.

But U.N. and French troops have pounded Gbagbo's
forces, citing their mission to protect civilians
in the country.

The fighting left Abidjan with sporadic power and
sanitation, and residents told CNN dead bodies
were left on the streets.

At least tens of thousands of people have fled
into neighboring Liberia to escape the fighting,
Oxfam, the international aid organization, has
said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said
800 people had been shot dead in the western
cocoa-producing town of Duekoue during the
conflict. A U.N. official put the death toll at
330 in the incident.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week
predicted that the outcome of the crisis in the
Ivory Coast would set the tone for other nations
in Africa.

"What happens in Cote d'Ivoire has huge
implications for the continent that will have 16
presidential elections this year," he said, using
the French name for the country.

Gbagbo lost the presidential election to Ouattara
in November, according to international observers,
but refused to leave office. The two sides have
been battling for control of Abidjan for weeks.

Violence escalated into all-out war when
Ouattara's forces launched an offensive that
brought them into Abidjan.

Ouattara's forces appeared to be on the verge of
capturing Gbagbo last week, but he seemed to have
used an offer to negotiate as a way to buy time
and gather his forces.

U.N. military helicopters pounded heavy-weapons
positions of fighters loyal to Gbagbo on Sunday,
U.N. officials said.

The attack came after pro-Gbagbo forces shelled
the hotel where Ouattara and the United Nations
are headquartered, said Choi Young-jin, head of
the U.N. mission in the country.
Together with the French military, U.N. forces
targeted key positions.

Ban said he ordered the military operation Sunday
"to prevent the use of heavy weapons which
threaten the civilian population of Abidjan and
our peacekeepers."

Source - CNN

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