Sitting Ivory Coast president keeping newly elected president prisoner in hotel
They are flown out to be dry cleaned across town and flown back at night, just like everything else that comes or goes from the resort hotel where Alassane Ouattara took refuge last month after he was declared winner of the Nov. 28 election.
Although his victory has been unanimously recognized abroad, world opinion has not been able to sway sitting president Laurent Gbagbo to leave the presidential palace he's occupied for 10 years. He has deployed his troops around the hotel like a noose, and last week they pulled it tight, choking
The only way to reach the man considered to be the legitimate president of Ivory Coast is now by a United Nations helicopter, which ferries diplomats and journalists on daily flights, as well as groceries for the hotel's kitchen, cases of liquor for the bar, and the president's freshly pressed pillowcase.
The international community finds itself in a conundrum in a country where sanctions, tough talk and the threat of a military intervention have not persuaded the 65-year-old Gbagbo, a former history teacher, to step aside.
Xenophobic sentiment runs high and every night, state TV portrays the international position as a "Franco-American plot" and U.N. peacekeepers as enemy combatants. A military ouster may be the only way to remove the defiant Gbagbo, but many fear doing so could not only provoke attacks against foreigners but also degenerate leading to mass casualties. It is forcing world leaders to weigh whether the cost of democracy is civil war.
"The problem that we are facing in Ivory Coast is the question of democracy. It isn't just about Alassane Ouattara," said Guillaume Soro, former prime minister under Gbagbo, who resigned in protest and has since been named Ouattara's prime minister.
"Next year, there will be more than 10 elections in Africa. If African heads of state see that you can get away with this ... it will be the death of democracy on the continent," he said.
Gbagbo's defiance has been especially on display this week, when three African presidents representing a regional bloc of 15 neighboring nations came for a closed-door negotiation. After they left on Monday night, they released a statement saying that Gbagbo had agreed to lift the blockade. But journalists who approached the checkpoints on the road leading to the hotel were met by bazooka-toting soldiers who motioned in the air for them to turn around.
The Golf Hotel at one point almost ran out of food. For five days, it didn't serve bread. For another two, there was no rice. In the restaurant, waiters no longer hand out the menu as there is only one choice, or maybe two, per meal.
The formerly manicured lawns are now strewn with trash and drying laundry, laid out under the blasting sun. One of the kiddie pools is being used to wash the uniforms of the more than 800 peacekeepers protecting the hotel.
"We are not even able to get sometimes medication on time. Getting food here is difficult ... He wants to intimidate me, but it will not work," the 68-year-old Ouattara said in an interview with The Associated Press near the hotel's pool.
"What is important for me is that Ivorian people by a majority of 54 percent elected me as president ... We have the will and the determination to stay."
Along with effectively imprisoning Ouattara, Gbagbo is also needling his supporters. Since the United States acknowledged Ouattara as the winner of the election, the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan has not been able to get its mail. U.N. employees have been accused of hiding arms and had their homes searched. And according to news reports, a shell landed inside the Nigerian Embassy after ECOWAS, a regional body chaired by the Nigerian president, told Gbagbo he needed to yield power without delay.
But although Ouattara is confined to a small patch of ground in his own country, his considerable reach abroad has made life unpleasant for the occupant of the presidential palace.
Both the European Union and the United States have imposed visa bans on more than 50 of Gbagbo's closest associates, a painful blow to the elite of this former French colony who are used to vacationing abroad. In an unusual move intended to create pressure by proxy, the United States has also included family members of Gbagbo allies, including their children.
A private newspaper reported this week that in Houston, the daughters of Pascal Affi N'Guessan, Gbagbo's campaign manager, were sent 90-day notices to leave the U.S. And a senior diplomat confirmed that in Atlanta Gbagbo's stepdaughters will not be allowed to re-enter the U.S.
The regional central bank has also recognized Ouattara as the head of state and revoked Gbagbo's access to state accounts. In December, several banks in Abidjan posted notices in their windows saying that they would not be cashing civil servant paychecks because they hadn't received a guarantee of reimbursement from the government. Lines formed outside. Just before Christmas the notices were taken down, and people began to be paid.
The veteran diplomat, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press, says Gbagbo emptied out a savings account set aside for an infrastructure project to make payroll. Country experts believe Gbagbo will most likely run out of money in a few months, and if he stops paying the army, they may defect and force him to cede.
But Gbagbo appears unflappable. Footage of him flashing his signature, ear-to-ear smile and shaking hands plays continuously on state TV, in scenes that communicate confidence and business as usual.
"It doesn't dent our resolve. We don't feel pressured because we know Laurent Gbagbo won the election," said N'Guessan in a telephone interview.
Ivory Coast is no tropical backwater. Until a civil war broke out in 2002, the nation of 20 million was referred to as the "Ivorian miracle" and the Paris of Africa. Abidjan still has the best roads, the most modern airport and the highest skyscrapers in the region.
However, inside many of them the offices are vacant. And the well-paved roads are lined with college students who can't find work. They eke out a living running after cars trying to sell chewing gum and second-hand trousers shipped in bulk from Western countries.
Gbagbo has made an art of staying in office. In 2005, when he reached the end of his first term, Gbagbo argued the country was too volatile to hold an election, and the United Nations granted him a one-year extension. The vote was supposed to take place every year since then.
"There will not be an election unless President Gbagbo is confident that he will win it," the United States Embassy said in a 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks.
In the days after the Nov. 28 vote, the head of the electoral commission began receiving death threats. Early results indicated Ouattara had won by a 9-point margin, but night after night members of the commission were prevented from announcing them.
The constitutional council headed by a Gbagbo ally overturned Ouattara's victory by canceling the districts where Ouattara had won a majority, claiming fraud.
The international community has been uncharacteristically unanimous in its assertion that Ouattara won because of a 2005 accord—signed by Gbagbo—which called for the U.N. to certify the results. It was a safeguard negotiated by the various political factions to make it impossible for someone to steal the election.
"This is not just a national crisis," said Swedish diplomat Pierre Schori, who was the United Nations special representative to Ivory Coast in 2005. "Because it is such a clear-cut case where one person won, and one lost. The repercussions would be so dangerous and negative if we backed out now. Gbagbo would become a role model for people who want to cling to power."
