Ben and Celeste

January 5, 2011

Conflict in Ivory Coast

On October 31, 2010, Alassane Ouattara challenged Laurent Gbagbo for the Presidency of Ivory Coast. This election was very close and ended with a run-off that was held on November 28, 2010. The runoff was very close, and in the end the country’s top elections officer declared that the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, had lost his power to Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo, mad at losing his presidency, refused to give up his power. As a result of Gbagbo’s reaction to the election and his anger, the people of Ivory Coast are taking sides and causing violence in the streets. The natives there are scared that they will witness and be a part of a second civil war.

The day after the news of Ouattara’s win, the head of the Constitutional Council, a close ally of Gbagbo, threw out the vote totals from parts of the north (the base of Ouattara’s support) and claimed that Gbagbo was the winner, causing both men to claim presidency.

Then another sign of Gbagbo’s anger over his 45% to 55% loss to Ouattara was when he then closed the borders down and blocked all foreign television stations. The next night 8 people who supported Ouattara were shot and killed by automatic-weapon-toting gunmen at an opposition party headquarters.

The former president still has support over the army and is brushing aside threats to leave office from neighboring countries, which are expected to have to go to using military force if Gbagbo doesn’t leave soon. Ouattara is now barricaded in a hotel with the help of the United Nations peacekeeping troops, angered by Gbagbo’s stubbornness.

Since most of the citizens are not armed, they have cleverly decided to bang their pots and pans together to make it sound like gunshots. One lady named Edwige Tonete, who is so scared to even step outside of her house, talked to CNN about these recent days in Abidjan. Edwige Tonete is just old enough to remember the last recent civil war in Ivory Coast, which took place in 1958. She told the CNN reporters, “I don’t want to live like we did.” Tonete speaks for all Ivorian people when she says that, those that lived through the last civil war and those that were either not born or not old enough to recall it. Without saying anything specific about the conditions during the last civil war, it was clear from Tonete’s tone and the fear in her voice that no one would want to live through something as frightening as a civil war.

Not surprisingly at all, the United States and a few other countries have stepped up in this situation of horror in Ivory Coast. They have recruited a large number of soldiers to help with a United Nations peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast. Another thing that the U.S has done alongside the U.N, the European Union, the African Union, and some West African states is create a group called ECOWAS, Economic Community Of West African States, which has gotten together with the electoral commission to peacefully convince to Gbagbo and his supporters that Alassane Ouattara is the winner of the election, and that Ouattara is now the President of Ivory Coast.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122305481.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/world/africa/04ivory.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=ivory%20coast&st=cse

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-30/world/ivory.coast.impact_1_ivory-coast-laurent-gbagbo-abidjan?_s=PM:WORLD

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/africa/03ivory.html?_r=2