NPR,
All Things Considered 08:00 PM EST
December
1, 2011 Thursday
Former
Ivory Coast President Held By ICC
Laurent
Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, is spending his first full day in
detention at The Hague. And Monday, he'll go before the ICC, the first former
head of state ever to do so. Gbagbo is charged with crimes against humanity,
allegedly committed when he clung to power after losing last year's
presidential election.
the
turmoil last year, that troubled election and the conflict that followed.
It's
exactly a year ago this week that Ivory Coast held the runoff of the
presidential election between Laurent Gbagbo, the sitting president, and
Alassane Ouattara, who is the new president.
Laurent
Gbagbo's supporters on the electoral commission decided that they weren't going
to allow the results to be announced.
for
the first four months of this year, that open conflict between pro-Gbagbo
loyalists, soldiers and fighters who were backing Alassane Ouattara and his
prime minister, fought. And it came to open battle in the main city, Abidjan.
Laurent
Gbagbo eventually - after holding onto power, refusing to step down - took
refuge in the bunker of his official residence. And he was captured there,
finally.
3,000
people were killed in the violence.
He
is charged with crimes against humanity. And those include rape and murder, and
other sexual crimes. Now, he's been charged as a co-conspirator because
obviously, Laurent Gbagbo didn't go out and commit the murders himself. But of
course, his troops are the ones who are alleged to have committed the murders.
it's
not just Gbagbo's side. He is the first big fish to be netted by the ICC. Gbagbo's
supporters are saying what about those who killed on Ouattara's side. Opposition fighters loyal to Alassane
Ouattara, who deposed Gbagbo were also accused of terrible things in Ivory
Coast. Supporters of Gbagbo say this is
victor's justice.
He
told the court that conditions in ICC detention centre are fine, adding “If
I had been asked, I would have bought a ticket and got on a plane to The Hague
myself.”
“I
was arrested under French shelling, about 50 French tanks surrounded my
residence, and helicopters dropped bombs… I saw my minister of the interior
killed in front of me. I saw my son arrested and beaten.”In an
apparent admission that he was still in control of Ivory Coast’s regular armed
forces at the time, Gbagbo then said, “We were handed over to the
forces of Outtara – who were not the regular forces of the country, because the
regular forces were with me.”
He
went on to describe the conditions of his imprisonment, saying he couldn’t see
the sun from his cell and that he wasn’t permitted to take a walk, but insisted
he was not asking for the court’s pity.
He
complained that a snap hearing had been arranged last week at which he was
handed an arrest warrant. “Then they told me I was being taken to Abidjan… they
didn’t even have the courage to tell me I was being taken to The Hague. I’m
telling you this so that this won’t happen again. It’s a good thing not to play
hide and seek.”
The
court’s public gallery was packed with Gbagbo supporters who made their
presence noisily felt by loudly singing the Ivory Coast national anthem as the
hearing drew to a close. Security guards, who usually keep a tight grip on any
noise in the gallery, were powerless to stop the outpouring of support.
Gbagbo
is expected to appear again on June 18, 2012 when the court will deliberate the
evidence and the charges against him.
