Ivory Coast yesterday faced the threat of open conflict after a New Year’s midnight deadline set by Alassane Ouattara for his rival Laurent Gbagbo to quit passed unheeded.
Gbagbo vowed not to yield to growing pressure to cede power to Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of a Nov. 28 presidential election, with both Britain and the US saying it was time to go.
The midnight deadline issued by Ouattara’s camp came as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said reports had been received of “at least two mass graves” amid fears of crimes against humanity.
If Gbagbo quit before the start of the New Year, he would “have no worries,” Ouattara’s prime minister Guillaume Soro said.
But Gbagbo said in an address to the nation on Friday that he would not cede power to Ouattara.
He said pressure from Ouattara’s camp and world leaders for him to quit amounted to “an attempted coup d’etat carried out under the banner of the international community.”
The UN has said that the volatile West African nation faces a real risk of return to civil war, but Soro told reporters that the country is already at this point — “indeed in a civil war situation.”
“This is what’s at stake: Either we assist in the installation of democracy in Ivory Coast or we stand by indifferent and allow democracy to be assassinated,” Soro said at a news conference, adding that more than 200 people already have been killed and 1,000 others have been wounded by gunfire.
West African regional military chiefs have set in motion plans to oust the strongman if negotiations by regional mediators fail said Colonel Mohammed Yerimah, a Nigerian defense spokesman, in Lagos.
The chiefs of defense staff from West African regional organization Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met this week in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, “to put machinery in motion that if all political persuasions fail ... ECOWAS will forcefully take over power from Laurent Gbagbo and hand over to Alassane Ouattara,” Yerimah said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the