African leaders met disputed Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo on Monday to try and convince him to cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara in return for guarantees of “safety and security.”
Gbagbo, in power since 2000, has so far refused to concede he lost the Nov. 28 election to Ouattara despite widespread international condemnation and the threat of force to oust him after UN--certified results showed Ouattara won.
Four leaders representing West African regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) met Gbagbo for several hours in the afternoon before leaving to meet Ouattara in the lagoon-side hotel where he is holed up under guard of UN peacekeepers.
It was the second visit by three West African heads of state — Beninese President Yayi Boni, Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma and Cape Verdean President Pedro Pires — who met Gbagbo last week. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga joined them on Monday on the AU’s behalf.
“We came ... in order to have dialogue with a view to resolving the crisis,” Odinga told journalists after the four leaders ended a meeting with Gbagbo in the presidential palace.
ECOWAS has said it could use “legitimate force” if Gbagbo refuses to go quietly. Ouattara’s rival government has said this is Gbagbo’s last chance to leave peacefully and with immunity.
Asked if the mission would repeat an ultimatum for Gbagbo to leave or face force, ECOWAS Ivory Coast Representative Doukoure Abram said: “No, there will be discussions going on.”
Odinga’s office said the Kenyan prime minister would “seek a peaceful settlement to the election crisis [...] and seek an assurance of safety and security for Mr Laurent Gbagbo and his supporters, if he agrees to cede power.”
More than 170 people have been killed. The crisis threatens to restart fighting in a country still divided by a 2002-2003 civil war.
Gbagbo, who has the backing of the country’s top court and the army, has shrugged off pressure to step down and said on state television over the weekend that Ouattara “should not count on foreign armies to come and make him president.”
A Gbagbo spokesman said Gbagbo would not agree to leave.
African leaders have nearly all backed Ouattara. However Angola, the only African nation to send an ambassador to Gbagbo’s swearing in, accused foreign nations of “inciting other countries in the region to start a war.”
The US and the EU have imposed a travel ban on Gbagbo and his inner circle, while the World Bank and the regional West African central bank have frozen his finances in an attempt to weaken his grip on power.
Ivory Coast missed an almost US$30 million interest payment on its US$2.3 billion Eurobond due on Friday last week, the London Club of commercial creditors said on Monday. The country is not yet in default because of a 30-day grace period.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not