Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo’s troops blocked access to his presidential rival’s headquarters yesterday, the day after he vowed to immediately lift the three-week siege, an AFP journalist reported.
Security and Defence Forces (FDS) roadblocks barring access to the Golf Hotel where Alassane Ouattara and his camp have been besieged since violence flared after disputed November elections were still in place yesterday morning.
Security forces at one roadblock told an AFP journalist that access was “closed,” and at another indicated that they should do a U-turn as they approached despite Gbagbo’s promise announced by African mediators on Tuesday.
The hotel has been protected by around 800 UN peacekeepers as well as former rebels allied with Ouattara since troops loyal to Gbagbo shot dead several Ouattara supporters on Dec. 16.
African leaders struggling to mediate an end to the crisis said on Tuesday after a day of shuttle diplomacy in Abidjan that Gbagbo had promised to lift the blockade on Ouattara, the man the world says won the presidential run-off.
The African Union’s envoy said yesterday that mediators in the political crisis will “go the extra mile” to negotiate Gbagbo’s removal from power to avoid the bloodshed that would likely occur if force is used.
West African leaders have threatened to use military force to oust Gbagbo.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who joined a troika of West African leaders as the African Union’s envoy in recent talks, said mediation takes time, giving his own experience as an example.
Kenyan political rivals disputed the presidential poll results three years ago and violence broke out killing more than 1,000 people. It took two months to negotiate an end to that crisis.
Odinga became prime minister under a power-sharing deal with his then rival, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.
In the case of Ivory Coast, the African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are trying to get Gbagbo to peacefully step down in favor of Ouattara.
“Force, in our view, should be the last resort because as you know use of force has consequences. Lives will be lost, not just lives of soldiers but also lives of innocent civilians,” Odinga told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, following his visits to Ivory Coast and Nigeria this week.
“That’s really the reason why we are walking the extra mile for a peaceful resolution of this conflict,” he said.
Odinga represented the African Union when a high-level delegation went on Monday for the second time to urge Gbagbo to step down, but he rebuffed their appeal.
The delegation, which included the leaders from the nations of Benin, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone then traveled to Nigeria to meet with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, the current chairman of the 15-nation regional bloc ECOWAS.
ECOWAS and the African Union released a statement late on Tuesday indicating that Gbagbo had “agreed to negotiate a peaceful end to the crisis without any preconditions.”
However, the statement did not elaborate on what actions that would entail other than lifting the blockade around the hotel where his rival is based.
The statement also called on Gbagbo to hand over power “without further delay.”
Odinga said that an amnesty deal is on the table for Gbagbo that includes guarantees he will not be prosecuted if he peacefully hands over power whether he stays in Ivory Coast or goes into exile. Such a deal will be extended to members of Gbagbo’s entourage, unless they are found to have committed crimes against humanity, Odinga said.
“There will be an amnesty for him [Gbagbo] that he will not be prosecuted or persecuted in the event that he decides to remain in the country and that he will be allowed to go about his business normally,” Odinga said.
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