Gbagbo’s return : Ivory Coast hopes to end a decade of rancour

Ivory Coast is preparing for the return of former President Laurent Gbagbo on Thursday, a move that his supporters and the government hope will help ease tensions that have hung over the country since his arrest a decade ago.

Supporters have been buying party memorabilia such as scarves, pouches and garments bearing Gbagbo’s image in the Yopougon district of Abidjan, his political stronghold, since his return was confirmed on May 31.

Gbagbo is to arrive on a commercial flight from Brussels.

“His presence will reconcile Ivorians. He is coming to give Ivory Coast the peace that the country has lacked,” national secretary for Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front party, Guy Besson, said.

Gbagbo served as President of the world’s top cocoa-growing nation from 2000 until he was arrested after his refusal to concede electoral defeat to Ouattara in 2010, leading to a civil war that killed 3,000 people.

He was extradited in 2011 to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague where he faced charges of crimes against humanity related to the post-election conflict.

Gbagbo denied the charges, and his supporters have long claimed that the charges were designed to remove the populist leader from the political scene.

Ouattara’s third term
Ouattara, whose decision to seek a third term sparked some of the violence in 2020, has made overtures to reconcile the country after his election victory, including allowing Gbagbo to return.

Gbagbo, 76, was acquitted by the ICC in 2019, and in March, the court upheld the acquittal. An order confining him to Belgium was dropped.

There were concerns however that his return could be complicated by an Ivorian court’s outstanding 20-year sentence of him in absentia in November 2019 on charges of funds misappropriation from the regional central bank.

Ouattara said in April that Gbagbo was free to return, but the government has not said whether he has been pardoned.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke