WHY OUATTARA HAS BADLY STARTED

WHY OUATTARA HAS BADLY STARTED

Support too light of Paris, Soro too powerful, killings in the west and now murder of IB. The "Presidency" of Alassane Ouattara is definitely a bad start.

He promised peace and reconciliation in Cote d'Ivoire a traumatized by a decade of political and military crisis. But Alassane Ouattara, imposed by the international community, the path to the presidential palace is littered with corpses.


IB too embarrassing

Ibrahim Coulibaly, known as "IB" embarrassed. The former coup leader, rival the all-powerful Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, rightly considered to have contributed to the fall of Laurent Gbagbo. At the head of the commando invisible ", it triggered an urban guerrilla in Abidjan, the great metropolis populated by 5 million.

Its fighters - the "invisible" because blending into the population, often from the north of the country-have from the beginning of the year chosen confrontation with the soldiers of the national army remained loyal to the constitutional legality.

The "commando invisible" first made about him in Anyama and especially Abobo, a suburb north of Abidjan. "Abobo war", a huge spontaneous settlement, largely a slum of more than one million inhabitants. It was there that started the "battle of Abidjan." The national army could do nothing, so it was undermined by moles who gave the positions of the enemy soldiers.

This has enabled the commando invisible to almost all of Abobo and Anyama, then overflowing the residential neighborhoods of Adjame and Cocody. Already, some observers remarked that these fighters were clad in gray-white were more anti-than pro-Ouattara Gbagbo.

According to some versions of IB men even tried to duplicate the forces pro-Ouattara, who arrived at the gates of Abidjan. The "commando invisible" would have taken the State Television and RTI market on the presidential palace in the Plateau, even before the military republican Alassane Ouattara from entering Abidjan.

But they were repulsed by forces loyal to President Gbagbo.

It could have been arrested, he was killed.



Duekoue, the nightmare

What happened in Duekoue for the use by the pro-Ouattara this great crossroads of the West, March 29? But also just before and just after? There were hundreds of dead, around 800 according to several NGOs, including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The FRCI (the pro-Ouattara), which in a few days only took control of the southern half of the country, have "slipped" in the West, notably in Duékoué.

They have turned the man hunt. The victims were mainly Guere, ethnicity deemed favorable to Gbagbo.

Soro led forces defended themselves: they recognized that people had been killed, including their fighters, but he was assured of militiamen rather than civilians. Several testimonies collected by human rights have proved otherwise, saying that among the victims there were women and children.

Abuses in Duékoué are considered war crimes and therefore subject to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ouattara has promised that justice would be done. But it appears difficult to acknowledge its own forces at risk of losing its power.

Even today, 30,000 terrified people crammed into unsanitary conditions at the Catholic Mission of Duekoue. Among them, the few who are afraid to return home.
Yet the path of reconciliation through Duekoue. If Ouattara does not punish the criminals in its own ranks, western Côte d'Ivoire to escape danger.

French touch

Without the military support of France, acting under UN mandate, Ouattara would not win the "battle of Abidjan." His forces, which had by heavy weapons, which operated on land they did not know little or came up against the last four soldiers remained loyal to President Gbagbo.

They had such an advantage in size, light armored vehicles, which "exploded" pick-up machine guns of the pro-Ouattara. The final battle dragged on. It took the missiles helicopters and the French Licorne force of the UN mission (ONUCI) to open holes in which men rushed Soro.

But how long Ouattara President, decked out for four months of the term "recognized by the international community, will he to forget that he arrived at the presidential palace in bags of the Licorne force. The "French Touch" will not be easy to erase. It was too decisive in the victory.

Super Soro

But the other problem Ouattara, it is not the French. It is his own Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, all-powerful man, a man feared. Guillaume Soro. Who has not 40.

Ouattara has provided an image of a technocrat, frozen in a posture president, who away from the people. Soro appears much more like a warlord than a politician creep. Its troops continue to tarnish his image with the many atrocities they commit daily flights and in the city of Abidjan.

Soro won the war with the help of France, but will not be the man of peace. This is a classic of contemporary history. Churchill resisted and defeated Hitler. But the voters then shunned. As General De Gaulle.

The days of Soro as Prime Minister are numbered. Ouattara must meet its other ally, Henri Konan Bedie. The next head of government will result from his camp.

But what of "Super Soro? Create a post of vice president? Why not. But what a head of state would be like number 2 a man so powerful, so young, so ambitious?

The exclusion of power? It would be dangerous. Soro was used to t the Republic from a country that, despite the crisis, remains the richest in Francophone West Africa.

What to do with Soro? For "President" Ouattara is the number one issue. The answer should not delay, it will be clear. It will determine the future of the country. She will tell if the "Ivorian miracle" is still possible or if the nightmare continues.

Source: slate.afrique