BRUSSELS: European Union travel bans on defiant Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo and his powerful wife Simone entered force Wednesday, alongside another 17 influential figures.
A diplomatic source told AFP that ambassadors of the 27 EU nations completed legal procedures allowing the visa ban to take effect. Member states are looking at “lengthening the list” as well as extending sanctions to include asset freezes.
The action came as Ivory Coast’s deadly political stand-off escalated with Gbagbo insisting he is the one true president and France advising its large expatriate community to leave. As United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern for the fate of UN peacekeepers protecting Gbagbo’s opponent Alassane Ouattara, holed up in a waterfront golf resort, Germany joined Britain and the United States in also advising its citizens to leave the west African country.
The international community recognises Ouattara as the victor of a presidential vote on November 28 and the UN refused Gbagbo’s order to stand down its 10,000-strong UNOCI force. The United States and Canada have also threatened sanctions, while the African Union and Ivory Coast’s West African neighbours in the ECOWAS economic bloc have demanded Gbagbo step down.
An EU diplomat said Europe wants to “prevent a new Zimbabwe” springing up in the cocoa-rich nation, however no mass-scale evacuation is on the agenda because that would only “mean leaving the Ivory Coast to Gbagbo.” The 19 names obtained by AFP include Gbagbo’s security advisor Kadet Berlin, the secretary-general of the presidency Desire Tagro and the president of the Constitutional Council Yao N’Dre.
Also cited are: Pascal Affi N’Guessan, secretary general of the Ivorian Popular Front, and the director-general of the country’s RTI radio and television authority Pierre Israel Amessan Brou.
