ABIDJAN – Ivory Coast’s internationally recognised president accused incumbent Laurent Gbagbo of masterminding a campaign of rape and murder of his supporters as the deadly stand-off’s toll rose further.
Alassane Ouattara, besieged by Gbagbo troops since the world said he won a November presidential run-off, told Europe 1 radio that violence allegedly carried out by Liberian mercenaries on his rival’s behalf left Gbagbo with blood on his hands.
“Many Ivorians have been killed by the mercenaries and militia of Laurent Gbagbo,” Ouattara said in the interview with the French radio station recorded Wednesday from his blockaded hotel headquarters in Abidjan. “We already have more than 200 dead, we have rapes and people injured — more than 1,000 people injured,” he said, saying the International Criminal Court would send a mission to the crisis-stricken nation “in coming days.”
The UN said Thursday that at least 210 people have been killed since the stand-off escalated in mid-December, including 14 dead in ethnic clashes in the west of the country near the Liberian border, hundreds of miles (kilometres) from Abidjan.
Announcing the deaths of 31 people since December 30, the UN declined to make a direct link between the unrest in the western town of Duekoue and the crisis being played out in the commercial capital.
ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has vowed to prosecute any political crimes carried out in the wake of the disputed poll. “Of course, we have proof,” Ouattara said, amid reports of mass graves filled with his supporters. “He has had his citizens killed by foreigners.”
UN rights experts said last week they feared reports of widespread post election violence in the Ivory Coast amounted to crimes against humanity, but that it had been prevented from fully investigating alleged atrocities.
Following the latest failed mediation mission on behalf of regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union, Ouattara warned that if Gbagbo, who retains control of the army, stayed in power he would “suffer the consequences.”
ECOWAS has said it will use force to get rid of Gbagbo if negotiations to end the stand-off fail.
“He will be quite simply dislodged and that will be done without any great difficulty,” Ouattara said. “ECOWAS cannot make such a commitment and then not do it.” Ouattara is the internationally acknowledged victor of the November 28 presidential election which was supposed to end a decade of unrest which has split the country between north and south.
Ivory Coast’s Independent Electoral Commission as well as the United Nations declared Ouattara the winner of the November 28 run-off poll, while the Constitutional Council said that Gbagbo won.
Both men have been sworn in as president and Gbagbo claims there is an international plot to depose him after more than a decade in power.
Gbagbo’s refusal to bow to international pressure has sent over 22,000 Ivorians fleeing the country amid fears of the return of civil war.
Ouattara’s hotel has been protected by around 800 UN peacekeepers as well as the ex-rebel New Forces allied with his camp since troops shot dead several of his supporters as they marched on state television on December 16.
Gbagbo has demanded the former rebels go back to their northern powerbase before he will lift the siege, which his foreign minister says is there to protect Gbagbo himself and foreign diplomatic missions in the area.
