Gbagbo’s Refusal To Stand Down Opens the Possibility of Removal From Power By Force

Ivorian interior minister Emile Guirieolou maintained during a press conference that United States nationals entered the territory of Ivory Coast with the intention of overthrowing president Laurent Gbagbo.

The United States has dismissed the allegation that it had sent mercenaries to oust Gbagbo, calling such information as “absurd.”

According to the Ivorian minister of interior the 10 American nationals who came to the capital city of the state to investigate the damage produced by grenades to the U.S. embassy during opposition riots were actually mercenaries bent on overthrowing the president.

He said that the plane was allowed to disembark its specialists at the Abidjan airport but that the Americans plane landed in Bouake, the northern capital of Ivory Coast.

On that, the minister is basing his entire theory regarding the mercenaries arrived to his country to put an end to the political crisis that has been developing for about a month now, after two candidates to presidency claimed victory and held on to their claim throwing the entire West African nation into chaos.

Rumors about an exterior intervention have been circulated in the Ivorian press (controlled by the president), most of them connecting this alleged mercenary activity to the imposing as president of Alassane Ouatarra, the man who is credited by the Western countries as the winner of the elections held on November 28.

German and French operatives are believed to have been hired to assassinate Ivorian authorities including the incumbent president, while the capital city of the country is expected to become a “battlefield,” according to the rumors in the Ivorian press.

Notre Voie, an Ivorian newspaper, reports that some 50 American GIs are stationed at the American embassy waiting to organize an attack on the Ivorian president.

International bodies like the European Union or the African Union have asked Gbagbo to stand down and acknowledge his defeat by Ouatarra, which he refused to do.

There are rumors of a possibility that a human rights crisis may develop, which already convinced 20,000 people to flee the country and go to the neighboring Liberia.

West African states sent a delegation of three leaders to try to convince Gbagbo to stand down peacefully, and since he refused they are now considering the next steps, which are directed towards removing him by force.

That has prompted the state-run media to warn that millions of Africans living in the Ivory Coast will suffer if the Ecowas plan to remove the president by force goes on.

The presidents of Cape Verde, Benin and Sierra Leone are to convene with their Nigerian counterpart in Abuja, where they will decide the next move they will make.

They are the representatives of the West African states and were hoping to take Gbagbo into exile, but he refused to let go of power.

Nigeria is the strongest and largest country member of Ecowas and the consultations with it are meant to set up the stage for the “legitimate use” of force necessary to remove Gbagbo from power.

Since the elections, the violence that followed the announcement of the winner may have already claimed the lives of 200 people. Human rights activists report hundreds of arrests, disappearances and tortures executed by the security forces loyal to Gbagbo.