PARIS/ABIDJAN – France asked its citizens to leave Ivory Coast and the World Bank froze funding to the West African state yesterday as a violent power struggle deepened between incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his rival presidential claimant, Alassane Ouattara.
Mr Gbagbo has refused to quit following a November 28th election which African states and western powers say he lost to Mr Ouattara, in a dispute that has already killed 50 people and threatens to rekindle a civil war.
A key aide to Mr Ouattara said the “only solution” to the crisis was for the international community to consider using force to oust Mr Gbagbo.
“We ask those who can to leave Ivory Coast temporarily until the situation normalises,” French government spokesman Francois Baroin said. There are about 13,000 French nationals in the former French colony. Germany and Britain advised against travel to the country and urged citizens there to leave, a day after Nigeria said it evacuated diplomatic staff from the country following an attack on its embassy.
World Bank head Robert Zoellick said funds for Ivory Coast had been cut off in a move to squeeze Mr Gbagbo. According to the World Bank website, the global lender has aid commitments to Ivory Coast of $842 million (€643 million) as of January 2010.
The EU and US have imposed sanctions on Mr Gbagbo in an attempt to force him to go, and African countries have offered him a soft landing in exile.
But Mr Gbagbo has shown no sign of caving in to pressure, and on Tuesday he invited an international committee to re-examine the results of the vote, a move that a spokesman for Mr Ouattara dismissed as a delaying tactic.
“For the past five years he tried manoeuvres to postpone the elections. Finally we got there, he lost, and he doesn’t want to give up power,” Patrick Achi, a spokesman for Mr Ouattara’s rival government, said on Wednesday.
The turmoil in the world’s top cocoa-producing country has boosted cocoa prices to recent four-month highs, disrupting export registrations and raising the spectre that fighting could block transport and shipping.
Provisional results from the poll showing Mr Ouattara with an eight-point victory in the poll were validated by the UN but overturned by Ivory Coast’s top legal body, headed by an ally of Mr Gbagbo, on grounds of alleged fraud. The UN Security Council this week defied Mr Gbagbo by extending the mandate of its 10,000 strong peacekeeping force, rejecting his request they leave.
Several hundred of the peacekeepers are protecting an Abidjan hotel where Mr Ouattara set up his HQ and rival government, and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has accused Mr Gbagbo’s forces of trying to blockade it.
The election was meant to reunite the country following a 2002-03 civil war that split it into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south. It has instead aggravated divisions.
Gun battles broke out briefly last week between government soldiers and the rebels who now back Mr Ouattara.
The crisis has sent food prices in Abidjan shooting higher as shops close and transport is choked off.
The World Bank had already tied the cancellation of $3 billion in Ivory Coast’s external debt, estimated at $12.5 billion, to a free and fair election. – (Reuters)