Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo is expected Thursday, June 17 in his country that he was forced to leave ten years ago, a return allowed by his acquittal of crimes against humanity by international justice and by the green light of his rival President Alassane Ouattara, in the name of
"national reconciliation"
.
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Laurent Gbagbo, 76, returns by a regular flight from Brussels where he has lived since his acquittal by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in January 2019, confirmed on appeal on March 31. Landing is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. (local and GMT) in Abidjan. He will be welcomed at the presidential pavilion at the airport, made available to him by the Head of State, by leaders of his party, the Front populaire ivoirien (FPI). Several dozen notables should be present.
After his arrival, the ex-president will travel to the Attoban district, where his former campaign headquarters for the 2010 presidential election is located, according to a statement from the FPI which invites
"members of the party leadership"
to go there to welcome him.
Between the airport located in the south of Abidjan and Attoban in the north, his procession will cross several neighborhoods where the crowd should be able to gather to cheer him.
"There were no restrictions"
on gatherings from the government, Justin Katinan Koné, spokesperson for Laurent Gbagbo told AFP.
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Government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly confirmed on Wednesday that
"if there was any ban, it would be made public"
. He added that Laurent Gbagbo would be
"entitled to everything to which he is entitled"
, suggesting however that no minister would be present at the airport.
"The executive will play its role,"
he said. The extent of the reception of the former president was at the heart of recent negotiations between the government and the FPI: the former wishing that it would be without
"triumphalism"
, the second that it is popular by allowing the greatest number of its supporters to be present in the streets of Abidjan.
The stake is the safety of Laurent Gbagbo himself but also to avoid any overflow and violence which the two camps do not want.
Songs and praises
Residents began to show their joy before his arrival.
"Tomorrow, there will be only songs, praises,"
says a resident of the popular district of Yopougon, considered pro-Gbagbo. In contrast, his opponents still believe that he threw his country into chaos by refusing his defeat to Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential election. This refusal caused a serious post-electoral crisis, during which some 3,000 people were defeated. been killed. Laurent Gbagbo, in power since 2000, was arrested in April 2011 in Abidjan and then transferred to the ICC in The Hague.
Associations of victims of this crisis denounce
"impunity"
and have planned to demonstrate Thursday in Abidjan.
His relatives ensure that he returns without a spirit of revenge but to work for the policy of
"national reconciliation"
.
Côte d'Ivoire, still scarred by two decades of politico-ethnic violence,
"must find itself,"
said Assoa Adou, secretary general of the FPI.
"It is today in danger of destabilization by jihadists"
, he added, after attacks on the army which recently killed four soldiers in the North, on the border with Burkina Faso.
Read also: Laurent Gbagbo fully acquitted by the ICC
An opinion shared by the writer and pro journalist Ouattara Venance Konan, who wrote this week in an editorial in the pro-government daily
Fraternité Matin
that,
"before anything else, we must make the sacred union"
and unite
"our efforts to achieve in the face of terrorists ”
. Laurent Gbagbo remains under sentence in Côte d'Ivoire to twenty years in prison for the “robbery” of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the 2010-2011 crisis. By announcing in early April that he was free to return to Côte d'Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara did not mention this sentence but the government hinted that it would be lifted.
