Tuesday, January 11, 2011

At least 4 dead following Ivory Coast raid

Source: Yahoo News

AFP – People look at the body
of man killed by gunfire
 on January 11, 2011
 in the Abobo neighborhood
of Ivory …
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – An Associated Press photographer saw four dead bodies in a neighborhood of Abidjan where security forces loyal to the incumbent leader carried out an early morning raid.

They appeared to have been shot dead. There were also at least two unexploded grenades on the ground.

Forces loyal to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who is refusing to leave office, surrounded the area early Tuesday. The area voted overwhelmingly for Gbagbo's opponent Alassane Ouattara, who is recognized internationally as the winner of the Nov. 28 ballot.

Residents loyal to Ouattara say they killed two policemen. Those deaths could not be independently verified.

United Nations peacekeepers were forced back by Gbagbo supporters as they attempted to enter the area.

Also see AP's earlier story is below.
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Security forces loyal to Ivory Coast's incumbent leader, who refuses to cede power, on Tuesday fired volleys of gunshots as they cordoned off a large section of a neighborhood known to be his rival's stronghold.

United Nations peacekeepers arriving in a convoy of 13 vehicles were quickly forced back as they attempted to enter the area. Young men allied with incumbent Laurent Gbagbo amassed on a road leading to the area and threw large objects in their path.

PK 18, where the incident occurred, is part of Abobo, an Abidjan district that supported Alassane Ouattara, who is internationally recognized as the winner of the presidential election. Results verified by the U.N. say he won the Nov. 28 poll with a margin of more than half a million votes. Gbagbo accused the U.N. of bias after it endorsed the results and is refusing to leave office.

Marco Boubacar, head of the New Forces rebels who are allied to Ouattara, said police awoke them between 4 and 5 a.m. and wounded several people.

Boubacar, a resident of PK 18, spoke while brandishing a long kitchen knife as he stood on the bridge leading into the neighborhood. He said a group of neighbors belonging to the rebel group retaliated, killing two policemen.

"We were able to take down two men in uniform," he said.

The deaths could not be independently verified, but other witnesses said they saw the bodies. Ambulances were also seen speeding into and out of the neighborhood.

Shots could be heard at regular intervals and large police trucks were seen zooming into the area, loaded with armed policemen and helmeted soldiers.

Last month, a bloc of neighboring nations began mulling a military ouster. A militant youth group allied with Gbagbo last week began leading daily rallies to warn the international community against interfering in Ivory Coast.

The rally that was planned for Tuesday afternoon is not far from PK 18. Adama Toungara, the mayor of the area, said the early morning raid was an intimidation tactic intended to keep Ouattara supporters from disrupting the rally.

Human rights groups have criticized the U.N. for bowing to Gbagbo's security forces and allowing abuses to occur under their watch. The head of the U.N. human rights section received reports of two mass graves containing as many as 80 bodies of people shot or killed after the election, but his convoy was turned back at gunpoint when he tried to enter one of the sites in a suburb of Abidjan.

U.N. patrols have also been intimidated and forced to retreat on other occasions, including an incident last month in which ruling party loyalists torched a U.N. vehicle. State TV controlled by Gbagbo has shown footage of U.N. convoys stopped in front of crowds, or made to turn around, reasserting an image of U.N. powerlessness.

The U.N. was invited to observe the election and to certify the results following a 2005 peace deal signed by all political parties after a civil war. The certification was intended to create an independent mechanism to ascertain the winner and prevent fraud. Both Gbagbo and Ouattara signed the accord, but Gbagbo has since discounted the international body's findings and has called on the 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission to leave the country.

After three high-level delegations of African leaders failed to persuade Gbagbo to cede power, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States last month warned they were considering an armed intervention.

The move is controversial, though, because Ivory Coast has been a magnet for immigrants from other African nations including Nigeria, where troops would likely come from. And the Gbagbo regime has insinuated that any military action would lead to reprisal attacks against immigrants from the countries sending soldiers.

Experts say the risk of a return to civil war is real because Gbagbo is backed by the hardline Young Patriots, a group led by Charles Ble Goude, who was placed on a 2006 United Nations sanctions list for his role in inciting violence.

Goude has been leading rallies almost every day — including one that was to take place Tuesday near PK 18, but which was canceled just before it was to start because of tension in Abobo. He has warned there will be no peace if Gbagbo is forced out.

"They shouldn't kid themselves and imagine that they can come and remove him ... Because in every Ivorian there is a Gbagbo," Goude told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "Do they want to govern an Ivory Coast cemetery?"

Already at least 25,000 civilians have already crossed the border into neighboring Liberia in anticipation of possible clashes.

Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters in Geneva that 600 more are arriving in Liberia daily and are being housed in a teeming refugee camp.
___
Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Inside Liberia with Bernard Gbayee Goah

Everyone is a genius

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. – A Einstein

Drawing the line in Liberia

Crimes sponsored, committed, or masterminded by handful of individuals cannot be blamed upon an entire nationality. In this case, Liberians! The need for post-war justice is a step toward lasting peace, stability and prosperity for Liberia. Liberia needs a war crimes tribunal or some credible legal forum that is capable of dealing with atrocities perpetrated against defenseless men, women and children during the country's brutal war. Without justice, peace shall remain elusive and investment in Liberia will not produce the intended results. - Bernard Gbayee Goah



Men with unhealthy characters should not champion any noble cause

They pretend to advocate the cause of the people when their deeds in the dark mirror nothing else but EVIL!!
When evil and corrupt men try to champion a cause that is so noble … such cause, how noble it may be, becomes meaningless in the eyes of the people - Bernard Gbayee Goah.

If Liberia must move forward ...

If Liberia must move forward in order to claim its place as a civilized nation amongst world community of nations, come 2017 elections, Liberians must critically review the events of the past with honesty and objectivity. They must make a new commitment to seek lasting solutions. The track records of those who are presenting themselves as candidates for the position of "President of the Republic of Liberia" must be well examined. Liberians must be fair to themselves because results from the 2011 elections will determine the future of Liberia’s unborn generations to come - Bernard Gbayee Goah

Liberia's greatest problem!

While it is true that an individual may be held responsible for corruption and mismanagement of funds in government, the lack of proper system to work with may as well impede the process of ethical, managerial, and financial accountability - Bernard Gbayee Goah

What do I think should be done?

The situation in Liberia is Compound Complex and cannot be fixed unless the entire system of government is reinvented.
Liberia needs a workable but uncompromising system that will make the country an asylum free from abuse, and other forms of corruption.
Any attempt to institute the system mentioned above in the absence of rule of law is meaningless, and more detrimental to Liberia as a whole - Bernard Gbayee Goah

Liberia's Natural Resources
Besides land water and few other resources, most of Liberia’s dependable natural resources are not infinite, they are finite and therefore can be depleted.
Liberia’s gold, diamond, and other natural resources will not always be an available source of revenue generation for its people and its government. The need to invent a system in government that focuses on an alternative income generation method cannot be over emphasized at this point - Bernard Gbayee Goah

Liberia needs a proper system
If Liberians refuse to erect a proper system in place that promotes the minimization of corruption and mismanagement of public funds by government institutions, and individuals, there will come a time when the value of the entire country will be seen as a large valueless land suited on the west coast of Africa with some polluted bodies of waters and nothing else. To have no system in place in any country is to have no respect for rule of law. To have no respect for rule of law is to believe in lawlessness. And where there is lawlessness, there is always corruption - Bernard Gbayee Goah

Solving problems in the absence of war talks

As political instability continues to increase in Africa, it has become abundantly clear that military intervention as a primary remedy to peace is not a durable solution. Such intervention only increases insecurity and massive economic hardship. An existing example which could be a valuable lesson for Liberia is Great Britain, and the US war on terror for the purpose of global security. The use of arms whether in peace keeping, occupation, or invasion as a primary means of solving problem has yield only little results. Military intervention by any country as the only solution to problem solving will result into massive military spending, economic hardship, more fear, and animosity as well as increase insecurity. The alternative is learning how to solve problems in the absence of war talks. The objective of such alternative must be to provide real sustainable human security which cannot be achieved through military arm intervention, or aggression. In order to achieve results that will make the peaceful coexistence of all mankind possible, there must be a common ground for the stories of all sides to be heard. I believe there are always three sides to every story: Their side of the story, Our side of the story, and The truthBernard Gbayee Goah

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