|
The
Cote d"Ivoire tragedy: Pres. Gbabo does not
deserve another year in office
Saturday,
October 21, 2006
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
The
governments of the West African region, not the people
of Cote d I'voire endorsed the postponement of that
nation’s scheduled October 31, 2006 elections, and
gave lifeline to the embattled President Laurent Gbabo
during the Economic Community of West African
States’ (ECOWAS) recent summit in Abuja, Nigeria by
recommending that Mr. Gbabo serve an additional 12
months in office without having to hold national
elections.
Pres. Laurent Gbabo (archives)
Worker cleans toxic waste
Laurent Gbabo needed that vote of confidence
from his colleagues, who seems to think collectively
that the postponement of an anticipated elections in
favor of extending the tenure of an embattled leader
is the answer to end the civil war in that nation, and
behaved as if they don’t have their own domestic
political problems to worry about in their countries.
By showing that kind of unanimous support
for President Gbabo, a leader who’s incapable of
bringing peace to his country, and hasn’t enjoyed
any kind of peace and stability since he was first
elected president of the once peaceful and prosperous
Ivory Coast in 2000, when he replaced the late coup
leader and former president Robert Guie, undermines
the democratic aspirations of the Ivorian people, and
also undermines the road to democracy in the region.
Gen. Robert Guie was the guy, who together with
his nine-man junta overthrew President Henri Konan
Bedie on Christmas Eve 1999, promising, “press
freedom will be total,” but later warned reporters
against reporting “garbage.”
Mr. Guie’s definition of garbage, I guess was
when reporters asked him tough questions so that the
nation and the world will know whom he was, and what
was his plan for a country he so much wanted to lead.
Guie lost to Gbabo the following year and later
attempted to stage another military coup in 2002, but
was overwhelmed by the resistance of the French army
and was killed.
From the day their long-serving leader, Felix
Houphouet Boigny, who held that country together like
glue died (1960-1993), the economy began to slide
downhill and the nation and its people hasn’t been
in peace.
And if Laurent Gbabo remains president for
another year, it is uncertain as to whether there will
ever be peace and tranquility in Cote d’Ivoire.
However, just as quick as the regional leaders
were quick to come to the rescue of their embattled
colleague when he desperately needed them, Presidents
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Olusegun Obasanjo and the other
West African leaders did not come up with a practical
communiqué that demanded the rebels to put down their
guns and halt all hostilities in order to join the
political process.
Had the regional leaders sought a political
solution to the crisis, they would have put pressure
on the rebels who would now be required to find and
field credible candidates to contest the scheduled
October 31 elections, which would have addressed a key
part of their grievance about power sharing, which
also would have relieved the people of Cote
d’Ivoire, who are now caught between those heartless
rebels and a powerless and spineless government that
cannot seem to reach a compromise in their
long-running struggle for political power.
It now seems as if the West African leaders are
preoccupied with one thing: To protect one of their
own at the expense of holding democratic elections and
putting the people and that country in the right
direction.
And they only way they think there can ever be
peace in the Ivory Coast is for Laurent Gbabo to
remain in the stately Palias Presidentiel
(presidential palace) in Yamoussoukro, the capital for
another year.
If this president, Mr. Gbabo who has been in
power since 2000, for six years now cannot stave off
the rebels to bring peace to his country, why will
anyone believe another year in office will bring him
the peace that eluded him throughout these years?
However, peace cannot be achieved when the
interests of the nation are completely secondary to
the selfish interests of Laurent Gbabo and the rebels,
all of whom have shown they are incapable of running
the Ivory Coast, a country everyone of them helped to
destroy just because they cannot get their way.
Genuine and lasting peace cannot come to that
country when regional leaders are not bold enough to
take the high and moral road, the right path by
honestly telling one of their own the right thing to
do in the interests of his people.
However, President Gbabo’s political problems
are not over yet because of the latest controversy
involving toxic waste dumped around 11 sites in the
country in August that led to the deaths of seven
people and 30,000 injured, and the resignation of the
entire cabinet.
The ship that carried and dumped the toxic
waste in the West African nation was contracted by the
Dutch commodities trader Trafigura Beheer BV,
according to reports informed the government of
President Gbabo about disposing the waste containing
Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S), believed to be a mixture of
caustic washings, gasoline and water which has a smell
of rotten eggs in his country.
Now, how can President Gbabo not know about
such a criminal activity occurring on his watch? If
he’s unaware of this insanity then his competence
and leadership abilities are questionable, because as
Chief Executive of a country he ought to know about
such a ship load of poison arriving in his country,
which posed a health hazard and is capable of killing
a section of the population.
Where was he, what did he know, and what
did he not know about this criminal activity?
Did the West African leaders who wants
President Gbabo to stay in office another year not
know about this criminal activity, the abuse of the
environment and the gross abuse of the people who now
have to suffer because of the negligence and wanton
greed of the officials in that country?
The entire cabinet resigned for this criminal
activity, a good way to scapegoat them instead of
blaming President Gbabo for his incompetence.
The people of the Republique de Cote d’Ivore,
not the regional leaders should determine their
political destiny and what’s right for them.
President Laurent Gbabo does not deserve
another year in office without free and fair
elections.
|
