Definitely some French machinations at work behind the scenes, I think, but take the spin of Pat Robertson and his 700 Club with a pinch of salt also…they have an agenda here as well…

This is a complex situation in the Ivory Coast and disinformation is running rife in the international media.

It is very easy to write that Laurent Gbagbo is just another African dictator clinging to power because that is what people are used to hearing, repeat it often enough and becomes the truth with no critical thinking or analysis or research.

Each sovereign country has its own Law and Supreme Court which must be respected.

Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Outarra freely accepted the rules of the presidential elections as set by the Constitution of the Ivory Coast and they agreed to compete according to those rules which also states that The Supreme Court of the Ivory Coast, after taking into account all complaints duly submitted, has the last word in disputed elections, referred to as, certification.

According to the rules, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) had three days to proclaim the preliminary results.
Polls closed on Sunday November 28th 2010 and poll results were expected to be announced by the IEC by midnight Wednesday December 1st 2010.

This did not happen because the IEC commissioners could not reach an agreement as confirmed by the President of the IEC, Mr. Youssouf Bakayoko during a televised appearance.

However, at this point because an agreement had not been reached, the Supreme Court, under the Constitution of the Ivory Coast took charge of the entire process and Mr Paul Yao N’Dre chairman of the Constitutional Council which validates election results, declared Laurent Gbagbo the winner, to the dissatisfaction of Outarra and his supporters.

Then, on Thursday December 2nd 2010 the results were finally announced by the President of the IEC, Youssouf Bakayoko not from the IEC headquarters but from the Golf Hotel and under armed guard he declared Alassane Outarra the winner.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also endorsed this result and congratulated Mr Ouattara “on his election”.
US President Barack Obama and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy issued similar statements, as did EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton who urged “all parties to the electoral process to respect the will of the people”.

However, legally, Laurent Gbabgo had won the elections and Chairmain of the Constitutional Council Mr N’Dre said that, as the announcement declaring Outarra had come after Wednesday’s legal deadline, those results were “null and void”.

The Supreme Court of the Ivory Coast was the LAST instituition to have taken charge, not the UN, not France, not the UK, not the European Union nor USA.

The UN has never been granted the legal authority or power to certify the elections of the Ivory Coast.
The UN in the Ivory Coast was mandated to ensure that the rebels in the North of the country were disarmed and which it did NOT do, and mandated only to help to organise and oversee elections in Ivory Coast.

Instead, the UN is doing the bidding of France and other Western powers eager to get their hands on the riches of the Ivory Coast.

In the USA, the 2000 elections of Gore-v-Bush were decided by the Supreme Court of the USA. Did Gore go and set up a parallel Presidency in the Watergate Hotel? Did the UN appoint itself the arbiter of those elections and certify Al Gore as the legal winner?

Another factor overlooked in the foreign press is the Colonial Pact Agreement.

Just before France conceded to the demands of its former colonies for independence in the 1960s, it carefully organized its former colonies into a system of compulsory solidarity which consisted of obliging the African states (known as CFA countries) to put 65% of their foreign currency reserves into the French Treasury, based on the convertibility, at a rigid exchange rate, of the CFA franc – a currency France had created for them.

This has conferred on France huge advantages in terms of market outlets for its goods and services and a special preference in the political, commercial and defence processes of those former colonies.
France not only set limits on the imports of a range of items from outside the CFA franc zone but also set minimum quantities of imports from France.

It required that French businesses be allowed to maintain monopoly enterprises in key areas (water, electricity, ports, transport, energy, etc. These treaties are still in force and operational.

All this has led to a situation that can only be described as voluntary servitude which has conditioned the population and other economic operators into believing that there is no chance for survival outside the Francophone system.
It is probably very little surprise to other Africans that the attempts by Laurent Gbagbo to break free of these chains irritated the French.

The presidential poll was intended to reunify the world’s largest cocoa producer after a civil war in 2002.
The two candidates represent the two sides of the north-south divide (Alassane Outtara for the north and Laurent Gbagbo for the south) that exists religiously ( northern Muslim, Southern Christian), culturally and administratively, with the northern half still controlled in part by the former rebels.

Gbagbo was put under enormous external pressure to hold these elections but in reality this pressure was misguided as the country was not ready. Rather than resolve the underlying north-south issues it was almost certain that it would take the country back ten years and to the brink of civil war.
Tragically this has proved to be the case.

Despite the power-sharing government, the country was, in reality, still operating as two separate entities and the external pressure on Gbagbo should have been aimed at making him work harder to re-unify the country rather than hold an election that could only exacerbate the split.

Is anyone surprise at this report?

New reports from the Ivory Coast indicate that military forces loyal to President Alassane Ouattara are carrying out reprisal attacks against supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Parishioners are reporting the kidnappings of dozens of young men in San Pedro, a Catholic priest in the cocoa-exporting port city in southwestern Ivory Coast said. The priest asked not to be named, explaining: "We are all in danger."

"Every day the peacekeepers are collecting and burying bodies," he said. "There is lots of dense bush here. Who knows how many bodies there are."

An Associated Press reporter witnessed Ouattara’s troops beating a man for not giving them the right answers. The man turned up dead a few minutes later.

Another reporter also saw pro-Ouattara soldiers pull five men from a minibus and drag them into some thick brush at a road block.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/April/Reprisals-Rock-Ivory-Coast-after-Gbagbo-Deposed-/

Full article

This is sad; imperialistic forces in full bloom

Here is a Google Video featuring Michel Chossudovsky, a professor at the University of Ottawa.

Some of Chossudovsky’s observations:

* The CIA and US military worked closely with al Queda as recently as 2001 to destabilize the Balkans. Their last overt co-venture was in the Yugoslavian province of Macedonia. Al Queda was created by and remains under the control of the CIA as is the Taliban and Pakistan’s ISI.

* The US and UK are engaged in a global competition against France, Germany and other euro countries for oil, African resources, the global weapons trade and financial dominance (US dollar vs. Euro)

* In 2002, the US adopted a policy of pre-emptive nuclear attack listing Russia and China as countries subject to attack. “Nuclear war is now part of the military assumption.”

* It’s not just Bush and the Neo-cons. Yes, Bush is a puppet. Thoroughly corrupt, callous, venal, but essentially a moron. The country is actually being run by what in effect is a military dictatorship and will continue to be one regardless of who is in the Whit House.

* The so-called “War on Terror” is a complete fabrication designed to justify the US drive for world economic dominance and a “Homeland Security State” at home.

Another apologist. Justifying the unjustifiable.