Ivory Coast president kept prisoner in hotel
ABIDJAN (IVORY COAST): The newly elected president of this troubled republic in Africa's tropics cannot leave his hotel. And neither can the linens on which he sleeps - except by helicopter.
They are flown out to be dry cleaned across town and flown back at night, just like everything else that comes or goes from the resort hotel where Alassane Ouattara took refuge last month after he was declared winner of the November 28 election.
Although his victory has been unanimously recognised abroad, world opinion has not been able to sway sitting president Laurent Gbagbo to leave the presidential palace he's occupied for 10 years.
He has deployed his troops around the hotel like a noose, and last week they pulled it tight, choking off the exits and imposing a blockade.
The only way to reach the man considered to be the legitimate president of Ivory Coast is now by a United Nations helicopter, which ferries diplomats and journalists on daily flights, as well as groceries for the hotel's kitchen, cases of liquor for the bar, and the president's freshly pressed pillowcase.
The international community finds itself in a conundrum in a country where sanctions, tough talk and the threat of a military intervention have not persuaded the 65-year-old Gbagbo, a former history teacher, to step aside.
Xenophobic sentiment runs high and every night, state TV portrays the international position as a "Franco-American plot" and UN peacekeepers as enemy combatants. A military ouster may be the only way to remove the defiant Gbagbo, but many fear doing so could not only provoke attacks against foreigners but also degenerate leading to mass casualties. It is forcing world leaders to weigh whether the cost of democracy is civil war.
"The problem that we are facing in Ivory Coast is the question of democracy. It isn't just about Alassane Ouattara," said Guillaume Soro, former prime minister under Gbagbo, who resigned in protest and has since been named Ou! attara's prime minister.
They are flown out to be dry cleaned across town and flown back at night, just like everything else that comes or goes from the resort hotel where Alassane Ouattara took refuge last month after he was declared winner of the November 28 election.
Although his victory has been unanimously recognised abroad, world opinion has not been able to sway sitting president Laurent Gbagbo to leave the presidential palace he's occupied for 10 years.
He has deployed his troops around the hotel like a noose, and last week they pulled it tight, choking off the exits and imposing a blockade.
The only way to reach the man considered to be the legitimate president of Ivory Coast is now by a United Nations helicopter, which ferries diplomats and journalists on daily flights, as well as groceries for the hotel's kitchen, cases of liquor for the bar, and the president's freshly pressed pillowcase.
The international community finds itself in a conundrum in a country where sanctions, tough talk and the threat of a military intervention have not persuaded the 65-year-old Gbagbo, a former history teacher, to step aside.
Xenophobic sentiment runs high and every night, state TV portrays the international position as a "Franco-American plot" and UN peacekeepers as enemy combatants. A military ouster may be the only way to remove the defiant Gbagbo, but many fear doing so could not only provoke attacks against foreigners but also degenerate leading to mass casualties. It is forcing world leaders to weigh whether the cost of democracy is civil war.
"The problem that we are facing in Ivory Coast is the question of democracy. It isn't just about Alassane Ouattara," said Guillaume Soro, former prime minister under Gbagbo, who resigned in protest and has since been named Ou! attara's prime minister.
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