Mbeki has a piece in Foreign Policy on what happend in Cote D’Ivoire. In it, he accuses France, the international community, and UN of making a huge mess of the whole situation from holding the elections until French special forces arrested Gbagbo. He comes out pretty heavily for Gbagbo, arguing that a lot of funky things went on in Northern Cote D’Ivoire during the second round of the election, which legitimize Gbagbo’s refusal to recognize the results.
Speaking with Ivorian refugees in Liberia, I heard a lot of stories of intimidation and in some cases outright violence that prevented people from voting their conscience in Northern Cote D’Ivoire. A diplomat in Monrovia assured me that it wasn’t enough to actually sway the results of the election.
Its pretty hard to make Gbagbo looks like the good guy in this conflict. However, taking into account the human rights violations that the FRCI and other pro-Ouattara forces at least took part in and perhaps led during their military campaign and in its aftermath, this article paints a very different picture of what happened in Cote D’Ivoire than most analyses.
I wonder why Mbeki waited until now to make this case in a western news outlet?
