Learning from the Gbagbos
About 3,000 people were killed in the days that followed the conclusion of those elections. Former President Laurent Gbagbo’s wife was also accused of ‘disturbing public order’ and ‘organizing armed gangs’ after her husband and his supporters rejected results of the December 2010 presidential election. Court President Tahirou Dembele ignored prosecutors’ request for a lighter 10-year […]
About 3,000 people were killed in the days that followed the conclusion of those elections. Former President Laurent Gbagbo’s wife was also accused of ‘disturbing public order’ and ‘organizing armed gangs’ after her husband and his supporters rejected results of the December 2010 presidential election.
Court President Tahirou Dembele ignored prosecutors’ request for a lighter 10-year sentence for the 65-year-old Mrs Gbagbo. A key issue in her trial was whether she played a part in directing the death squads that went on a killing rampage in the weeks that followed the announcement of the presidential election results. Mr Gbagbo’s son from a previous marriage, Michel, who holds dual French-Ivoirian citizenship, was also sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the country’s post-election violence of 2010/2011.
The large number of Ivoirians killed in months of post-election violence was halted only by the robust intervention of international forces, led by former colonial power France, acting under a United Nations mandate. Gbagbo, who had barricaded himself inside the presidential palace, allegedly used militias to attack supporters of his political opponent and the eventual winner of the poll, Mr Alassane Outtara.
The Gbagbo couple was arrested in April 2011. While the former first lady was taken into custody in the north of the country, Gbagbo was captured and then whisked off to The Hague, where he is awaiting trial at the International Crime Court on charges of crimes against humanity. An active trade union militant in the 1970s, and a controversial figure, Simone Gbagbo was imprisoned a number of times during the struggle for multiparty democracy in the country. Laurent and Simone Gbagbo were arrested on charges of inciting violence in February 1992, and spent six months in prison.
Mrs Gbagbo’s conviction last week and the ongoing trial of her husband should be an object lesson from which incumbent leaders and their supporters in Africa and elsewhere to learn from. The Cote d’Ivoire courts have set a precedence that effectively dispels the long-held notion that political leaders can get away with state-sponsored crimes against citizens as a means of maintaining their grip on power. Simone Gbagbo’s sentence has also shown that politicians and their supporters, particularly in African democracies, should not take it for granted that their status confers immunity for them to act with impunity. The lessons of the 2008 post-election violence in Kenya are also useful.
In Nigeria, with elections due next week, many have expressed concerns regarding politicians’ resort to the use hate-speeches and inciting language as campaign strategies. No party is entirely free of this sorry state, but campaign officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are especially adept at this, using state-funded media organs in this dangerous slide. Some of them have been heard and seen on television instructing their supporters to stone members of the opposition. Simone Gbagbo’s fate as she begins her 20 years in prison is a strong rebuke of such strategies. Those who beat war drums for their political godfathers claim “there will be war” if the outcome of the presidential election next week does not favour their preferred candidate. There are others who have described opposition party members as “cockroaches” that must be crushed whenever they appear; and yet others who declared that because one region ‘breeds children that the parents cannot provide for, we don’t like people from that side’. Those whose offensive language and campaigns of calumny and denigration threaten Nigeria’s sovereignty, unity, peace or social cohesion, should realize that they are treading a dangerous path. As Simone Gbagbo’s case demonstrates, there will be no hiding place for anyone should words lead to a self-fulfilling tragedy for the country.