Story by Sarah Teague. Featured photo credit: AFP. Laurent Gbagbo in International Criminal Court.
Many Ivorians were seen dancing in the streets of Yopougon — a district of Abidjan — on Tuesday after the news of former president Laurent Gbagbo’s acquittal spread.
Taxi drivers slammed on their horns, neighbors hugged neighbors and some chanted “Liberer, liberer Gbagbo!” Gbagbo supporters also flocked to the Gbagbo residence in Cocody where former First Lady Simone Gbagbo lives.
Gbagbo and his former youth minister Charles Ble Goude were acquitted on all charges of crimes against humanity in International Criminal Court at The Hague where he has been imprisoned since April 2011.
Michael Aiba, elementary IT teacher at the International Community School of Abidjan, said he would soon celebrate in his own unique way: by shaving off his beard.
“(On) April 11, 2011, when the former president Gbagbo had been captured, I said to God, ‘(growing out my beard) is my sacrifice for his return,’” Aiba said. “So when (Gbagbo) is released and comes back and touches … the ground … (and is) reunited with his wife who was in jail too, then, I will (cut) it off.”
Aiba is from the Attie ethnic group and grew up in the southeast village of Ahoutoue. He laughed and smiled throughout our interview, speaking excitedly about the news. He said the day Gbagbo was captured he vowed loyalty to Gbagbo’s cause by refusing to completely shave his face.
“(This release) is a victory for reconciliation for the whole country,” Aiba said. “We found out that it is a complete release — acquittal. For us, it’s like God is behind (this) story.”
Aiba talked about tension from the last war.
“That hatred is falling away,” he said.
Others seem angered by the acquittal of a former leader whose refusal to accept Ouattara’s victory many believe led to the confusion and violence that left 3,000 people dead in 2011.
Reuters reported a dissenting voice to the celebrations happening in the city: Salimata Cisse, 33, of Abidjan. “How can you free someone who has killed our children and our husbands?” she told Reuters’ reporters.
Karim Traore, 36, told the AP: “I lost my arm in 2011 because of pro-Gbagbo forces. We do not understand the decision of the International Criminal Court to release the former president. We, the victims, have not been heard and it is a real shame.”
Photo by Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty
Gbagbo served as Cote d’Ivoire’s president from 2000 to 2011 before his ousting by current President Alassane Ouattara whose forces — supported by France — captured Gbagbo in April 2011 and sent him to International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges on crimes against humanity in post-election violence from 2010-2011. His wife, Simone Gbagbo, was also imprisoned in Cote d’Ivoire in 2011 but was released in August, 2018.
According to The Telegraph, “Cuno Tarfusser, the presiding judge (of the ICC), said that the court ‘by majority hereby decides that the prosecution has failed to satisfy the burden of proof to the requisite standard.’”
Tarfusser ordered the immediate release of both Gbagbo and Goude. A video published by the United Nations shows the men hugging after the verdict is read.
Aiba said watching his country fall to post-election conflict was difficult.
“It was hard because … conflict … in the same country … (is) like brothers and sisters opposing each other,” Aiba said. “For (Gbagbo supporters), it’s like God is behind (this) story,” Aiba said. “Thanks, God, thanks God. This is what we can say.”
anna holligan
on Twitter: “Sun setting. #Gbagbo supporters still celebrating. Bad day for prosecution. Good day for international justice? Relatives of 3,000 killed in #IvoryCoast violence still don’t know who’s responsible for their suffering or if they’ll ever be brought to justice #ICC pic.twitter.com/EoFdQFHvwI / Twitter”
Sun setting. #Gbagbo supporters still celebrating. Bad day for prosecution. Good day for international justice? Relatives of 3,000 killed in #IvoryCoast violence still don’t know who’s responsible for their suffering or if they’ll ever be brought to justice #ICC pic.twitter.com/EoFdQFHvwI
Some information used for this article included eyewitness accounts, quotes and tweets that came from fellow reporters on the ground, including Reuters and The Telegraph.
