That would make him what, 122 now? Wouldn't you come out and claim the world record?
You will pretty quickly see why the hyperbole, readers; however, isn't that the newspaper's modus operandi?
"UN joins battle in Ivory Coast; French aircraft support assault on Abidjan" April 05, 2011|By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — The United Nations and French forces opened fire with attack helicopters....
And that is when I came to the conclusion that we have a WORLD WAR going on RIGHT NOW!
Related: Ivory Coast Conflict
I was told by my government mouthpiece there was not going to be one.
With the help of the international forces, the armed group fighting to install the country’s democratically elected leader, Alassane Ouattara, pushed into the heart of the city to reach Gbagbo’s home. They have surrounded it....
Yesterday’s offensive marked an unprecedented escalation in the international community’s efforts to oust Gbagbo....
The postelection violence has forced up to 1 million people to flee....
Another refugee crisis that gets just a peep. I guess when you create them..... sigh.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said he had authorized the 1,600-strong French Licorne force based here to help in the operation....
Troops on the ground.
After four months of attempts to negotiate Gbagbo’s departure, the UN Security Council unanimously passed an especially strong resolution giving the 12,000-strong peacekeeping operation the right “to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence … including to prevent the use of heavy weapons against the civilian population.’’
So when are they going to get around to one protecting Palestine with this fig leaf of a fraud cover?
Gbagbo has stubbornly refused every olive branch extended to him since November, when he lost the presidential election to Ouattara, an International Monetary Fund economist....
Oh, this REALLY IS ABOUT GLOBALISTS INSTALLING THEIR MAN!!!!!!!!!!
Gbagbo, the 65-year-old former history professor dug in, using state television to disseminate historical footage of France’s past abuses in Africa.
You can only know that appeals to me.
He depicted Ouattara as a foreign puppet and branded attempts to install him as an international conspiracy led by France and the UN.
I very much suspect he is right on that one.
Does the Ivory Coast have oil?
It DOES!!?!!
So what was Gbabgo planning to do, dump taking dollars or sign contracts with unfriendly firms? Did he reject the globalist central bankers requests for debt service in favor of his own people?
I mean, it's not like I'm looking at full disclosure in my newspaper. If I have "learned" anything from their obfuscating asses these last five years it is that.
Among the offers he turned down was President Obama’s proposal of a history professorship at a Boston university.
It's either that or war crimes charges.
Related: US officials thought a BU post might ease Gbagbo out
I guess he chose charges.
--more--"
"Gbagbo tries to broker his exit; Ivory Coast troops told to lay down arms" April 06, 2011|By Adam Nossiter and Scott Sayare, New York Times
TAKORADI, Ghana — Holed up in a bunker under his residence, Ivory Coast’s strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, negotiated the terms of his potential surrender yesterday as opposition forces closed in, his generals called on their forces to lay down their arms, and French and UN negotiators demanded that he officially renounce control of the country.
It was the culmination of a four-month standoff that has underscored both the strengths and limits of international diplomacy....
In the end, it came down to force....
Opposition forces swept across the country and France and the United Nations entered the fight, striking targets at his residence, his offices, and two of his military bases in what they called an effort to protect civilians....
Despite running out of options, Gbagbo continued to sound defiant yesterday, telling French television that he had not surrendered, that he remained the legitimate president and that France had declared war against Ivory Coast.
Diplomats said Gbagbo appeared to believe he still had a bargaining position, though his government and armed forces had collapsed around him.
“It’s over but he’s still trying to play games,’’ a senior Western diplomat in Abidjan said last night, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations were still underway. “The exact substance of what he’s trying to negotiate is foggy.’’
The United Nations said yesterday that Gbagbo’s top three generals had called “to say that an order to stop fighting was being given,’’ and that their troops were being told to hand in their weapons to UN forces and ask for their protection.
But the situation remained very much in flux....
While President Obama said yesterday that he strongly supported the UN and French airstrikes against Gbagbo’s military positions, saying they were part of a “mandate to protect civilians,’’ many Ivorians will see them as part of a Western plot to undermine the nation’s sovereignty, a theme Gbagbo has exploited to great effect over the crisis.
And not only Ivorians. I see it that way, too.
This is a MESSAGE to ALL TIN POTS that you WILL DO WHAT the WEST wants, or else they will remove you.
Please don't tell me it is about fraudulent elections. Those happen almost everywhere, all the time, and the U.N. ain't bombing people.
Did he exploit it like the USraeli neo-cons exploited 9/11?
In that vein, a spokesman for Gbagbo, Ahoua Don Mello, described the international military airstrikes Monday, which France and the United Nations said were aimed at the kind of heavy weapons that have been used against civilians during the crisis, as an attempt to assassinate Gbagbo.
“The residence of the head of state is not a heavy weapon,’’ he told French television, referring to French assertions that the attacks were directed at heavy artillery and armored vehicles stationed at Gbagbo’s residence and offices.
Throughout the crisis, international officials have warned both sides not to attack civilians, and international prosecutors have threatened to bring criminal charges, to little avail. UN officials have also threatened to run roadblocks and use robust force to protect civilians, but the military airstrikes this week stood out as a notable departure from their usual peacekeeping efforts.
Which appear to be nothing more than occupying the place.
And I suspect the departure is about to become the new norm.
--more--"
"Ivory Coast’s Gbagbo besieged; Opposition pounds home; in Abidjan, fear, privation" April 07, 2011|By Adam Nositer, New York Times
The assault on Gbagbo’s heavily guarded and well-armed redoubt, complete with tanks and antiaircraft defenses, marked a new and perhaps ultimate phase in the international campaign to dislodge a man who has clung to power long after losing an election and the world’s recognition as a legitimate leader.
As the fighting swelled and ebbed, millions of residents of Abidjan, once one of the world’s major ports, suffered another day of privation. Water, food and electricity all waned on the fifth day of the battle for the city.
Relief officials spoke of a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, as daily life — already squeezed by international sanctions — ground to a virtual halt....
The aim of the opposition assault was “to seize Gbagbo physically and, if he is alive, to bring him to justice,’’ said Apollinaire Yapi, a spokesman for Alassane Ouattara, who is recognized internationally as the winner of the presidential election last year.
Gbagbo has rejected the outcome, which was endorsed by the UN, the African Union, and other international bodies....
Only a day earlier, a resolution to the crisis had seemed imminent, as Gbagbo appeared to enter into discussions brokered by France and the UN over his possible surrender. The negotiations came after attacks by French and UN helicopters destroyed much of his armory Monday, leading his generals to tell troops to stop fighting and hand in their weapons on Tuesday.
Some Western officials said at the time that only the details of Gbagbo’s departure remained to be worked out. But the discussions led nowhere....
In the bunker with Gbagbo were his wife, children, grandchildren, and ministers in his erstwhile government, said an aide to Ouattara.
The night before, Gbagbo’s gravelly, tired voice sounded from the bunker in a rambling and defiant interview with the French television station LCI. In it he stated that he had not lost the election, and that he was the victim of French aggression....
Gbagbo, a former university historian once jailed for his opposition to the government of the country’s founder, professed astonishment at the outbreak of civil war, and drew on the vocabulary of xenophobia and virulent anti-French nationalism that has won him the militant allegiance of thousands of citizens.
Turning to Zionist tactics I see.
And how can it be a civil war with outside forces weighing in, huh?
“I still don’t understand how an electoral dispute in Ivory Coast can bring on the interference of the French army,’’ Gbagbo told the interviewer. “I find it absolutely incredible that the life of a country is played out, in a game of poker, in foreign capitals.’’
Yesterday, the International Criminal Court posted a statement on its website saying that its prosecutor had been conducting “a preliminary examination’’ in Ivory Coast into “alleged crimes committed there by different parties to the conflict.’’
The reference applied not only to Gbagbo’s campaign of repression against civilians, but also to more recent reports of mass killings of civilians in western Ivory Coast, where hundreds of bodies were found in a town controlled by Ouattara’s forces.
Related:
Sunday Globe Special: Ivory Coast War Crimes
What do you mean the GOOD GUYS COMMITTED MORE?
Yeah, I don't imagine the international community or newspaper will linger on those too long.
Meanwhile, Abidjan’s residents were suffering, with medical supplies running out and people wounded in the conflict flooding the few open medical facilities. In some neighborhoods, residents sounded increasingly desperate....
--more--"
"Ivorian leader surrounded in bunker; Opponents plan to wait him out" April 08, 2011|By Rukmini Callimachi and Marco Chown Oved, Associated Press
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — An armed group trying to install Ivory Coast’s internationally recognized president has surrounded a bunker that the country’s strongman refuses to leave, saying they will wait for him to come out.
Sure they will.
Entrenched incumbent Laurent Gbagbo remained defiant yesterday, even after airstrikes hammered his military bases and his residence, where he is holed up with his wife inside a subterranean tunnel. The ruler, through a spokesman in Europe, continued to insist he had won last November’s election and stressed he would never leave the country he has ruled for the past 10 years....
Maybe he really did win it.
Do you think I'm trusting what my agenda-pushing paper says at face value these days?
An armed group backing Ouattara stormed the gates of Gbagbo’s home on Wednesday.
As they were waiting for him to come out, right?
The group has stopped short of killing the Gbagbo, a move that could stoke the rage of his supporters.
Why would they worry when he lost and is illegitimate?
You don't think they are angry enough after having been bombed?
Some 46 percent of Ivorians voted for Gbagbo in the November election that unleashed political chaos.
Gee, that is ALMOST HALF the COUNTRY!
“This will be over very soon,’’ Youssoufou Bamba, Ouattara’s UN envoy said in New York.
He said when Gbagbo is taken “he will be alive and well. He wants to be a martyr. We won’t allow [his death] to happen.’’
I don't see how you can stop it if he pulls a Hitler in the bunker.
Bamba also vehemently denied that his government was employing mercenaries from other countries in the fight.
Which means they are.
Also in New York, Valerie Amos, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said she was extremely concerned about the situation in Abidjan, which has led hundreds of thousands of residents to flee their homes in the commercial capital....
Should have thought about that before using force, U.N.
What dipshits.
--more--"
And the Ivory Coast's edition of the Battle of the Bulge:
"Forces loyal to Ivorian strongman gain ground" April 10, 2011|By Scott Sayare, New York Times
PARIS — As Laurent Gbagbo, Ivory Coast’s strongman, remained under siege yesterday at the presidential residence in Abidjan, his forces regained territory there, repelled a French military operation overnight Friday, and recaptured state television and radio, which broadcast messages reassuring the country that Gbagbo was still there.
I was told it would be over soon.
And REMEMBER the FRENCH TOOK PART for LATER, 'kay?
Gbagbo remained in the basement bunker of his residence, surrounded by forces backed by France and the United Nations.
But the state television and radio complex, which was captured and reportedly destroyed last week by rebels loyal to Alassane Ouattara, Ivory Coast’s internationally recognized president, returned to the air yesterday in its previous role as a mouthpiece for the Gbagbo government....
It takes one to know one, NYT.
So what is with all the lies, anyway?
Gbagbo’s forces have also regained ground elsewhere in Abidjan, the UN said. News reports said they may be near a hotel used as Outtara’s headquarters.
--more--"
"UN, France fire rockets on Gbagbo’s residence; Ivorian leader still holed up in his bunker" April 11, 2011|By Marco Chown Oved, Associated Press
In a separate development, Human Rights Watch said forces loyal to Ouattara killed hundreds of civilians, raped his rival’s supporters, and burned villages during an offensive launched in the country’s west.
The human rights group called on Ouattara to investigate and prosecute abuses by his forces and those supporting his rival. It said that forces loyal to Gbagbo killed more than 100 civilians to retaliate against pro-Ouattara fighters who launched a major offensive advancing toward Abidjan.
“While the international community has been focused on the political stalemate in Abidjan over the presidency, forces on both sides have committed numerous atrocities against civilians, their leaders showing little interest in reining them in,’’ said Daniel Bekele, Human Rights Watch Africa director in the report.
People interviewed by the group described how pro-Ouattara forces “summarily executed and raped perceived Gbagbo supporters in their homes, as they worked in the fields, as they fled, or as they tried to hide in the bush.’’
****************
The report said that many were targeted for their ethnicity and Ouattara’s Republican forces have killed, raped, and pillaged the predominantly Guere population, who largely supported Gbagbo in the election. Abuses continued through March, culminating in the massacre of hundreds in Duekoue on March 29, the report said.
I wouldn't expect anything to come of these war crimes.
Only losers are charged with war crimes.
--more--"
"Soldiers capture Gbagbo; Ivory Coast’s ex-leader held after standoff; rancor still grips country" by Adam Nossiter, New York Times / April 12, 2011
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — The strongman of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was captured and taken into custody by his rival yesterday, ending a four-month standoff that left hundreds dead in this West African nation, put international diplomacy to a severe test, and dragged the country back into civil war.
With French helicopters hovering in the skies nearby, Gbagbo surrendered to his rival’s forces as they stormed his residence, sending his chief of staff outside with a white handkerchief to signal his defeat.
I was just thinking that Sarkozy has demanded the French people sacrifice their social services, and then he turns around and has the French military in Libya and the Ivory Coast.
“The fighting is over,’’ Gbagbo said on his rival’s television station after his arrest.
Well, no, but I suspect the agenda-pushing paper's interest soon will be. I've seen more on the Ivory Coast in the last few months than all the decades I've been reading the slop.
For months, African diplomats and heads of state shuttled back and forth to Abidjan, pleading with Gbagbo to step down after losing a presidential election last year. The United Nations, the United States, and the European Union demanded his resignation, imposing severe economic sanctions that crippled the economy but failed to push Gbagbo from power.
That's pleading?
Instead, it took devastating airstrikes by French and United Nations helicopters to help end Gbagbo’s gamble to defy the international community, fight off his rival, and extend his rule.
You got the agenda-pushing narrative of the whole thing yet?
Future wars will be sold with "saving people" so the world order (not really new, is it?) can commence with airstrikes against recalcitrant governments and people.
You know, it is almost(?) worse than Hitler. At least he said I'm doing it for this, this , and this, and didn't make pretenses about helping people, blah, blah, blah.
That is not to defend him in any way, shape, or form; it is just an observation regarding that long ago time and today's current crop of would-be world masters.
On Sunday night and into yesterday morning, the helicopters pounded the presidential offices and the palatial residence where Gbagbo had been holed up with his wife underground for days, firing missile blasts that were officially aimed at destroying the heavy weapons outside, but also reduced parts of Gbagbo’s last redoubts to smoking rubble.
Just like Berlin at the end of....
United Nations and French officials, wary of being seen as exceeding their mandate by enforcing regime change, insisted that their actions were solely intended to protect civilians, entirely independent of the final push to capture Gbagbo by his rival’s forces.
Little late to worry about perception (that's fixed), and the lying by the world's empire is really beginning to make me sick.
“There was not one single French soldier in the residence,’’ said Commander Frederic Daguillon, a French military spokesman in Abidjan....
No, they were JUST OUTSIDE!
President Obama commended the French and the United Nations, saying Gbagbo’s “illegitimate claim to power has finally come to an end.’’
Yeah, I guess he would, what with his Libyan actions and all.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the arrest “the end of a chapter that should never have been.’’
Who decided to use force?
But the arrest did not spell the end of the crisis, analysts warned.
Yeah, I knew it. Still refugees, dead people, and privation.
The repeated airstrikes by France and the United Nations are expected to infuriate the many Gbagbo supporters who have embraced his anti-Western, nationalistic fervor.
Oh, now you tell us? Another "unintended consequence" of imperial rule?
Even though his rival, Alassane Ouattara, is recognized internationally as the winner of last year’s election, Gbagbo supporters may now have even more reason to see him as illegitimate, forced upon them by outside intervention.
That SURE is the way I WOULD SEE IT!
Ouattara’s standing overseas will be also be tested by accusations that forces loyal to him killed hundreds of civilians as they swept across the country, weakening his reputation as the one with the higher moral ground in the standoff....
As if he ever had it.
Images broadcast on Ivorian television showed a sweating, plaintive Gbagbo after his arrest. At one point, he appeared in a white tank-top undershirt, wiping dry his face and underarms with a towel as men dressed in military camouflage looked on, smiling.
In parts of Abidjan, the reaction was subdued. Few were out after days of urban warfare that had kept the city’s residence in lockdown and provoked a serious humanitarian crisis. Water and food are lacking.
Wars always seem to do that; must be why I loathe them so.
Sporadic bursts of gunfire could still be heard, and both Ouattara’s government and the United Nations said a top priority was disarming the thousands of militant youths given weapons by Gbagbo.
Yeah, this is not over by a long shot.
In the Abobo neighborhood, where Gbagbo focused his bloody campaign of armed repression against Ouattara supporters, there was jubilation. For weeks the neighborhood lived in terror, with guns crackling and citizens falling dead in the streets.
I read that and I also thing GAZA!
“People are dancing and singing,’’ said a resident, Ahmed Fofana. “It’s like a holiday, really a great holiday. Everybody is out. I’m so happy, I hardly know how to express my joy.’’
In his speech last night, Ouattara, strangely subdued after months of fear and uncertainty, promised a new beginning for the country. “Today a white page opens in front of us, white like the white of our flag, symbol of hope and peace,’’ Ouattara said. He called for “reconciliation and forgiveness.’’
I'm not opposed to that; I just wonder when globalist scum are going to show it.
--more--"
"5 Ivory Coast generals swear their allegiance before Ouattara; Gbagbo remains at hotel in Abidjan" by Marco Chown Oved, Associated Press / April 13, 2011
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Armed fighters still prowled the streets of Abidjan....
Residents said that most of the combat had ceased yesterday, though sporadic gunfire continued as people cowered in their homes.
Meanwhile, Pro-Ouattara fighters sipped French champagne in celebration, while one proudly wore a short black wig he said belonged to Gbagbo’s wife, Simone.
Meet the new boss, same as the old bo.... sigh.
In the country’s south, celebrations of Gbagbo’s arrest continued yesterday in the cocoa-exporting port of San Pedro. People blocked the a double-lane highway as they sang, danced, and chanted, “Gbagbo is a thief.’’
Worked in government, right?
Women created a new dance using tree branches as brooms and sang: “We have swept out Gbagbo. We are ready to welcome A.D.O., our president,’’ referring to Ouattara by his initials.
Meanwhile, a top Gbagbo ally accused pro-Ouattara forces of pillaging the homes of political rivals.
“I’m getting calls of distress from all over the city from party members who fear for their lives,’’ said Gbagbo’s former foreign minister, Alcide Djedje. “I myself was forced to flee my house when looters in uniform broke in. While the looting was going on, I managed to hide at the neighbors’ until the UN peacekeepers came to get me.’’
Gbagbo’s security forces have been accused of using mortars and machine guns to mow down opponents during the standoff.
Yes, quickly change the subject.
Gbagbo could be forced to answer for his soldiers’ crimes, but an international trial threatens to stoke the divisions that Ouattara will have to heal as president.
So LET'S JUST FORGET ABOUT THEM, 'eh?
Ouattara cut short speculation that Gbagbo would be delivered to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, calling for an Ivorian investigation into the former president, his wife, and their entourage.
And YOUR OWN FORCES, right?
Ouattara also called on his supporters to refrain from retaliatory violence and said he intended to establish a truth and reconciliation commission.
--more--"
"Gbagbo is moved to secret location; Ivory Coast’s president puts a priority on order" April 14, 2011|By Marco Chown Oved, Associated Press
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Ivory Coast’s president tried to establish order in the days after the country’s strongman was arrested, moving him to a secure location and assuring the public that looting and gunfire will cease and life will soon return to normal....
What about those million refugees that faded down the AmeriKan media memory hole?
President Alassane Ouattara told reporters at the Golf Hotel: “There will be charges [against Gbagbo] on a national level and an international level. Reconciliation cannot happen without justice.’’
Well, that part is true.
The scars of fighting were still evident as civilians ventured out from their houses for the first time and cars began to tentatively circulate, many with white cloths tied to their radio antenna so that they would not be mistaken for combatants.
Ouattara said he will settle into the presidential palace in the coming days....
He said his priority is to provide security, establish law and order, and get the country working....
That sounded like Gbagbo's pitch.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy, speaking to reporters before a Security Council meeting about the West African country, Le Roy said fighting continued in Ivory Coast yesterday, along with “quite a bit of looting.’
--more--"
Now, how can the world justify the invasion and regime change?
"More arms caches found in Ivory Coast" April 15, 2011|By Marco Chown Oved, Associated Press
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast —The extent of strongman Laurent Gbagbo’s arsenal is coming into focus as it is discovered in caches around the city, enough military might to wage an extended civil war, had Gbagbo not been captured on Monday.
Did they find Saddam's WMD, too?
Btw, who sold Gbagbo the stuff?
“We have here significant stocks of heavy arms, which shows clearly that the UN Security Council resolution was appropriate and that the opportunity was taken to get rid of these weapons,’’ said President Alassane Ouattara’s secretary-general Amadou Gon Coulibaly, referring to the resolution that authorized the UN and French helicopters to attack and destroy heavy arms last week.
Yeah, only certain mass-murdering nations can have those.
Pro-Gbagbo soldiers held out for days at the luxurious Presidential Palace in the center of the city, which was conquered only on Wednesday. Yesterday, Coulibaly surveyed the premises and found the arms caches.
In a bunker.
In the basement of the palace, an Associated Press reporter counted at least 532 cases of BM-21 missiles, each one more than 8 feet long.
Oh, it is a RUSSIAN PIECE of MILITARY HARDWARE!
Yeah, Gbagbo had to go!
Crates of mortars, grenades, and ammunition littered the sprawling gardens and boxes of emergency medical supplies were stacked in an office.
All around Abidjan yesterday, teams of Red Cross workers shoveled charred corpses into bags while UN peacekeepers gathered more weapons, throwing them into dump trucks for disposal.
More than a week of heavy fighting turned a city once known as the Paris of West Africa into one of deprivation, fear, and death.
All to install the IMF man.
The urban warfare culminated in the arrest of Gbagbo Monday. Now Ouattara’s first order of business is to get Abidjan functioning again....
--more--"
And that was the last I heard of him in my Globe.
Also see: Hitler Lives!
I just wanted to scare you a little, readers, sorry. He may be 122, but I'll bet he is still that "evil genius" (as the series "Hitler's Bodyguard" claims). Makes you wonder how he lost the war.
Update: Globe paper carried it, but website did not?
"Shooting erupted Saturday in a sprawling Abidjan neighborhood where fighters loyal to Ivory Coast's arrested strongman Laurent Gbagbo have sought refuge, residents of the area said. The shooting appeared to be between residual forces of a pro-Gbagbo militia and forces that fought to install democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara, said two residents of Yopougon suburb that includes several ghettos of shacks as well as middle-class homes."
