"Ivory Coast begins exhuming mass graves" by Robbie Corey-Boulet | Associated Press, April 05, 2013
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Ivory Coast officials began exhuming dozens of mass graves Thursday dating to the country’s 2011 postelection violence, as a new report accused President Alassane Ouattara of failing to bring his supporters to justice for crimes they allegedly committed during the conflict.
He didn't think he had to worry because he was installed by the U.N.
Justice Minister Gnenema Coulibaly presided over the exhumations, observing a moment of silence at the site before digging started at the first grave on the grounds of a mosque in Abidjan’s Yopougon district.
The grave contained the bodies of four men between the ages of 17 and 35 who were killed at the height of the violence in April 2011 while defending the mosque against militant supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo.
More than 3,000 people died over a period of five months after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara in the November 2010 election.
Addressing religious leaders as well as relatives of the men who died at the mosque, Coulibaly said ‘‘the prevailing security situation’’ during the conflict made proper funerals impossible for many families, meaning bodies were hastily buried in public places throughout the country, including at places of worship.
A government census identified 57 graves for exhumation in Abidjan alone, many of which contain multiple bodies. The graves together are believed to contain more than 400 bodies. The exhumation process will eventually extend throughout the country, Coulibaly said.
Yopougon was a flashpoint during the violence, and Gbagbo was arrested following military intervention by France and the United Nations.
Coulibaly said the exhumations would provide closure to victims’ families while offering valuable information that would help bring perpetrators of crimes to justice.
But in a report released Thursday, Human Rights Watch faulted judicial officials for failing to come up with a strategy to investigate grave crimes committed during the conflict
Fighters on both sides committed atrocities, including the extrajudicial killings of hundreds, a national commission of inquiry reported last August.
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Related: Ivory Coast Investigations
Obama didn't bring them up once.
"Former Ivory Coast president faces charges" by Mike Corder | Associated Press, February 20, 2013
THE HAGUE — Laurent Gbagbo, former Ivory Coast president, was prepared to go to any lengths — including using lethal force — to cling to power after losing elections in 2010, and should stand trial for his alleged involvement in postelection violence, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor said Tuesday.
Fatou Bensouda said the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal must mete out justice to Gbagbo for victims of the violence that plunged his country, once a beacon of democracy in West Africa, into bloody chaos.
When I see Tony Bliar, George W. Bush, and a line of war-criminal Israeli leaders before the bar I'll take notice. As some have noted, the U.N. does seem exhibit racism in the selection of these cases.
‘‘We will show that Mr. Gbagbo and forces under his control are responsible for the death, rapes, serious injuries to, and arbitrary detention of, countless law abiding citizens’’ considered supporters of his rival Alassane Ouattara, Bensouda said.
She was speaking on the opening day of a hearing to judge whether prosecutors’ evidence is strong enough to merit putting on trial Gbagbo, 67, the first former head of state to appear before the 10-year-old court.
Bensouda said prosecutors will focus on four incidents to paint a picture of the violence that erupted after Ouattara was declared the election winner and Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat, declaring himself president and allegedly unleashing his forces and supporters to target his rival’s backers.
The U.N.-backed guy and his forces committed more, but that would get in the way of the agenda-pushing narrative.
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I'm not approving of stolen elections, although I'm not sure what happened in the Ivory Coast's ballot boxes; however, when was the last time the West felt so compelled to invade and occupy over an election? They were after something else.
