Côte d`Ivoire/Liberia : Ouattara et
Shirleaf décident de saisir l`Onu sur la situation sécuritaire à leur frontière
commune

 

Xinhua - ABIDJAN - Les présidents ivoirien
et libérien Alassane Ouattara et Ellen Johnson Shirleaf ont décidé de saisir
l'Onu pour une intervention "plus efficace et plus coordonnée" de la Mission des
Nations unies au Libéria (Minul) et de l'Opération des Nations unies en Côte
d'Ivoire (Onuci) après les attaques successives de groupes armés dans l'ouest
ivoirien.

Selon un communiqué publié mercredi par la
présidence ivoirienne, les deux présidents ont convenu lors d'un entretien
téléphonique mardi de saisir l'Onu en vue de trouver "une solution définitive et
durable" à la situation sécuritaire dans leur zone frontalière commune.

L'ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire a payé un lourd
tribut à la crise post-électorale de 2010 et 2011 qui a fait au moins 3 000
morts. Plusieurs mercenaires libériens impliqués dans les violences en Côte
d'Ivoire ont regagné leur pays, sans compter des centaines de miliciens
favorables à l'ex-président Laurent Gbagbo qui se sont refugiés au Liberia.

 

Depuis la fin de la crise, de fréquentes
attaques meurtrières sont menées par des groupes armés non identifiés contre la
population civile et plus récemment contre des positions de l'armée ivoirienne.

 

Le gouvernement libérien a annoncé mardi
soir avoir arrêté six Ivoiriens impliqués dans l'attaque lundi contre le poste
frontière de la Côte d'Ivoire.

 

Après la mort en juin de sept Casques bleus
nigériens de l'Onuci dans une embuscade tendue par des individus armés, 41 pro-
Gbagbo refugiés au Liberia avaient été extradés vers la Côte d'Ivoire à l'issue
d'une réunion de haut niveau entre les gouvernements du Liberia et de la Côte
d'Ivoire appuyés par la Minul et l'Onuci.

 

La réunion avait décidé du renforcement du
dispositif sécuritaire des deux pays le long de la frontière longue de 700
kilomètres et l'intensification des patrouilles de la Minul et de l'Onuci.

 

 

Liberia arrests six over Ivory Coast border attack

* Ivorians caught
entering Liberia with weapons

* Ivory Coast blames violence on supporters of ex-president

* Liberia says attack not launched from its territory Source: Reuters World
Service

 

MONROVIA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Liberian troops have
captured six men they believe carried out raids on border posts in neighbouring
Ivory Coast this week, Liberia's defence minister said on Wednesday.

Gunmen attacked border
checkpoints manned by the Ivorian military near the town of Toulepleu in Ivory
Coast's volatile western borderlands on Monday morning. The fighting lasted much
of the day, and one Ivorian soldier was wounded.

Liberia dispatched
troops to its side of the frontier during the clashes in an effort to contain
the violence and arrested the men as they attempted to flee into Liberian
territory.

``These men were trying
to enter Liberia illegally with their weapons when they were arrested. These men
did not deny their involvement in the attack,'' Defence Minister Brownie Samukai
told Reuters.

``From the identities of
the six men arrested ... all of them are Ivorians. They are in detention, and
the ministry of justice is working on the prosecution process,'' he said.

Ivory Coast, the world's
top cocoa grower, has blamed fighters loyal to former President Laurent
Gbagbo for a series of attacks since June that have heightened fears of
renewed insecurity a year after a brief civil war killed 3,000 people.

Gbagbo is currently
awaiting trial on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court in The
Hague.

Raids on police and
military installations in and around Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan
last week killed 10 soldiers. Some 20 people, including seven United Nations
peacekeepers, died in June in fighting along the border, which Ivory Coast
blamed on pro-Gbagbo fighters based in Liberia.

Around 200,000 Ivorians
fled into Liberia during Ivory Coast's civil war last year, which erupted after
Gbagbo refused to recognise the victory of rival Alassane Ouattara in a
presidential election in late 2010. They were accompanied by thousands of armed
pro-Gbagbo soldiers and militias as well as their Liberian mercenary allies.

Samukai rejected the
idea that Monday's border raid had been launched from Liberian soil however and
promised to work with the Ivorian government to ensure the alleged gunmen are
prosecuted.

``It is an internal
Ivorian conflict. This has to be made clear,'' he said. ``As you know, we work
closely with the Ivorian authorities and will cooperate with them.''

He said Liberia was
awaiting a formal extradition request from Ivory Coast.

Liberia transferred 41
suspected Ivorian fighters to Ivory Coast earlier this year. Monrovia is also
currently holding several Liberian mercenaries believed to have carried out the
ambush of U.N. soldiers in June. Ivory Coast has requested their extradition for
prosecution.

 

 

Judges say ICC competent to try Ivorian strongman
Gbagbo

Source: AFP World News /

THE HAGUE, Aug 15, 2012
(AFP) - The International Criminal Court ruled Wednesday against a challenge by
Ivory Coast ex-president Laurent Gbagbo's lawyers on its jurisdiction to try him
for crimes against humanity.

"The chamber finds that
the court has the jurisdiction over alleged crimes... including those committed
since 28 November 2010 on the basis of (a) declaration of 18 April 2003," by
Ivory Coast, the ICC said.

Gbagbo's lawyers in late
May challenged the Hague-based court's competence to put the former west African
leader on trial for alleged crimes committed after Ivory Coast's disputed polls
in November 2010.

The defence asked the
court to rule that a declaration signed by Ivory Coast in April 2003 recognising
the court's jurisdiction, would "not be relevant to the period covered by the
allegations against Mr Gbagbo."

Gbagbo's defence also
asked the court to rule that his rights were infringed during the strongman's
eight-month detention in northern Ivory Coast and in the course of his transfer
to the ICC, making "a fair trial impossible."

On Wednesday, the ICC's
judges however ruled the declaration, signed by Gbagbo's then foreign minister
Bamba Mamadou recognised the tribunal's jurisdiction for an "undetermined
period."

Therefore, the Ivory
Coast "accepted the jurisdiction of the court over events from 19 September 2002
onwards," it said.

Gbagbo, 67, was to
appear Monday before the ICC for a hearing to confirm four charges of crimes
against humanity against him for his role in violence that wracked the world
largest cocoa producer after disputed polls.

The hearing was
postponed to await a health report from doctors after the defence earlier this
month questioned his fitness to come to court.

The first former head of
state to be surrendered to the ICC, Gbagbo was imprisoned in The Hague in
November after being transferred by plane from northern Ivory Coast, where he
had been under house arrest since April 2011.

His refusal to hand over
the reins to his long-time opponent and now President Alassane Ouattara plunged
the country into a deadly crisis which the United Nations said claimed
around 3,000 lives.