Operation No Oil to Steal.

As the five month political crisis the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie) enters it critical final phase the humanitarian situation in the country has deteriorated dramatically. Apart from the people being killed in the fighting there are serious shortages of food and water and over 1 million people have been displaced both internally and externally which is threatening to destabilise neighbouring countries like Burkina Faso and Liberia.

The most dramatic development came yesterday (4/4/11) when forces loyal to the incumbent President, Laruent Gbagbo who were holed up in the Presidential palace opened fire on UN peacekeepers outside. As the peacekeepers have a mandate to defend themselves they responded by using helicopter gunships to destroy heavy weapons within Gbagbo's compound and ammunition stores elsewhere in Abidjan. French military forces who are in the country but not part of the UN mission also joined in with the attacks. Sadly the French only seem to have got involved in order to make it more difficult for people to criticise them for using similar tactics in Libya. Of course this comparison is a massive over simplification of the two situations and ignores the crucial difference that in Cote D'Ivorie the people voted to make Alassane Ouattara their next President and Laurent Gbagbo simply refused to respect their wishes. Therefore rather then bringing about regime change in Cote D'Ivorie the international forces are simply enforcing the change in regime that the people voted for.

Whatever the motivation and although I think they could have done it without help the helicopter strikes allowed fighters aligned to Ouattara to take control of the Presidential palace. Gbagbo is now believed to be hiding in a bunker in the basement of the building and trying to negotiate his surrender.

Unfortunately one of his spokesmen has said that he cannot give himself up because Ouattara's fighters will extract victors justice and kill him so it has to be a fight to the death. This is not true because if he voluntarily hands himself over then the United Nations can put pressure on the Ivorian government to make sure that he is treated humanely and with respect. However if he stands and fights they cannot do this and his fate will be one of his own making.

So he can either leave now with some dignity intact or he can drag his country back into civil war in a desperate attempt to cling to power for just one more day.