ABIDJAN: Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognized as the winner of Ivory Coast’s election, tried to choke off funding for his rival Laurent Gbagbo on Monday by ordering a halt to cocoa and coffee exports.
As Nigeria called on the UN Security Council to authorize force to prise Gbagbo out of the presidency, Ouattara flexed his muscles by insisting on "the immediate stoppage of all exports of coffee and cocoa".
Producers and exporters who violate the ban would be considered to be "financing the illegitimate regime" of Gbagbo, said an edict from his office.
Although he is still holed up in a hotel on an Abidjan lagoon nearly two months on from the election, Ouattara has been emboldened by growing shows of diplomatic support from around the West Africa region.
A Gbagbo ally, Philippe-Henry Dacoury-Tabley, was forced out at the weekend as governor of the Central Bank of West African States and Outtara was asked by a club of nations that share a common currency to nominate a replacement.
Dacoury-Tabley’s position had become untenable after he refused to implement a decision taken in December from the bank’s seven other member states to give Ouattara control of Ivory Coast’s assets lodged with the bank.
Since that decision, the bank has paid out between 60 and 100 billion CFA francs (91-152 million euros, $124-$206 million) to the Gbagbo regime.
To date, the main players in Ivory Coast’s cocoa industry have remained loyal to Gbagbo, giving him another crucial source of cash.
The country is the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocoa, accounting for around 20 percent of GDP, and a ban would deal a major blow to Gbagbo — but only if it is enforceable.
Gbagbo has not been willing to lift a siege on the Outtara headquarters, giving rise to calls that some kind of military intervention may be the only way to end the impasse.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the main regional grouping, has already threatened to use force to lever Gbagbo out of power and the foreign minister of Nigeria — the chief power in ECOWAS — said that he wanted UN backing for military action.
Odein Ajumogobia, in an editorial published in Nigerian newspapers, said the crisis "single handedly precipitated by Mr. Laurent Gbagbo … will inevitably lead to anarchy and chaos, or worse, a full-blown civil war" if not resolved.
ECOWAS "requires unequivocal international support through an appropriate United Nations Security Council resolution to sanction the use of force," Ajumogobia wrote.
"This is the only way to legitimize the use of external force to effectively contain the increasingly volatile internal situation and ensure an enduring peace in Cote d’Ivoire and the West African sub-region."
He said the use of force did not have to mean an invasion.
"The use of ‘legitimate force’ is however not exclusively about military warfare in the conventional sense and therefore does not necessarily connote an ‘invasion’ by troops," Ajumogobia wrote.
"Legitimate force can include, for example, a naval blockade to enforce sanctions which might be imposed against Gbagbo."
Asked whether he was suggesting the UN change the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast to allow it to participate in the removal of Gbagbo, Ajumogobia said an ECOWAS military deployment should have the United Nations’ stamp of approval.
"My argument simply put is that the use of force by ECOWAS in Cote d’Ivoire must be under the aegis of the United Nations, and that without an appropriate UN Security Council resolution to sanction such use of force, ECOWAS use of force in Cote d’Ivoire would not be legitimate," he told AFP.
UN peacekeepers have been operating in Ivory Coast since the official end of a civil war in 2003 and are protecting Outtara’s base but Gbagbo has said they should quit and accused them of behaving like an "occupation force".
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the African Union envoy in the crisis, said on Friday that the use of force is absolutely the last resort and we all must avoid that prospect".
