Laurent Gbagbo

By Nazanine Moshiri in Africa on December 7th, 2011
Photo by Nazanine Moshiri / Al Jazeera

Abidjan is beginning to come back to life. The checkpoints that menaced the streets earlier this year are largely gone. The rubbish tips which were piled up high have been cleaned up. And the bullet ridden, blackened walls, which scarred the city, have been filled up and repainted.

The markets are heaving with people and goods. On the surface things seem to be getting back to normal.

In some parts of the City, it feels almost as if the war never happened – that is until you reach the suburb of Yopougon. I have seen mass graves before in Somalia, but never inside a busy neighbourhood surrounded by people’s homes, market stalls and children playing.

Fatoumata Ouattara's tells me that her husband left one morning in April 2011, just after the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo, to go look for food. The next time she saw him was just before he was buried along with dozens of others inside of a grave the size of a badminton court.

By Haru Mutasa in Africa on April 7th, 2011

Alassane Ouattara state of the nation address on Thursday promised a new start for the country –  with banks and hospitals reopening and improved security - it would take more than resumption of normal services to signal a return to normal life to heal the country's wounds.

Ouattara also called on his forces to restore order in the main city of Abidjan, where roaming militia have been engaged in looting and random attacks.

By Imran Garda in Americas on January 31st, 2011
Photo by AFP.

Here’s a little help if ambition ever drives you to one day hope to be a spokesman for the US government. Alternately, if decoding why very similar events can be officially responded to in completely dissimilar ways gets you as excited as it gets me - read on.

Secretary of state Hillary Clinton - after the watershed popular uprising in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year, authoritarian rule, where police have gunned down protesters from Cairo to Alexandra - urged "restraint on both sides".

 

By Imran Garda in Americas on December 22nd, 2010
Photo by Reuters

My father always told me to aspire to be "an asset to the community" when I grew up.

Whenever a businessman in our town contributed any money to a "community project" he was pictured on the front of the local newspaper captioned as a "pillar of the community".

When French footballer Eric Cantona launched, studs-first, with a two-footed kung-fu kick into a football fan hurling abuse at him he was faced with a ban and "community service".

My dictionary tells me a community is:

a unified body of individuals:

as A: the people with common interests living in a particular area; broadly : the area itself

B: an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location

C: a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.

Then somewhere along the rickety road to growing up, I came across the term, "i

By Mohamed Vall in Africa on December 3rd, 2010
The results of the presidential election showed the head of the opposition, Allassane Ouattara, as the winner [Reuters]

"What do you know about Cote D'Ivoire? You don't know anything!," was how President Laurent Gbagbo responded to my tough question about his foot dragging on the holding of elections. 

I tried to smile and keep my calm.

But he went on: "We don't ask this type of questions in Cote D'Ivoire". I knew that before he told me. But we were in Doha, not in Abidjan!

The half hour interview included maybe a dozen insults on my person.

My producer, Katie Turner, had a tough task on her hands to clean up the interview of Gbagbo's insulting words.

But when I read more on the man I learnt how he was known for his bullish behavior with "arrogant journalists".

Gbagbo came across to me as an African third world dictator, not a polished democratic leader.

Actually I have to mention how he swept into the room when we were still fixing the lighting and setting up the camera frame.

Al Jazeera Live

What's Hot


Recent Comments

This work is licensed under Creative Commons. Please read our attribution policy.