Credit:  ©ICC-CPI/   Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands January 2019. 

By Gary  Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Ivory Coast  has given back the passport of its former president Laurent Gbagbo, paving the way for his return home to Abidjan.  According to Gbagbo’s lawyer, the  former leader on Friday received a diplomatic and a regular passport in Brussels and is set to return to Ivory Coast before the end of the year.  The Hague,  Netherlands-based International Criminal Court (ICC)   acquitted Gbagbo of all charges of war crimes on January 15, 2019.   Last July,  Gbagbo, who  has been  freed conditionally by the ICC and living in Belgium applied for a passport so that he can return home.  Earlier in May, the ICC  eased conditions on the release of  Gbagbo following his acquittal of war crimes charges that would allow him to return to  his home in west-Africa.  Gbagbo was charged with four counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and other inhumane acts, or – in the alternative – attempted murder and persecution stemming from post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire between December 16, 2010 and April 12, 2011. The former Ivory Coast president spent 7 years in The Hague jail while the legal process against him played out.  Gbagbo has  expressed a strong desire to return to his home country ever since being acquitted by the ICC.   Gbagbo had initiated  multiple unsuccessful requests to the foreign minister in Abidjan for a diplomatic passport.  However, the Ivory Coast government of current president Alassane Dramane Ouattara was  vehemently opposed to having Gbagbo  return home, as he remains extremely popular and could have shaken up the November 2020. The government of the Ivory Coast previously took to position  that it opposed  Gbagbo’s unconditional release by the ICC because his return would destabilize the west African country.   The Ivory Coast government barred Gbagbo from being  a candidate  in the presidential election.  Now that the  voting is  over with  Ouattara re-elected as President in an election  that was mostly boycotted by the opposition, Ouattara may be attempting to  offer an olive branch to Gbagbo in the form of a passport as a gesture of reconciliation. 

Laurent Gbagbo obtient son passeport et envisage son retour en Côte d’Ivoire

President Ouattara offers Olive Branch Passport To Gbagbo as Gesture of Peace, Reconciliation 

Passport of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Ouattara, who broke a promise not to seek a third term, garnered 94 percent of the October Presidential vote. The main opposition candidates boycotted the election and called on supporters to stay at home as an act of civil disobedience.   Tension was high as the government reportedly deployed  some 35,000 security force members on election day to maintain peace. At least 20 people were killed in inter-communal clashes and in confrontations between security forces and supporters of opposition parties in several localities of Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the 31 October elections.  The main opposition candidates, Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Henri Konan Bédié,  declared it is illegal for Ouattara to stand for a third term. The Ivorian constitution limits presidents to two terms. 

The fact of the matter, former president Gbagbo remains very popular in Ivory Coast, and Ouattara may be attempting to  appease his supporters, given what happened next to in Mali when a military coup overthrew the  President.  

Charles Blé Goudé   Was also found Innocent of War Crimes Charges

©ICC-CPI /  Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé at the hearing held on 15 January 2019 before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Gbagbo’s right-hand man Charles Blé Goudé was also found innocent of war crimes charges and acquitted by the  ICC.  Blé  Goude was the head of the Young Patriots, an organisation of Gbagbo loyalists that was blamed for a campaign of violence against those seen as Ouattara’s supporters.  Blé Goudé has also applied for a passport to return home to  Ivory Coast.