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a fierce assault by forces loyal to his rival, backed by UN and French helicopter airstrikes.
A Gbagbo spokesman said the incumbent was negotiating the terms of his exit based on the recognition of Ouattara as president. The spokesman said the negotiations covered security guarantees for Gbagbo and his relatives.
Forces loyal to Cote d’Ivoire’s internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara have taken control of the presidential residence in Abidjan, Xinhua said yesterday.
Meanwhile, reports quoted Laurent Gbagbo’s army chief as saying that Gbagbo’s troops have stopped fighting against Ouattara’s forces.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said two Cote d’Ivoire generals were involved in negotiating the surrender of Gbagbo, who had clung to power since refusing to concede he lost last November’s presidential election to Alassane Ouattara.
Gbagbo’s forces earlier called for a ceasefire and French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said the West African country’s crisis could be resolved in a matter of hours.
Forces loyal to presidential claimant Ouattara had launched a major assault on Gbagbo’s last strongholds in Abidjan, driving home their campaign to oust him.
A Reuters eyewitness said yesterday that calm had returned to the area surrounding the presidential palace after days of fierce machinegun and heavy weapons fire – a sign that the conflict could be nearing an end.
“We are in a situation where everything could be resolved in the next few hours,” Longuet told a news conference.
The UN peacekeeping force in Cote d’Ivoire, supported by the French military, had targeted Gbagbo’s heavy weapons capabilities on Monday with attack helicopters after civilians were killed in shelling.
Attacks centred on military bases in the city, but also on rocket launchers “very close” to Gbagbo’s Cocody residence, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said on Monday.
“It looks like Gbagbo is trying to negotiate his way out. What he can offer is another matter. He is in the process of being militarily defeated so his negotiating position is much weaker than a couple of weeks ago,” said Hannah Koep, Cote d’Ivoire analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks.
In the north of Abidjan, bullet-riddled bodies lay by the side of the main motorway near the largely pro-Gbagbo neighbourhood of Yopougon, evidence of recent fighting between Ouattara and Gbagbo forces, a Reuters witness said.
An armoured personnel carrier was pushed across the roadway, still in flames, and residents who had emerged from their houses to find water said they had heard machinegun and heavy weapons fire through the night.
The United Nations human rights office in Geneva yesterday expressed concern over the killings of dozens of civilians in Abidjan, amid reports of heavy weapons used in populated areas.
Gbagbo has defied international pressure to give up the presidency after an election last November that UN-certified results showed Ouattara won, rejecting the results as fraudulent and accusing the United Nations of bias.
More than 1 500 people have died in the standoff that has rekindled the country’s 2001-3 civil war, though the real toll is likely much higher.
Several thousand pro-Ouattara fighters had entered Abidjan from the north on Monday in a convoy of transporters, pick-ups mounted with machineguns, and 4x4s loaded with fighters bearing AK-47s and rocket launchers – in a “final assault”.
Their commanding officer, Issiaka “Wattao” Ouattara, told Reuters he had 4,000 men with him plus 5,000 already in Abidjan, and that it would take 48 hours to take control of the city. – Reuters/Xinhua.