\n Supporters of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo are seeking to allay misgivings over his expected return, insisting his homecoming a decade after civil war will heal divisions, not deepen them.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Monday, his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party announced -- on Gbagbo's 76th birthday -- that he would return on June 17 after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of crimes against humanity.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Ivorian authorities have officially said they will welcome Gbagbo's return but on Tuesday neither confirmed nor denied the date given by the FPI.\n<\/p>\n
\n Speculation about Gbagbo's return has dominated domestic politics for months.\n<\/p>\n
\n For some, memories have been revived of a conflict that claimed around 3,000 lives and created a deep rift in the world's biggest cocoa producer.\n<\/p>\n
\n For an association of civil war victims, the CVCI, Gbagbo is a \"criminal who should be handed over to prosecutors\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But the pro-Gbagbo camp is pitching the message that, as an elder statesman, he can soothe political waters that reached storm proportions last year.\n<\/p>\n
\n Gbagbo's return will be the start of a \"new phase\", said FPI secretary-general Assoa Adou -- \"an important phase for the future of Ivory Coast, the phase of reconciliation, peace, the reconstruction of our country\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Gbagbo's influential son-in-law, Stephane Kipre, quoted by the pro-Gbagbo Ivorian daily Le Temps, said: \"He is not coming back with a spirit of revenge, but for reconciliation. May no one be afraid.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n President Alassane Ouattara defeated Gbagbo at the polls in 2010 and then in combat, after a conflict that left the country divided along north-south lines.\n<\/p>\n
\n After the war ended, Gbagbo was hauled off to The Hague to face charges related to the bloody conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n He became the first head of state to stand trial at the court, in the dock alongside his former right-hand man, Charles Ble Goude, who was also acquitted.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite his years in jail, and subsequent stay in Brussels to await the outcome of an appeal against his 2019 acquittal, support for Gbagbo at home has not waned.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Election tensions -\n<\/p>\n
\n The historian's role as a potential elder statesman came to the fore last year, when Ouattara declared a bid for a third term in office in last October's elections.\n<\/p>\n
\n Critics saw this is as a naked attempt to circumvent constitutional limits.\n<\/p>\n
\n Violence claimed 87 lives and left hundreds of wounded.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ouattara won a landslide victory, but it was a hollow and deeply contested one, for nearly all the major opposition candidates boycotted the poll.\n<\/p>\n
\n In the election's aftermath, seeking to ease the tension, Ouattara sketched a way back for Gbagbo.\n<\/p>\n
\n He issued him with a diplomatic passport as well as an ordinary passport, and in April declared that both he and Ble Goude were \"free to return to Ivory Coast when they want.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Gbagbo officially still faces a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast, after he was convicted in absentia in 2019 for the \"looting\" of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the 2010-11 conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n This sentence, says the CVCI, should be applied if he returns.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ouattara, in April, did not mention this conviction, although government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly indicated that it would be scrapped.\n<\/p>\n
\n Another potential problem is the tenor of Gbagbo's return.\n<\/p>\n
\n His backers want a big splash -- a triumphant homecoming -- but the government is in favour of something with a lower profile, to avoid potential unrest if tens of thousands of his supporters turn out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Supporters of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo are seeking to allay misgivings over his expected return, insisting his homecoming a decade after civil war will heal divisions, not deepen them. On Monday, his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party announced -- on Gbagbo's 76th birthday -- that he would return on June 17 after the International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-77988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n