Moments of sporting euphoria sometimes have sudden and unexpected political translations. Less than two weeks after Ivory Coast’s victory at the African Cup of Nations (CAN), President Alassane Ouattara granted pardon to 51 prisoners, civilians and military, all convicted of “offenses committed during the post-electoral crises or for undermining state security.” The announcement was made on Thursday February 22 by Fidèle Sarassoro, the chief of staff of the Head of State, at the end of a meeting of the National Security Council (CNS). According to the press release read on public television, this decision is directly linked to the security record of the CAN which took place in Côte d’Ivoire from January 13 to February 11 without incident and ended in apotheosis with the victory of the host country. But also, and above all, to “the spirit of fraternity, union and cohesion” demonstrated by the Ivorians during this competition. “A few weeks ago the president considered that it was too early to release people whom some consider to be assassins, but now he judged that the time had come to strengthen the cohesion of the country,” relates the one of his relatives.
The most politically awaited pardon concerns a soldier: General Bruno Dogbo Blé, former commander of Laurent Gbagbo’s Republican Guard, was arrested on April 15, 2011, four days after the fall of power, leaving his hideout in his pajamas. He had since been sentenced three times to heavy sentences, notably for complicity in the 2002 assassination of former President Robert Gueï and for that of four people, including two Frenchmen Stéphane Frantz Di Rippel and Yves Lambelin, kidnapped from the Novotel from Abidjan in April 2011 and then killed. Another figure among the pro-Gbagbo soldiers to benefit from this presidential measure: Colonel Paulin Katé Gnatoa, former deputy of General Dogbo Blé, convicted of having organized in February 2012 in Ghana a “plot” aimed at overthrowing the new Ivorian power.
Others pardoned are relatives of the former leader of the rebellion and former prime minister Guillaume Soro, starting with Souleymane Kamaraté known as “Soul to Soul”. Already convicted, then amnestied after the discovery of a large cache of weapons in Bouaké, Guillaume Soro’s head of protocol returned to prison in 2019 for a similar case. Weapons found this time in Abidjan, at the headquarters of the Générations et Peuples Solidaires (GPS, since dissolved) party, and in the seaside resort of Assinie, earned him a twenty-year prison sentence in 2021 for “conspiracy” and “ attempted attack on state security.” Jean-Baptiste Kouamé Kassé, the head of Guillaume Soro’s bodyguard, sentenced to the same sentence, benefited from the same measure. Just like Affousiata Bamba-Lamine, former spokesperson for the rebellion and former Minister of Communication for Alassane Ouattara. Sentenced in 2021 with Guillaume Soro and his co-defendants, she had followed the opponent into exile, and should now be able to return to Ivorian soil. Guillaume Soro, who is not among the pardoned personalities, made no comments.
“The Ivorians have managed to agree on the essentials”
In addition to the pardon granted to 51 people, six others in preventive detention must be placed on provisional release, according to the CNS press release. The latter also indicates that Prime Minister Robert Beugré Mambé met with the associations of victims of the post-electoral crises on Wednesday, “with a view to reiterating to them the compassion and support of the State” and “urging them to forgive”. A memorial must be erected in tribute to the victims, promises the CNS, “so that such crimes never happen again in our country. »
“Since the start of the year, there has been a certain social peace which has prevailed in Ivory Coast due to the CAN,” said political scientist Sylvain N’Guessan, “which was further strengthened after the victory. The vast majority of Ivorians managed to agree on the essentials and align themselves behind their national team. » This wave of pardons therefore aims to prolong this social peace, analyzes Sylvain N’Guessan, a year and a half before the presidential election, and while discontent was beginning to rise among the population in the face of the high cost of living. which does not weaken and the recent eviction of the inhabitants of the Gesco district, in Yopougon.
On the opposition side, Laurent Gbagbo said he was “happy” to those close to him about this decision but will he go so far as to grab his phone to thank Alassane Ouattara with a gesture that he and his supporters have been asking for years? Former first lady Simone Gbagbo, civilly and politically divorced from her husband, showed no joy. It must be said that his former aide-de-camp, Anselme Seka Yapo, known by the nickname “Seka Seka”, is not among the beneficiaries of the presidential measure. “His file is more complex,” explains a source close to power, and also heavier. Convicted of the assassination in 2002 of former president Robert Gueï as well as that of the driver of former minister Joël N’Guessan during the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011, “Seka Seka” was also accused of being the one of the leaders of the “death squads”, suspected of political assassinations during the 2000s. His name was notably cited in the still unsolved disappearance of the Franco-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer.