| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Subsaharan |
| Kenya PM warns of Cote d'Ivoire war |
| 2011-01-09 |
| [Al Jazeera] Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, has said that civil war may break out in Cote d'Ivoire, "unless there is a negotiated settlement". Speaking to Al Jizz's David Frost on Friday, Odinga said he was disappointed that incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo broke an earlier promise he had made to lift the blockade on Alassane Ouattara, the man who is internationally recognised as the winner of Cote d'Ivoire's recent election. "Ouattara and his team are still locked up in the Golf hotel in Abidjan. That of course shows that president Gbagbo does not intend to honour his words," he said. Odinga visited Cote d'Ivoire on Monday and is working as the African Union representative in the country. He also told Frost that the country is highly polarised. "There is the north-south divide then there is the issue of the indigenous Ivoirians vis-a-vis the immigrant population which is more than two thirds the population, and there are the Mohammedans and Christians so I think this requires some kind of unity, "We need to have reconciliation in order to unite the country so that the game of exclusion, which has been played for far too long is resolved and the people are fully united. I think that Gbagbo has some fanatical support among his people and unless there is a negotiated settlement there may be civil war in the event that Gbagbo is just driven out of power." |
| Posted by:Fred |