Cote D' Ivoire: "Bye Gbagbo!" and "who is going to go to trial for war crimes"?

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Gbagbo captured by rival's forces

Here's how it went down:

Gbagbo being held by Ouattara forces

Early reports said Gbagbo was arrested after a raid by French forces on a bunker at his residence in Abidjan.

Toussaint Alain, a Gbagbo advisor, told Reuters that the incumbent president had been "arrested by French special forces in his residence" and "handed over to the rebel leaders".

Jean Marc Simon, the French ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire, said the operation was carried out by soldiers loyal to Ouattara.

A Ouattara spokesman told Al Jazeera that Gbagbo, along with his wife and several advisors, was being held at the Golf Hotel, which has been Ouattara's headquarters since a disputed presidential poll in late November.

Gbagbo was "alive and well", according to Youssoufou Bamba, Cote d'Ivoire's ambassador to the UN, and would be "brought to justice for the crimes he has committed".

Gbagbo later appeared on a pro-Ouattara television station to call for an end to fighting in the country.

"I want us to lay down arms and to enter the civilian part of the crisis, which should be completed rapidly for life in the country to resume," he said, during a brief statement.

Earlier, the same station showed footage of Gbagbo and his wife being brought into the Golf Hotel shortly after news of his capture broke. Footage of him receiving medical treatment was also shown.

Guillaume Soro, Ouattara's appointed prime minister, has asked the population to remain calm.

Soro said Gbagbo's forces should join Ouattara's Republican Guard at once to avoid a manhunt.MORE

This after French and UN forces had been pounding Gbagbo's forces over the past couple of days:


UN and French forces pound Gbagbo loyalist camps in Ivory Coast

UN and French helicopters attacked forces loyal to incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo late Sunday, damaging the presidential residence and destroying heavy weapons that UN chief Ban Ki-moon ordered silenced.

...

"The operations are ongoing," Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for UN mission in the country said late on Sunday.

"We had targeted and hit several different places where we found heavy weapons, not only the areas around Gbagbo's residence, but all places where we know that there are heavy weapons," Toure said.

"We will review the situation tomorrow (Monday)," he added.

Ban said UN headquarters in Ivory Coast, Ouattara's base and two civilian districts had been hit by machine gun, sniper and rocket-propelled grenade fire in recent days.

"These actions are unacceptable and cannot continue," said Ban, authorizing UN peacekeepers to use "all necessary means" to suppress the use of heavy weapons by Gbagbo's troops.

UN forces had launched military operations "to prevent the use of heavy weapons which threaten the civilian population of Abidjan and our peacekeepers," he said.

Pro-Gbagbo sites including a naval base and several military bases around Abidjan were targeted, witnesses said.

MORE

Not a whole lot of people were pleased with French troops running around rampant during all of this April 7th


and questions like this have been bubbling up since April 5th. Côte d'Ivoire: Is Foreign Intervention Legal?


Al Jazeera's Listening Post talks about the media war between Gbagbo and Ouattarra that began after the election and ramped up as the war heated up, and the relatively low international media response to the whole conflict (with the exception of France) in this interesting April 9th episode

In the meantime: Have a quick look at Gbagbo's chequered political career

Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Cote d'Ivoire, has been captured by forces loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara, the man the international community says won a November presidential election.

Al Jazeera's Caroline Malone takes a look at back the political career of a man whose presidency began in much the same chaotic vein as it ended.

WARNING, however. Ouatarra's hands are not clean: Manufacturing Cote d'Ivoire's 'good guy'

As Cote d'Ivoire's bloody leadership contest draws to a close and the surrender of Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president, seems imminent, a long list of atrocities and electoral irregularities mark the records of both him and his opponent, Alassane Ouattara.

But with 1,500 people reported dead and more than 200,000 displaced, can one stubborn man be held solely responsible for the human cost of this four-month long dispute?

Ethan Zuckerman, the founder and editor of Global Voices, believes the situation is more complex than a one-man blame game.

"The challenge with the situation in Ivory Coast is that neither side has clean hands. Forces working for both have committed atrocities and, unfortunately, it's very hard to see how any resolution to the conflict will avoid further bloodshed, as both sides seek to settle scores."

Good guy, bad guy

While Gbagbo's behaviour deserves no defence, the role of the media and key figures in shaping the discourse of international diplomacy by casting Ouattara as the good guy and Gbagbo as the bad guy, does raise uncomfortable questions about how support (and disdain) for political figures is manufactured on the world stage.

Offering some insight into the dilemmas of casting political figures in the mould of the good/bad oppositional binary, Zuckerman says: "The narrative of Gbagbo as the bad guy who won't give up and Ouattara as the good guy with international backing and an electoral victory isn't terribly far off base. It does, however, oversimplify and makes it harder to see crimes committed by Ouattara's forces with the same clarity as we see those committed by Gbagbo's. MORE