Ghanaian supporters campaign for Gbagbo’s release

Associates and supporters of former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo in Ghana have called for his unconditional release, following his continued detention by the International Criminal Court of justice.

Piqued by the continued detention of the former leader after his failed trial at the ICC, a group of Pan-Africanists at the weekend in Accra launched the “Free Gbagbo Campaign” to press home their demand for his release.

The campaigners, who are from different parts of Africa, had converged on the Teachers Hall in Accra, to call for his release.

Some of the speakers condemned the West for the travails of Gbagbo because of his determination to wrestle his nation’s resources from the control and manipulation of the country’s former colonial master.

A former minister in the Gbagbo government, Mr. Justin Kone, debunked allegations that the former leader foisted crisis on the nation due to his personal ambition and recounted spirited attempts he made to broker peace with his political rival, President Alassane Quattara.

Kone, a close associate of Gbagbo, recalled how the embattled former president initiated peace talks under the ECOWAS platform, but that the French government scuttled the process by orchestrating another conference in Paris, where Gbagbo was excluded from the mediation talks.

According to Kone, it was the implementation of the unpopular decision foisted by France at the Paris talks that actually triggered the mayhem in Cote d’Ivoire in 2010.

The Editor of Insight newspaper based in Accra, Mr. Kwesi Pratt JNR, described the trial of Gbagbo as an orchestration by the West calculated at gagging progressive African governments.