BLE GOUDE ARRESTED

Charles Ble Goude

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday January 19, 2012.

National Security Coordinator Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey has confirmed the arrest of once powerful youth leader in Ivory Coast, Charles Ble Goude, 40.

"I can confirm that we have arrested someone we believe is the former Ivorian youth minister," Reuters quoted Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey as saying yesterday.

"There's a warrant for his arrest and we have been looking for him for some time now. We're taking him through the process and we'll later hand him over," he said.

The Ghanaian security capo however did not disclose how Ble Goude was arrested but information from his home country say he was picked up from his home in Accra and was in the hands of the Ghanaian authorities.

He was said to have been detained and cuffed by four Ghanaian and four Ivorian police and taken away in a 4x4 vehicle, a pro-Gbagbo group exiled in Ghana also said.

EXTRADITION

Ble Goude was a former youth leader and close ally of Ivory Coast ex-president and international war crimes defendant Laurent Gbagbo.

He rose to become Minister of Youth before fleeing at the end of a civil war sparked by Mr. Gbagbo's refusal to accept a 2010 election defeat to current leader Alassane Ouattara.

Ble Goude is wanted by Ivorian authorities for alleged kidnappings, illegal detentions, torture, incitement of hatred and economic crimes while a member of Gbagbo's inner circle.

United Nations investigators and rights groups accuse his followers of committing grave human rights abuses including torture, summary executions and ethnically motivated murders during violence that killed over 3,000 people in 2011.

According to Reuters, exiled Gbagbo supporters living in France and Ghana said Ble Goude was arrested in the capital Accra around 8 AM (0800 GMT) by eight Ghanaian and Ivorian plainclothes policemen.

"We are deeply worried, because he was in Ghana where he was living underground. We fear there will be an extradition demand," Alain Toussaint, a former spokesman for Gbagbo now living in France told the agency.

GBABGO LOYALISTS

Most top military and political officials from Gbagbo's regime were either killed, are in jail in Ivory Coast or now live in exile, many of them in Ghana says Reuters.

Ble Goude - dubbed "The General of the Streets" for his ability to draw and stir up massive crowds - came under UN sanctions in 2006, accused of being an obstacle to the country's peace process.

The sanctions committee accused him of inciting violence against United Nations installations and personnel, and against foreigners as well as directing and participating "in acts of violence by street militias, including beatings, rapes and extrajudicial killings."

Security experts believed that without Ble Goude,  Mr. Gbagbo would have accept to step down of the power but the youth leader’s massive following kept the detained leader in office.

STUDENT LEADER

Born in 1972 at Guiberoua, in the center west of Ivory Coast, Ble Goude studied English at the University of Cocody ( in Abidjan), where he began his political career leading strikes and violent demonstrations of the Student Federation of Cote d'Ivoire (FESCI), allied with Gbagbo’s  Front Populaire Ivoirien or Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) during the 1990s.

He later founded the Coordination des jeunes patriotes in 2001, and the Congres Panafricaine des Jeunes Patriotes (COJEP) in the same year. He had completed a university degree in English by this time, and later began a masters degree in Conflict Resolution Studies from Manchester University.

Having gotten news of the military coup on 19^th September 2002, he left England for Ivory Coast, where he founded the Alliance des jeunes patriotes pour le sursaut national, an organization which he described as a mouvement de combat (a combat movement).

Ghanaian police arrested former budget minister Justin Kone Katinan but Ivory Coast's request for his extradition has been stuck in the courts for months.

Reports say Ghana has repeatedly stated it considers the exiles to be refugees and has yet to extradite any Gbagbo supporters.

While Ivorian authorities have issued over two dozen international arrest warrants for Gbagbo allies, many for crimes allegedly committed during the post-election violence, only two have been acted upon.

Later on Friday, BBC quoted Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey as saying that Ble Goude has been extradited to Abidjan on the request of the Ivorian government.

STRATEGIC COMMAND

A wave of attacks on Ivorian security installations and infrastructure that began August 2012, which Ivory Coast blamed on Gbagbo's supporters in Ghana, further strained relations between the two cocoa growing neighbours.

A United Nations expert panel found that Gbagbo's supporters, including Ble Goude, had established a strategic command in Ghana and were working to destabilize the government of Ouattara.

Gbagbo's backers reject the accusations of involvement in the attacks, which they say are being used as a pretext for widespread abuses targeting opposition supporters.

Last year, Ble Goude told the BBC that, as head of the Young Patriots group, he had only organised rallies and meetings and never run a militia.

"I am not chief of militia - I've never bought weapons, we went to the streets against those who had weapons, we were bare-handed," he said.

He also said he was ready to go the ICC in The Hague to clear his name if that is what it took.

Gbagbo himself was captured by French-backed fighters loyal to Ouattara as the post-election violence drew to a close in April 2011.

He is now awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges that he was responsible for crimes against humanity during the post-election bloodshed.