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All sides in Ivory Coast to face justice, Ouattara says

13 April 2011 22:40 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Ivory Coast’s new President Alassane Ouattara has said all sides in the country’s conflict must face justice, APA reports quoting BBC.
He said he would ask the International Criminal Court to probe massacres in which both his forces and those of his rival Laurent Gbagbo were suspected.
Mr Gbagbo was captured on Monday by Mr Ouattara’s forces after he refused to accept he lost elections in November.
He will now face charges at a "national level and an international level", Mr Ouattara said.
At a news conference in the main city of Abidjan, Mr Ouattara said Mr Gbagbo had been moved to a secure location.
During the four-month stand-off between the two rivals for the presidency about 1,500 people were killed and a million forced from their homes.
The international community, including the UN, recognised Mr Ouattara as the election winner, but Mr Gbagbo said the vote was rigged.
The conflict threatened to plunge the country back into civil war, with Mr Ouattara’s supporters controlling the north and Mr Gbagbo’s in control of the south.
Truth and reconciliation
Mr Ouattara said the justice minister was preparing a case against Mr Gbagbo, but he would be treated with respect.
"There will be charges on a national level and an international level," he said.
"Gbagbo is in a residence under surveillance somewhere in Ivory Coast," Mr Ouattara told reporters at the Golf Hotel, where has made his headquarters during the crisis.
"Mr Laurent Gbagbo is a former head of state, he must be treated with consideration."
The ex-president had first been taken to the Golf Hotel after Mr Ouattara’s forces, with French support, had removed him from the presidential palace.
Mr Ouattara said he had phoned South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma for advice about setting up a credible and independent truth and reconciliation committee.
It would be asked to consider atrocities from the 1990s to the present day.
"Reconciliation has to happen with justice," he said.
Mr Ouattara said he would be moving in a few days into the presidential palace and that a formal swearing-in ceremony would follow.
The country’s security and resuming cocoa exports would be top priorities.
"We need to secure the country, notably Abidjan," he said. "It is important for the country to emerge from this crisis on top."
Exports of cocoa, the West African nation’s main foreign revenue earner, could be resumed immediately, he said.