If asked, we will oust Gbagbo — US

Posted by admin Africa & World Politics Saturday, February 19th, 2011

If asked, the United States military command in Africa, AFRICOM, may support Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States in its proposed plan to apply military force to remove defeated President of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo and install the winner of that nation’s presidential polls, Alassane Quattara.

Answering questions from foreign correspondents in Washington DC, the commander of AFRICOM, General William Ward said, “Where we’re asked to do something, it would certainly be looked at through our overall foreign policy lens.”

Empowered Newswire, an online news portal, had asked if AFRICOM would support the ECOWAS as regards the situation in Ivory Coast.

Ward said, “We clearly look forward to working with the regional organizations as closely as we can, ECOWAS clearly being one of those.”

It would be recalled that an ECOWAS delegation was in Washington DC and New York last month seeking US and the United Nations support for the plan of the ECOWAS to use military means to oust Gbagbo just before the African Union decided to set up another panel of leaders to convince Gbagbo to step down peacefully.

The panel was given another month at the end of January when the AU met in Addis Ababa. The UN and the rest of the international community are awaiting the outcome of the new AU initiative, even as the situation in Ivory Coast worsened with a Nigerian bank, Access Bank, among others in the country shutting down services.

Ward also commented on the problem of oil bunkering in Nigeria and explained why AFRICOM was not playing a role in the situation.

He said that AFRICOM had no role in addressing the oil bunkering problem because, “that issue is an issue for the Nigerian government. You know, clearly we have no role in that. That’s in Nigeria’s sovereign territory. We respect that, and we do not have a role in that.”

He however added that, “If there are requests for some technical assistance in dealing with it, from patrolling techniques to ways of securing their production facilities, we can offer advice on that from time to time. But that is not something that goes on a continual basis.”

-Punchwp_posts