Ouattara takes charge after Ivory Coast victory
Ivory Coast's slow recovery after four months of bloodshed gained pace yesterday as Alassane Ouattara's victorious regime captured ousted strongman Laurent Gbagbo's most notorious henchman.
Alongside the arrest of Charles Ble Goude, known as the "street general" of the feared Young Patriots movement, a pro-Ouattara newspaper reopened and the government declared the resumption of schooling and cocoa exports.
The mouthpiece of the West African state's new masters, Ouattara's TCI television, said classes would resume on April 26 and traders have begun to shift a 400,000 tonne backlog of cocoa that built up during the conflict.
In peacetime, Ivory Coast was the world's largest exporter of cocoa and income from the crop will be key as Ouattara rebuilds the economy and state institutions after a near civil war that left more than 900 people dead.
The former IMF official and long-time opposition figure took charge of the country on Monday, when his forces stormed the presidential palace in Abidjan and seized former strongman Laurent Gbagbo and his close family.
Now, the former president is under house arrest in the north of the country and former rebel fighters loyal to Ouattara are patrolling Abidjan along with UN peacekeepers and a force from former colonial master France.
Ouattara's spokesman said his forces had seized another prize with the arrest of Ble Goude, officially Gbagbo's minister for youth but better known as the hardline leader of Abidjan youths loyal to the former regime.
"He was apprehended yesterday and is currently under house arrest," Patrick Achi told AFP, without giving details.
Ouattara has given himself two months to restore order and has promised to probe any allegations of brutality against his own men, while calling on Gbagbo's remaining partisans to lay down their arms.
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