By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 24 -- While Uganda's Yoweri Museveni has joined South Africa's Jacob Zuma in breaking with the UN's and others' declaring Alassane Ouattara the winner of the election in Cote d'Ivoire, Ouattara's UN Ambassador Yousoufou Bamba has told Inner City Press he will meet with International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo on January 25.
“Be ready for some news,” Bamba told Inner City Press. The goal seems to be to get Ocampo to begin speaking of Gbagbo as he does of Sudan's Omar al-Bashir.
Museveni, of course, invoked the ICC against the rebel group which began in Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army. Now Museveni in essence backs Laurent Gbagbo, an emerging target of the ICC.
Uganda's Ambassador to the UN Ruhakana Rugunda, as he left the Security Council in December, told Inner City Press that Gbagbo should be lured from power with the prospect of a “safe” departure. To some this appeared to mean an assurance of no ICC prosecution. Now Museveni has said that the entire vote should be investigated.
Has Uganda's position changed, or had Ambassador Rugunda simply not gotten the memo? And what will the UN, EU and US do, as African support for their position become less and less unanimous?
This will be discussed at the upcoming AU summit in Addis Ababa. Nicolas Sarkozy of France should be there -- which, some say, will help rather than hurt Gbagbo's chances to stay in power. Watch this site.
