Post date: May 21, 2011 2:3:28 PM
Alassane Ouattara is inaugurated as president of the Ivory Coast.
YAMOUSSOUKRO, IVORY COAST (ORIGINALLY 4:3)(MAY 21, 2011) TCI/GLOBECAST - Ivorians at last witnessed the inauguration of their president Alassane Ouattara on Saturday (May 21) -- after six months of bloody conflict with the country's previous ruler.
It is an event most in the Ivory Coast hope will put a decade of conflict and instability behind them and mend a once prosperous economy.
Among the high profile dignitaries welcomed to the ceremony in the former French colony's largely ceremonial capital of Yamoussoukro were French President Nicolas Sarkozy and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Ouattara was declared winner of a U.N.-certified election last November billed as a chance to reunite the fertile, cocoa-growing West African nation, after rebels seized its northern half in late 2002.
Instead, the country lurched back into civil war when incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.
At least 3,000 people were killed and more than a million displaced in the power struggle.
Cocoa exports ground to a halt, banks shut and shops were ransacked by militiamen.
That came to an end when pro-Ouattara rebels -- backed by the French military -- raided Gbagbo's compound at the height of the fighting and seized him from his blast-proof bunker.
Gbagbo is now under house arrest in Ivory Coast's north and Ouattara wants him tried for alleged human rights abuses during the conflict.
The International Criminal Court said this month that Ouattara had asked it to probe all allegations of serious abuses during the post-election crisis.
Ouattara's forces are also accused of abuses, such as looting, rape and killing civilians.