Simone Gbagbo

Simone Ehivet Gbagbo (born 20 June 1949), National Assembly website (2007 archive page) . is an Ivorian politician. She is the president of the Parliamentary Group of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and is a vice-president of the FPI. As the wife of Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 to 2011, she was also First Lady of Ivory Coast prior to their arrest by pro-Ouattara forces.

Biography

Born in 1949 in Moossou, Grand-Bassam as Simone Ehivet, the daughter of Jean Ehivet, a local police officer, and Marie Djaha, Simone Gbagbo trained as a historian and earned a third cycle doctorate in oral literature. She worked in applied linguistics as a Marxist labor union leader and been nicknamed in the Ivorian press as the "Hillary Clinton des tropiques". The mother of five daughters, the last two with her current husband, Laurent Gbagbo, she participated in the teachers' strike movement of 1982. Simone and Laurent Gbagbo, before their marriage, co-founded the clandestine political group which later became known as the FPI. She was an active trades union militant back in the 1970s, she was imprisoned several times during the struggle for multi-party elections.

Following the introduction of multiparty elections, Gbagbo and her husband were arrested for allegedly inciting violence in February 1992 and spent six months in prison. In 1996, she became an FPI Deputy from Abobo (part of Abidjan) in the National Assembly. In 1998, she became an evangelical Christian after surviving a car accident.

Re-elected to the National Assembly as an FPI Deputy from Abobo in the December 2000 parliamentary election, Gbagbo is also President of the FPI Parliamentary Group. At the FPI's Third Extraordinary Congress, held from 20 to 22 July 2001, she was elected as the Second Vice-President of the FPI.

Controversy

Simone Gbagbo is a controversial figure in Côte d'Ivoire. Involved in nationalist politics surrounding the Ivorian Civil War, in 2005 Radio France International reported that she was being investigated by the United Nations for human rights abuses, including organising death squads.

The Kieffer Affair

In July 2008 she was formally called for questioning by a French investigative judge, examining the April 2004 disappearance and presumed death in Abidjan of French-Canadian journalist Guy-André Kieffer. Kieffer was in Abidjan at the time, researching a story on political corruption and government involvement in the Ivorian Cocoa industry. He was last seen on the way to a meeting with Michel Legré, the brother-in-law of Simone Gbagbo. French judicial officials have arrested and are investigating Jean-Tony Oulaï, a former member of the Ivorian Secret Services, whom they detained in Paris in 2006. Jean-Tony Oulaï's driver at the time Berté Seydou, as well as Kieffer's brother, have alleged that Gbagbo and former Ivorian Minister of Planning and Development Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabré have knowledge of the events surrounding Kieffer's death, and that Oulaï is responsible.

Legré was arrested in Abidjan in 2004 on suspicion of kidnapping and murder, but was provisionally released in 2005 and has since fled the country—or is in an unknown location. In April 2009, Simone Gbagbo was interviewed by two French magistrates concerning the Kieffer case. The AFP reported that the magistrates consider Legré, who they have in custody, their "chief suspect" and that neither the President nor Gbagbo "are suspected of being directly linked with Kieffer's disappearance."ICoast first lady meets French judges over Kieffer
AFP, 23 April 2009. The French also planned interviews with Gbagbo's security chief Seka Yapo Anselme and Planning Minister Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabre. She filed a defamation lawsuit against Jean-Tony Oulaï regarding his charges against her.

Political activity since 2008

In September 2008, Gbagbo engaged in a two-week tour of the central part of the country, concluding the tour on 14 September in the city of Bouaké. She rallied support for her husband's candidacy in the forthcoming presidential election during this tour and urged participation in the voter identification process.

In the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara disputed the results of the 2010 presidential election. The crisis ended with the arrest of Laurent and Simone Gbagbo by pro-Ouattara forces on 11 April 2011. Simone Gbagbo was subsequently held under house arrest.

On 22 November 2012, a warrant was unsealed by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Simone Gbagbo's arrest for crimes against humanity. The Court alleged that as a member of her husband's inner circle, she "played a central role in post-election violence". Amnesty International called on the Ivorian government to immediately transfer her to the custody of the ICC. The government refused to do so, and Gbagbo was judged by an Ivorian court.

On 10 March 2015, Simone Gbagbo was sentenced to 20 years in jail for crimes against humanity. Two years later, in March 2017, she was acquitted by Ivorian court of war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, connected to her role in the 2011 political violence. She was pardoned under an amnesty by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara on 7 August 2018 after serving 3 of her 20-year sentence. The amnesty was a general one and included other members of her party.

On November 30, 2024, she was designated as the candidate of her party, the Movement of Capable Generations (MGC), for the nomination for the 2025 presidential election.

References

Notes

Sources

* This article was first created from a translation of the French Wikipedia article :fr:Simone Gbagbo, 2008-02-22.
"Paroles d?honneur"" : Ou quand Simone Gbagbo dénonce la collusion entre Alassane Ouattara, Blaise Compaoré et Jacques Chirac
Jean-Pierre BEJOT, La Dépêche Diplomatique. 21 March 2007.
Simone Gbagbo, Femme fatale
Vincent Hugeux, L'Express 20 February 2003.
RETOUR SUR Affaire Kieffer : un témoin implique Simone Gbagbo
THOMAS HOFNUNG, liberation 19 February 2008.
La dame d'ivoire
Thomas HOFNUNG: Liberation, 22 May 2007.


Régime FPI: L'influence de Simone Gbagbo
Soir Info (Côte d'Ivoire), 12 December 2006.
Journalists sued after revealing Ivory Coast 'billionnaires list'
fairreporters.org.

Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer, 29 January 2005; Page A21 .

External links

*
Simone Gbagbo et son livre
*
Le site officiel de la Première Dame de Côte d'Ivoire

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gbagbo, Simone
1949 births
First ladies of Ivory Coast
People indicted by the International Criminal Court
Members of the National Assembly (Ivory Coast)
Ivorian evangelicals
Living people
Ivorian prisoners and detainees
Prisoners and detainees of Ivory Coast
Ivorian Popular Front politicians
People from Grand-Bassam
People convicted of crimes against humanity
Ivory Coast politicians convicted of crimes