ABIDJAN: For the second time, Ivory Coast's renegade leader rebuffed an appeal from a high-level regional delegation to cede power to the internationally recognized winner of presidential elections, who said the time has come for military intervention. The leaders from Benin, Cape Verde and Sierra Leone planned to discuss the next step Tuesday in Nigeria with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the current chairman of the 15-nation West African regional bloc ECOWAS. They will be making "a comprehensive statement" on their mission after consulting with Jonathan, said Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is serving as the African Union's envoy for the Ivory Coast crisis. ECOWAS has threatened to use military force to oust Laurent Gbagbo, who has clung to power more than a month after the United Nations said he lost the presidential runoff vote to rival Alassane Ouattara after a decade in power. The delegation's first effort last week to force him into exile failed, and there were no signs that Gbagbo had softened his position in Monday's visit by the three West African presidents and Odinga. "For us, the discussion is finished," Ouattara said after meeting with the African leaders on Monday. They had presented Gbagbo with an amnesty deal if he steps down. ... ECOWAS will need to use all the means at its disposal including the use of legitimate force so that the president that was elected can assume his functions." Col. Mohammed Yerima, a Nigerian military spokesman, said defense chiefs from ECOWAS member states met last week to begin strategizing what sort of assault they would use if talks fail. Analysts, though, have questioned how quickly ECOWAS could mobilize a force and whether they could remove Gbagbo without a full-scale invasion resulting in heavy civilian casualties. Despite increasing international pressure, including visa bans by the European Union and the US, Gbagbo has stayed in power with the backing of the army. Human rights groups accuse his security forces of abducting and killing hundreds of political opponents. The UN has been barred entry from a building believed to be housing 60 to 80 of the bodies. Even as Gbagbo's meeting with the African leaders was going on, his closest advisers continued to insist that the 65-year-old had won the election. Ouattara has been shut out of the institutions of power in Ivory Coast but is attempting to govern from a hotel in Abidjan where he and his staff are barricaded behind sandbags and razor wire. He is protected by United Nations peacekeepers, but Gbagbo's security forces have set up checkpoints on the roads leading to the hotel, barring anyone from entering or exiting. In recent weeks, getting supplies to the Golf Hotel has become increasingly difficult, and the UN started running daily helicopter flights that land on the hotel's lawn ferrying cartons of vegetables and tins of powdered milk. In Washington, US officials said they remain willing to help Gbagbo make a "dignified exit," including revisiting the visa ban so he can travel to the United States and take up a possible teaching position. They said the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. "We hope that President Gbagbo will listen intently to the message that he needs to step down," US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "So far, he hasn't." President Barack Obama tried to call Gbagbo three times last month, including twice from Air Force One. He did not reach Gbagbo and at one point, Obama was told that Gbagbo was "resting." Administration officials believe the Ivorian leader sought to avoid contact. So Obama wrote Gbagbo a letter, offering him an international role if he steps down. Obama also made clear, that the longer Gbagbo holds on and the more complicit he becomes in violence across the country, the more limited his options become, said a senior administration official who requested anonymity to speak about administration strategy. Gbagbo came to power in 2000 and ruled during the civil war that erupted two years later, then overstayed his legal term which expired in 2005, claiming the country was too unstable to organize a poll. The election was rescheduled at least six times before it was finally held in October.
