- Robert Guéï
Robert Guéï (
March 16 ,1941 –September 19 ,2002 ) was the military ruler of theCôte d'Ivoire fromDecember 24 ,1999 toOctober 26 ,2000 .Guéï was born in Kabakouma, a village in the western Man region, and was a member of the Yakouba tribe. He was a career soldier: under the French administration, he was trained at the
Ouagadougou military school and the St Cyr military school in France. He was an ardent supporter of longtime PresidentFélix Houphouët-Boigny , who in 1990 appointed him chief of the army following amutiny . After the death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993, Guéï became distanced from the new leaderHenri Konan Bédié . Guéï's refusal to mobilise his troops to resolve a political struggle between Bédié and the opposition leaderAlassane Ouattara in October 1995 led to his dismissal. He was made a minister but sacked again in August 1996 and forced out of the army in January 1997.Bédié was overthrown in a coup on
Christmas Eve , 1999. Although the coup was not led by Guéï, the popular general was encouraged out of retirement to head the junta until the next elections. In the October 2000 elections, Guéï was defeated byLaurent Gbagbo of the Ivorian Popular Front, but he refused to recognize the result and it took a spate of street protests to bring Gbagbo to power. Guéï fled to Gouessesso, near theLiberia n border, but remained a figure in the political scene. He was included in a reconciliation forum in 2001 and agreed to refrain from undemocratic methods.Guéï withdrew from the forum agreement in September 2002, but was killed on September 19, 2002, in the
Cocody district ofAbidjan at the first hours of the civil war. Circumstances of his death remain mysterious. His wife and several members of his family and the interior minister,Émile Boga Doudou , were also killed.Following Guéï's death, his body stayed in a morgue until a funeral was held for him in Abidjan on
August 18 2006 , nearly four years after his death. [ [http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-08-18-voa76.cfm "Funeral Held for Former Ivory Coast Ruler Robert Guei"] , VOA News, 18 August 2006.]ee also
*
Civil war in Côte d'Ivoire References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
