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
The Ivorian Popular Front (french: Front populaire ivoirien; abbr. FPI) is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast.
FPI was founded in exile in 1982 by history professor Laurent Gbagbo, Aboudram ...
(FPI) and is a Vice-President of the FPI. As the wife of
First Lady of Ivory Coast
The first lady of Ivory Coast (French: ''Première dame de Côte d'Ivoire'') is the title attributed to the wife of the president of Ivory Coast. The current first lady is Dominique Ouattara, who has held the office since 11 April 2011. (Dominiqu ...
prior to their arrest by pro-Ouattara forces.
Biography
Born in 1949 in
Moossou
Grand-Bassam () is a town in southeastern Ivory Coast, lying east of Abidjan. It is a sub-prefectures of Ivory Coast, sub-prefecture of and the seat of Grand-Bassam Department; it is also a Communes of Ivory Coast, commune. During the late 19th ...
,
Grand-Bassam
Grand-Bassam () is a town in southeastern Ivory Coast, lying east of Abidjan. It is a sub-prefecture of and the seat of Grand-Bassam Department; it is also a commune. During the late 19th century, Grand-Bassam was briefly the French colonial c ...
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
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, communication rese ...
as a
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
labor union leader and been nicknamed in the Ivorian press as the "
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
des tropiques". The mother of five daughters, the last two with her current husband,
Laurent Gbagbo
Koudou Laurent Gbagbo , FPI website . ( trades union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
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
Abobo is a northern suburb of Abidjan and one of the 10 urban communes of this city in Ivory Coast. Abobo is one of the most populated communes in the country with about 1.3 million inhabitants in an area of 6,925 ha (69.25 km2), a dens ...
(part of
Abidjan
Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...
) in the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
. In 1998, she became an
evangelical Christian
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...
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
Radio France Internationale, usually referred to as RFI, is the state-owned international radio broadcaster of France. With 37.2 million listeners in 2014, it is one of the most-listened-to international radio stations in the world, along with D ...
reported that she was being investigated by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
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
Guy-André Kieffer (born 25 May 1949) is a journalist of dual French and Canadian nationality who worked in West Africa generally, and in Côte d'Ivoire specifically. On April 16, 2004, he was kidnapped from an Abidjan parking lot and has not bee ...
. Kieffer was in Abidjan at the time, researching a story on political corruption and government involvement in the Ivorian
Cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
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 Mr Kieffer's brother, have alleged that Mrs Gbagbo and former Ivorian Minister of Planning and Development Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabré have knowledge of the events surrounding Mr 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
Bouaké (or Bwake, N’ko: ߓߐ߰ߞߍ߫ ''Bɔ̀ɔkɛ́'') is the second-largest city in Ivory Coast, with a population of 740,000 (2021 census). It is the seat of three levels of subdivision—Vallée du Bandama District, Gbêkê Region, and Bou ...
. 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
The 2010–11 Ivorian crisis was a political crisis in Ivory Coast which began after Laurent Gbagbo, the President of Ivory Coast since 2000, was proclaimed the winner of the Ivorian election of 2010, the first election in the country in 10 yea ...
, Laurent Gbagbo and
Alassane Ouattara
Alassane Dramane Ouattara (; ; born 1 January 1942) is an Ivorian politician who has been President of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) since 2010. An economist by profession, Ouattara worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF)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
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
(ICC) for Simone Gbagbo's arrest for
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. The Court alleged that as a member of her husband's inner circle, she "played a central role in post-election violence".
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
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 Ivorien President