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Television footage Monday showed Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo shortly after his capture in Abidjan.
Forces loyal to Ivory Coast President-elect Alassane Ouattara on Monday seized strongman Laurent Gbagbo from his residence, bringing to a head a protracted conflict between two presidential rivals that split the nation and clouded the future of the world's largest cocoa producer.
Mr. Gbagbo's arrest came after days of heavy fighting and involved former colonial power France in a central yet politically sensitive role. The extent of the involvement of French and United Nations troops in Monday's assault was unclear as details of the arrest emerged. Many of Mr. Gbagbo's supporters accused the French of leading the raid and then handing the incumbent president over to his political rival—in effect writing a new chapter in its colonial domination of West African nations.
Ivory Coast's Former President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to leave office after being defeated at the polls, was finally captured Monday after a protracted conflict. Peter Wonacott has details.
But officials for Mr. Ouattara, the United Nations and France denied that version of events.
"There [was] heavy fighting involving French soldiers, the United Nations and our forces against Mr. Gbagbo's forces," Sogona Bamba-Arnault, an Ouattara spokeswoman, said from Paris. "Once all heavy weapons were destroyed, Mr. Gbagbo was there and we arrested him."
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Local television showed footage of a visibly exhausted Mr. Gbagbo, wearing a floral-print shirt, walking into a suite of Abidjan's Golf Hotel, where Mr. Ouattara has been based. Mr. Gbagbo was taken to the hotel with his wife and his son. It isn't clear what awaits the former history teacher, whose refusal to recognize the results of an election in November pushed his country toward civil war.
In a radio address, Guillaume Soro, Mr. Ouattara's prime minister, said his government would work on rebuilding a united country. "People of Ivory Coast, dry your tears, the nightmare is over," he said.
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More television footage Monday of Laurent Gbagbo's capture.
Mr. Gbagbo's capture presents a set of onerous challenges for Mr. Ouattara. Topping the list is halting the bloodshed and focusing on national reconciliation. The former senior International Monetary Fund official will also need to kick-start one of Africa's major economies and the world's leading producer of cocoa.
Finally, Mr. Ouattara will need to deal with pressure from human-rights groups and his own supporters to hold onto Mr. Gbagbo to possibly face charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Late Monday, Mr. Ouattara said in a televised address that he would ask his justice minister to open a judicial procedure against Mr. Gbagbo, his wife and some of his aides.
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Supporters of Ivory Coast President-elect Alassane Ouattara celebrate the arrest of former leader Laurent Gbagbo in Abidjan on Monday.
"They will be treated with dignity and their rights will be respected," he said.
According to the Rome Statute, which set up the ICC, nations have the responsibility to first try suspects of crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide. If they are unable or unwilling to do so, the ICC can prosecute. While Ivory Coast isn't a signatory to the Rome Statute, Mr. Gbagbo allowed the ICC to investigate crimes committed in 2003 and Mr. Ouattara has said he accepts the court.
Alain Le Roy, head of U.N. peacekeeping, said Monday that "it is up to Ouatarra and his legal people to decide what to do with Mr. Gbagbo." He added that he understood that Mr. Ouattara may want to remove Mr. Gbagbo from Abidjan.
Unrest in the Ivory Coast
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President Barack Obama called for the international community to support efforts to turn the page on the past few months of conflict in Ivory Coast, or Côte d'Ivoire, as it is known in French.
"For President Ouattara and the people of Côte d'Ivoire, the hard work of reconciliation and rebuilding must begin now," Mr. Obama said. "President Ouattara will need to govern on behalf of all the people of Côte d'Ivoire, including those who did not vote for him."
Ivory Coast fought a two-year civil war after Mr. Gbagbo came to power, and although the conflict officially ended in 2002, the country has remained divided.
France dispatched hundreds of soldiers to Ivory Coast in 2002, when rebels threatened to overthrow Mr. Gbagbo, who had been elected president two years earlier. The French force, known as operation Licorne, or Unicorn, helped restore peace but didn't quash the rebellion.
Now France is looking at being drawn into a major reconstruction. French officials said Paris would stand by Mr. Ouattara to help him rebuild the country, but added that it wasn't the job of French soldiers to stay permanently in Ivory Coast.
"We need to discuss a calendar with Mr. Ouattara but we have made clear our soldiers will leave at some point," a French diplomat said.
While refugees have poured across the border with Liberia since the crisis began, analysts say they don't see the troubles in Ivory Coast triggering broader conflict in the region, where concerns have focused mainly on the economic impact, since Ivory Coast was a magnet for migrant farm workers and commodities traders.
Those migrants would, in turn, remit money home, lubricating the regional economy. The activity has dried up since the crisis erupted.
"Neighboring countries, Liberia in particular, are experiencing an influx of refugees that is putting pressure on scarce resources," the International Monetary Fund warned in a March report. "Should the Ivorian crisis persist, economic spillovers for the region will be significant, at a severe human and financial cost."
Across the country, news of the arrest elicited sharply different reactions, illustrating how divided people remain. In Abidjan, there were reports of looting by pro-Gbagbo militia, angered by the involvement of French forces in their leader's arrest.
"Gbagbo is a martyr and there are people who will continue to fight for him," said Ble Ble, a pro-Gbagbo soldier in Youpougon, a Gbagbo stronghold.
Large swaths of the city are still controlled by armed groups loyal to Mr. Gbagbo, giving many residents pause about celebrating.
"My main joy is I can now leave the house to buy some grilled fish, but after that I am staying home," said Fanta Doumbia, in the Port Bouet area. "We have to wait and see what the future holds."
But in the Ouattara stronghold of Abobo, residents were jubilant. "This feels better than if we'd won the World Cup!" said 37-year-old teacher Kone Abdel-Kader. "The only thing I keep asking myself is why didn't he hand himself in earlier and save all the suffering?"
In light of the support Mr. Gbagbo maintains on the nation's streets, analysts were cautious about the prospects for immediate peace in Ivory Coast. Mr. Ouattara would have to work quickly to stabilize the country, and that would require striking agreements with the forces they have been fighting—troops loyal to Mr. Gbagbo, said Richard Moncrieff, a research analyst specializing in West Africa at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg.
"You've got to do the deals with militia leaders and the army. You have to gain control of Abidjan," he said. "Everything else is a wish list."
Efforts toward reconciliation will be complicated by allegations of abuse on both sides since the conflict started.
In a report released by New York-based Human Rights Watch over the weekend, Mr. Ouattara's forces were said to have "killed hundreds of civilians, raped more than 20 alleged supporters of his rival, Laurent Gbagbo, and burned at least 10 villages" in the country's western region during their advance south. The report said Mr. Gbagbo's backers also killed supporters of the president-elect, but it called on Mr. Ouattara to investigate abuses on both sides.
That report followed a separate account from the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimating that 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in the town of Duékoué, after troops loyal to Mr. Ouattara moved through the area.
The International Criminal Court also has said it was considering opening an investigation into reports of atrocities during the conflict.
Mr. Ouattara has pledged to launch an investigation into the allegations, and vowed that the perpetrators would be brought to justice in domestic or international courts.
This isn't the first time the United Nations has been involved in the capture of a political leader. In 1997, the U.N. worked with U.K. forces to capture of Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh. And Nigeria peacefully transferred former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, to the U.N., which took part in sending him to the Special Court of Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, a Western diplomat in Abidjan said Mr. Gbagbo was expected to move from the Golf Hotel into the north of country, an area densely populated with Mr. Ouattara's supporters.
Human Rights Watch warned that Mr. Gbagbo shouldn't be allowed to go into exile without facing charges for war crimes.
"Laurent Gbagbo has been credibly implicated in crimes against humanity and other atrocities for which he should be held to account," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director for Human Rights Watch. "He should not be granted a golden exile in a country that would shield him from national or international prosecution."
One of the major stumbling blocks for Mr. Ouattara is the Ivory Coast economy. In trying to wrest control from Mr. Gbagbo, he coerced Western nations to impose trade sanctions and imposed an export embargo on cocoa, which accounts for a third of the country's economy.
The European Union on Friday lifted sanctions, allowing shippers to enter the country's two major ports, Abidjan and the top cocoa-exporting terminal San Pedro, in response to a request from Mr. Ouattara.
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French forces in a military operation in southern Ivory Coast on Monday.
Shifting the 400,000-plus tons of cocoa in the two ports will bring in some much needed cash, even if bean quality is likely to be much reduced after two months of storage in tropical conditions.
Cocoa futures in both the U.S. and the U.K. shrugged off Monday's news of Mr. Gbagbo's capture. Mr Ouattara has also asked commercial banks to re-open, so that workers can draw salaries and people can start buying and selling goods again.
All this needs the security situation to be resolved, and it isn't yet clear whether Mr. Gbagbo's supporters will give up the fight.
Messrs. Ouattara and Gbagbo have had a long history of clashes and reconciliations. In 1992, Mr. Ouattara was prime minister in the administration of then-president Félix Houphouët-Boigny when Mr. Gbagbo was jailed for leading a student-protest march that had turned violent.
Mr. Ouattara spent most of the 1990s in Washington, where he worked as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. In 2000, Mr. Ouattara was prevented from running for president on the grounds he allegedly wasn't a true Ivorian national. Mr. Gbagbo won the presidentialelection. Two years later, when rebels tried to overthrow him, Mr. Gbagbo accused Mr. Ouattara of being behind the plot, which Mr. Ouattara denied. He took refuge at the German Embassy and left the country.
In the mid-2000s, Messrs. Ouattara and Gbagbo signed a truce: Mr. Ouattara could return to Ivory Coast and would be allowed to run in the next presidential election.
After multiple delays, elections were organized last year. The November runoff pitted the two men against each other. Mr. Gbagbo refused to recognize Mr. Ouattara as the victor, precipitating the conflict that eluded mediation efforts and dragged the country and its people toward another war.
"Before, (Mr. Gbagbo) was respected in Africa because he went through a lot. But he's to blame for all this and he needs to assume this destiny," said 36-year old N'Guessan Aime, a resident of Bouake in central Ivory Coast. "We're so tired," she said.
—John James, Monica Mark and Will Connors contributed to this article.
Write to David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com and Peter Wonacott at peter.wonacott@wsj.com
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