YAMOUSSOUKRO- Alassane Ouattara was inaugurated as President of C?te d'Ivoire, on Saturday, a ceremony most Ivorian hope will be a decade of conflict and instability behind them and to repair an economy once prosperous.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose troops helped put an end to an impasse after the election of Ouattara has been challenged, and other heads of State and dignitaries attended the ceremony in the official capital of the former French colony, Yamoussoukro.
Singularisé Ouattara France and Nicolas Sarkozy, who received a standing ovation for particular praise to help end the crisis.
"This day is a day historic for all Ivorians and it marks a desire to write a new page in the history of C?te d'Ivoire," Ouattara said in a speech.
"The crisis is behind us," he said. "It's the return of C?te d'Ivoire on the African and international scene we are celebrating today."
Ouattara sitting on stage wrapped in an orange frame, a group of traditional chiefs of Yamoussoukro cast of sand on the ground and cast libation in a ritual to invoke ancestral spirits to give their blessings.
Ouattara was declared winner of the election of the Nations United-certified in November last billed as a chance to reunite the fertile West Africa nation, cocoa producers, after the rebels seized half North at the end of 2002.
Instead, the country lurched into civil war when the incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo refused to resign - and used troops, paramilitaries, young violent militias and mercenaries Liberians to consolidate its position and to crush the dissent.
The impasse ended when raids consisting of Gbagbo at the pro-Ouattara rebel fighting supported by him and French army seized in its blast-proof bunker.
"It is important to be here in Ivory Coast, alongside the President Ouattara, for democracy and for Africa," Sarkozy said, speaking to journalists.
"You have saw that everyone has said,"Thanks,"Sarko", "intervened Ouattara, as the two Presidents walked to an official welcoming ceremony.
At least 3,000 people were killed and more than a million displaced in the struggle for power, what reason of exports of cocoa, brutally, banks close and stores were bag by militiamen.
Secretary General of the Nations United Ban Ki-moon, along the way to take part in the inauguration, said the international community should support Ouattara and send a strong message that the will of the people must be respected.
"A democratically elected person should be the one to lead the country based on the will of the people." This is what we have learned, this is what we have to send, "Ban said at a meeting with the President of Ghana John Atta Mills in Accra Saturday.
CHALLENGES
Tanks U.N. doubled the main avenues of the city in high security for the arrival of some 20 heads of State and dignitaries.
Hundreds of soldiers were walking to a band later Friday outside a centre receiving brilliant in Yamoussoukro, a city of wide boulevards carved in the jungle by the head of the independent Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who also decorated with what was once his hometown with the largest Roman Catholic Cathedral of the world.
Ouattara is faced with the task of bring a bitterly divided country and obtain his Ivorian and economic return on the runway - shipwreck have desire to move forward after years of stalemate.
"What happened, happened. We do not look back – we want to watch right before it, "has said Youssouf Toure, an electrician, he waited outside the grounds for the ceremony."
"This crisis is over." We forget, we can forgive. President Ouattara said that we need to forgive. Then we can begin to recover from what we have lost. ?
Ban said that even if the Ivorian crisis has been completed, the Organization of the United Nations and the international community had still to face challenges.
"There are serious problems such as the national reconciliation, restoration of peace and Humanitarian Affairs and issues of accountability and impunity issues," he said.
Gbagbo is under house arrest in the North of C?te d'Ivoire and Ouattara wants him tried for violations of the rights of man during the conflict, but he also wants an Africa of Southern-style reconciliation commission - two objectives which may conflict.
The International Criminal Court, said this month that ouattara had requested to investigate all allegations of serious violations in the post-election crisis. The Ouattara forces are also accused of abuse, such as looting, rape and murder civilians.
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