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| - Supporters of former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo are seeking to allay misgivings over his expected return, insisting his homecoming a decade after civil war will heal divisions, not deepen them. On Monday, his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party announced -- on Gbagbo's 76th birthday -- that he would return on June 17 after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of crimes against humanity. The Ivorian authorities have officially said they will welcome Gbagbo's return but on Tuesday neither confirmed nor denied the date given by the FPI. Speculation about Gbagbo's return has dominated domestic politics for months. For some, memories have been revived of a conflict that claimed around 3,000 lives and created a deep rift in the world's biggest cocoa producer. For an association of civil war victims, the CVCI, Gbagbo is a "criminal who should be handed over to prosecutors". But the pro-Gbagbo camp is pitching the message that, as an elder statesman, he can soothe political waters that reached storm proportions last year. Gbagbo's return will be the start of a "new phase", said FPI secretary-general Assoa Adou -- "an important phase for the future of Ivory Coast, the phase of reconciliation, peace, the reconstruction of our country". Gbagbo's influential son-in-law, Stephane Kipre, quoted by the pro-Gbagbo Ivorian daily Le Temps, said: "He is not coming back with a spirit of revenge, but for reconciliation. May no one be afraid." President Alassane Ouattara defeated Gbagbo at the polls in 2010 and then in combat, after a conflict that left the country divided along north-south lines. After the war ended, Gbagbo was hauled off to The Hague to face charges related to the bloody conflict. He became the first head of state to stand trial at the court, in the dock alongside his former right-hand man, Charles Ble Goude, who was also acquitted. Despite his years in jail, and subsequent stay in Brussels to await the outcome of an appeal against his 2019 acquittal, support for Gbagbo at home has not waned. The historian's role as a potential elder statesman came to the fore last year, when Ouattara declared a bid for a third term in office in last October's elections. Critics saw this is as a naked attempt to circumvent constitutional limits. Violence claimed 87 lives and left hundreds of wounded. Ouattara won a landslide victory, but it was a hollow and deeply contested one, for nearly all the major opposition candidates boycotted the poll. In the election's aftermath, seeking to ease the tension, Ouattara sketched a way back for Gbagbo. He issued him with a diplomatic passport as well as an ordinary passport, and in April declared that both he and Ble Goude were "free to return to Ivory Coast when they want." Gbagbo officially still faces a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast, after he was convicted in absentia in 2019 for the "looting" of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the 2010-11 conflict. This sentence, says the CVCI, should be applied if he returns. Ouattara, in April, did not mention this conviction, although government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly indicated that it would be scrapped. Another potential problem is the tenor of Gbagbo's return. His backers want a big splash -- a triumphant homecoming -- but the government is in favour of something with a lower profile, to avoid potential unrest if tens of thousands of his supporters turn out. stb/ck/ayv/ri/gd
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