Did US Christian Right Know Gbagbo's Other Wife Is Muslim?

Prominent members of the U.S. religious right have trumpeted their support of Ivory Coast's just-captured former president, Laurent Gbagbo -- and some of their rhetoric emphasizes that Gbagbo is an evangelical Christian, unlike incoming Muslim leader Alassane Ouattara.

But did they know or care that Gbagbo, despite his vocal embrace of Christianity, has had another wife on the side for years? And that she's Muslim?

Not many outside Ivory Coast are aware of the very-married Gbagbo's other marriage, to Nadiana Bamba, 37, a glamorous, former broadcast journalist turned publisher and public relations executive who happens to be Muslim.

Most Westerners only know about Simone Gbagbo, 61, Gbagbo's high-profile, Bible-wielding wife, who has been called the "Iron Lady" of the regime and the "Hillary Clinton of the tropics."

Bamba, who is from a village in the northern, predominantly Muslim section of Ivory Coast, is a power in her own right as the publisher of Abidjan's pro-Gbagbo Le Temps newspaper. Gbagbo and Bamba were married according to "tribal custom" in 2001, and she's listed among the Gbagbo family members and associates facing European Union sanctions.

She and Gbagbo have an 8-year-old son, but they are almost never photographed and rarely discussed publicly. An image of Bamba in a red Islamic veil is one of the few available.

She is nicknamed "Nady" and is known in the local press as "Petite Maman." Her presidential palace clashes with Simone are so bitter and jealous that they are right out of the video game "Mortal Kombat," reported Le Patriote, an Abidjan newspaper, in 2008.

"If she is the first lady, I am the grande dame," Bamba has reportedly said on occasion.

Gbagbo's other wife, however, never accompanied him to events like the National Prayer Breakfast, the annual Washington, D.C., event run by the powerful Christian group known as the Family, or the Fellowship. He has attended those with Simone, who is actually Gbagbo's second wife. His first wife is French, but he divorced her years ago.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., an evangelical Christian with close ties to the Gbagbo regime; televangelist Pat Robertson; and Fox News' Glenn Beck are among those who have repeatedly lobbied for the U.S. to keep Gbagbo in power. Robertson and Beck, in particular, have indicated that incoming President Ouattara's Muslim faith may spell danger for the region.

Inhofe, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday night, said that Ouattara's U.N.-sanctioned win after last November's presidential elections in Ivory Coast stemmed from "massive voter fraud" and that Gbagbo was the real winner. He also sent U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a letter on March 30 asking her to support new elections in Ivory Coast.

Beck has pointedly referred to Gbagbo as "the Christian president" and Ouattara as "the Muslim president" whose forces, he said, were beheading people and setting them on fire.

Bamba normally stays in the palatial villa Gbagbo bought for her in the elite Riviera section of Abidjan, sources told AOL News. She fled the country several weeks ago with their son and is believed to be in Ghana.

Their tribal marriage caused a scandal when it first came to light in Ivory Coast, since Gbagbo was already married to Simone.

Ivory Coast sources told AOL News that the marriage is not legal according to civil law but that Gbagbo married Bamba in a "traditional" African ceremony viewed as valid by most residents in the country. Bamba is routinely referred to and thought of as Gbagbo's second wife, they said.

"It's absolutely regarded as fact that she is also Gbagbo's wife, though Simone was not happy about it," Daniel Balint-Kurti, an Ivory Coast expert with the Global Witness organization, told AOL News. "This is not a mistress situation. She is thought of and described as Gbagbo's wife."

But the union may not be widely known or acknowledged among Gbagbo's Christian supporters in the U.S.

"I had no idea," Inhofe's spokesman Jared Young told AOL News when asked about Bamba. "Whatever works, I guess. I could never get away with that myself."

Calls made by AOL News to Robertson's spokesman, Chris Roslan, and Beck's production company were not returned.

Robertson has called Gbagbo a "very fine man." He warned that because of Ouattara's election win, Ivory Coast will be a "country run by a Christian that is going to be in the hands of a Muslim, so it's one more Muslim nation building up the ring of Sharia law."

Gbagbo and Simone's evangelical Christianity was an integral part of the Gbagbo regime. Simone was known for often carrying a Bible and invoking God in most of her speeches.

"God is leading our fight," she said at a rally in Abidjan in January when Gbagbo was trying to cling to power. "God has already given us victory. God is with the people, God chose Gbagbo."

Gbagbo was featured on Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network in January, when he expounded on his Christian faith and asked American Christians to "continue praying for us."

The coupling may seem bizarre for many reasons. For one, a key issue in the November presidential election won by Ouattara was his Muslim faith and his origins as a native of the heavily Muslim north. Gbagbo is a Christian from the mainly Christian south.

But Abidjan political observers say Gbagbo used both wives to help him politically with Christian and Muslim voters.

"Gbagbo and Simone are hypocrites," Alexandre Ilboudo, a journalist with Le Patriote, told AOL News. "Gbagbo especially doesn't respect any laws. When the news came out about Nady, it was a scandal, but he didn't care. He does what he wants."

When asked if it's thought that Gbagbo and Bamba shared a great love, Ilboudo said no.

"She gets a lot of money, power and prestige," Ilboudo said. "And I think he married her because he wanted to get more political support from Muslims."

Ivory Coast political expert Rinaldo Depagne, based in Dakar, Senegal, with the International Crisis Group, said men like Gbagbo are called "woody" in the local vernacular, but the term has a different meaning from the American slang word.

"Gbagbo is from the south -- and in the south a man is respected when he's a bit of a womanizer, when he is sexually satisfying several women at once," Depagne said.

"Having one official woman and at least one younger woman if not more gives you a lot of prestige," he said. "A man like Gbagbo is called a woody. It means a big guy with big muscles and a big libido."