Ivory Coasts conflict escalate again

France Readies Resolution on Ivory Coast Arms Ban
Sun Nov 7

By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - France readied a U.N. resolution that seeks an arms embargo on the Ivory Coast after nine French soldiers and an American civilian were killed in a government bombing raid.

Junior envoys of the 15 U.N. Security Council nations are expected to begin negotiations on Sunday in preparation for a vote in the next few days, France's U.N. ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told reporters.

"The Security Council is impatient," he said. "The time has come now to adopt an arms embargo."

The ambassador also said he wanted "individual measures against those blocking the peace process and violating human rights."

The draft resolution may call for an asset freeze and a travel ban against individuals in the Ivory Coast, most likely some government officials as well as rebel leaders, diplomats said. But Russia still had doubts, they added.

De la Sabliere spoke after the 15-nation council on Saturday condemned the killings and confirmed that U.N. and French peacekeepers were authorized "to prevent any hostile action" in a statement read at an emergency meeting.

The council convened after Ivorian government aircraft bombed the rebel stronghold of Bouake, killing nine French soldiers and an American relief worker. France immediately counterattacked, destroying most of the West African country's small air force.

The council's statement backed the French action and confirmed that the 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers were "authorized to use all necessary means" to prevent "hostile action" in a buffer zone, separating Ivory Coast's rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, this month's council president, told reporters members supported France.

"This is fully within the understanding of the Security Council, that France is certainly going to defend French troops and French citizens who are under attack," he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who attended the emergency council session, said he had spoken to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo twice to press him to end the hostilities.

"He did tell me he was going to end it, so we'll wait and see," Annan told reporters. He also talked to French President Jacques Chirac, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who had organized peace talks among the combatants.

French deny Côte d'Ivoire death toll
A French defence ministry spokesperson on Sunday denied claims that French troops had killed around 30 Ivorians and wounded 100 others in clashes over the last 24 hours. Ivorian parliament speaker Mamadou Coulibaly had earlier announced the death toll on French public radio.

Thousands of demonstrators, who had trooped towards Abidjan's international airport, prompted warning shots from French helicopters.

The warning shots came in a bid to dissuade tens of thousands of demonstrators from heading for the airport, which has been controlled by French forces since Saturday afternoon following the killing of nine French soldiers.

Faced with an immense human tide, two choppers flying with no lights, used 20mm cannon near the Houphouet-Boigny and Charles de Gaulle bridges on the lagoon which link the working-class and business districts with the airport.

At about 4am (4am GMT) the dispersing demonstrators grabbed the chance to ransack homes of Europeans in the Bietry district near the port of Côte d'Ivoire's main city, with several inhabitants cowering on their roofs.

French forces had wiped out Côte d'Ivoire's military aircraft on Saturday in retaliation for the killing of nine soldiers stationed here, as anti-French feeling reached boiling point in the west African former French colony.

Côte d'Ivoire warplanes had earlier executed a devastating raid on a French army camp killing the nine men plus a United States national and wounding 23 others.

French President Jacques Chirac thereupon ordered the destruction of all Côte d'Ivoire planes involved in ceasefire violations in the country, divided since a failed coup two years ago.

The French blew up two warplanes on the ground and later destroyed at least three army helicopters by later on Saturday, a French army spokesperson said.

Resentment against France boiled up in Abidjan, where youths chanting anti-French slogans looted and torched four French schools.

Thousands of young supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo marched on Abidjan airport, where a company of French infantry was stationed.

An hour-long clash had earlier occurred at the airport between French and Ivorian troops.

Ivorian forces closed the airport on Saturday afternoon and evacuated staff, sealing off the perimeter and closing it to air traffic, airport sources said.

France has had troops stationed in Côte d'Ivoire since last year and is helping to mediate a peace agreement following the breakout of a civil war in 2002, but the implementation of the pact has been fitful and Côte d'Ivoire has remained divided. - Sapa-AFP

Ivory Coast Army Pulls Back as French Troops Land

Sun Nov 7, 2004, last updated 07:26 AM ET

By Silvia Aloisi
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The commander of Ivory Coast's ground offensive against rebels in the north ordered troops to withdraw from the frontline on Sunday as France flew in more soldiers to its West African former colony.

The United Nations and France demanded that President Laurent Gbagbo end fighting after his forces killed nine French peacekeepers and injured 23 in an air raid on a rebel-held town.

France hit back by destroying two warplanes and five helicopters, flew in about 400 more soldiers to bolster its 4,000-strong force, and threatened to press for a U.N. Security Council arms embargo and other sanctions.

"It is with death in my soul, with many regrets and with tears in my eyes that I ask you to pull back from your positions because unfortunately we have lost our air power," Colonel Philippe Mangou told soldiers in the capital Yamoussoukro.

Thousands of angry pro-Gbagbo supporters poured onto the streets of the main city Abidjan and French troops fired teargas and warning shots from a helicopter to disperse the mobs.

Gangs of youths rampaged through night in the commercial capital, attacking foreign nationals and looting shops.

"I have shoes, jeans, a shirt, watch and wedding ring. Everything else has gone," said one foreigner who scrambled into a hovering French helicopter as machete-wielding youths burst on to the roof his apartment block.

"Last night we thought we were going to get killed. I've never been so happy to see a soldier."

Gbagbo's forces last week shattered an 18-month truce with rebels who hold the northern half of the world's biggest cocoa grower by launching three days of air strikes and sending soldiers into a neutral buffer zone.

France has been caught in the middle of the conflict in Ivory Coast ever since rebels seized the north after a failed attempt to oust Gbagbo in September 2002. Thousands of people were killed in fighting before a truce was agreed in May 2003.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

The rebels complain French soldiers stopped them advancing on Abidjan to defeat Ivory Coast's army at the start of the war, while the president says France should have helped his forces defeat the insurgents from the off.

The head of Gbagbo's party called on Sunday for youths to battle foreign troops until "the final victory."

"France has decided to humiliate us, to scorn our independence and to drag our dignity and sovereignty through the mud," former prime minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan told state television. "We must fight to defend our honor."

However army commander Mangou said talks were under way between Ivory Coast and France on both political and military levels to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

At an emergency session on Saturday, the U.N. Security Council gave the 10,000 French and other international peacekeepers already in Ivory Coast a green light to use "all necessary means" to stop the fighting.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan phoned Gbagbo twice to urge him to end the violence, which threatens stability in West Africa, where several other states have been plagued by conflicts in the past decade or so.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana called the attack unacceptable and held Gbagbo responsible for the security of all Europeans in Ivory Coast.

France's U.N. ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said he would seek a vote in the coming week on a draft resolution calling for an arms embargo and threatening sanctions against those blocking the peace process and violating human rights.

France warned Gbagbo last week not to resume hostilities and was furious at the killing of its nine peacekeepers.

On Chirac's orders, two Ivorian Sukhoi 25 fighters and three helicopters were blown up in Yamoussoukro. Two more helicopters were knocked out of action in Abidjan on Sunday morning.

Rebel officials in Bouake said Ivorian soldiers had advanced toward Bouake on Saturday but had retreated after clashes. Aid workers in the town, about 340 km (210 miles) north of Abidjan, said heavy gunfire could be heard on Saturday afternoon. (Additional reporting by Peter Murphy, Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Ange Aboa in Yamoussoukro)

Q&A: Ivory Coast's crisis
Ivory Coast, previously West Africa's richest country, has been divided between north and south - between rebels and the national army - since September 2002.
Government air strikes on rebel-held territory in the north this week, and clashes on the ground between the two sides, marks the first major unrest since a peace deal brokered by France in January 2003.
BBC News looks at the reasons behind the conflict and whether peace and prosperity can return.

What happened to the peace accord?

The power-sharing "government of unity" outlined in the peace pact has never lived up to its name and the January 2003 peace agreement was never fully implemented.

The former ruling party - the Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI) - pulled out at the beginning of March 2004, accusing President Laurent Gbagbo of "destabilising the peace process".

In protest at the suppression of an opposition march in Abidjan which left scores dead, the ex-rebels, now called the New Forces (FN), and the main opposition party, the Rally of the Republicans, also withdrew from the government.

A UN report said the security forces had singled out suspected opposition supporters to be killed.

The disarmament programme - supposed to begin on 8 March - failed to kick off in any meaningful way.

The FN refuse to disarm until free and fair elections, scheduled for 2005, have taken place.



When did civil war break out in the first place?

The uprising began on 19 September 2002 with a mutiny by troops unhappy at being demobilised.


But it quickly turned into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the unhappiness of northern Muslims at what they saw as discrimination by the government of President Laurent Gbagbo.
Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, a northern Muslim, was barred from standing in presidential elections because of a new law which said that presidential candidates must be born in Ivory Coast and both parents must be Ivorian.

He was accused of being from Burkina Faso, even though he had previously been prime minister of Ivory Coast. He has represented Burkina Faso at the World Bank.

For some Muslims, this symbolised their marginalisation - many northerners have family ties in Burkina Faso or Mali.

The FN and the opposition insist that the law must be changed if there is to be any breakthrough.

A related law, making it easier for those born to foreign parents to become Ivory Coast citizens, was discussed in parliament but then withdrawn after Mr Gbagbo's supporters blocked it.

Why was the law on presidential candidates changed?

Southern politicians expressed fears of being "swamped" by immigrants.


Ivory Coast used to be West Africa's richest country.
It is the world's largest producer of cocoa, the raw ingredient of chocolate.

During the time of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, immigrants from its poorer neighbours were encouraged to do menial work in Ivory Coast.

Foreigners, mainly from Burkina Faso and Mali, are estimated to count for a third of the population.

In the 1990s, the economy started to go downhill and Ivorians began to resent such a large foreign presence.

It was then that former President Henri Konan Bedie introduced the concept of "Ivoirite", or Ivorianness.



Why does Ivory Coast matter?

Neighbours Burkina Faso and Liberia have been accused of backing the rebellion.

They have denied this but it raises the nightmare scenario of other countries being dragged into the conflict.


There have been several xenophobic attacks on Muslims and foreigners in government-controlled areas.
Since the conflict began, many thousands of these African expatriate workers have returned to their home countries.

This has already hurt the whole region as poor countries lose valuable remittance earnings.

Most French-speaking West African countries share the same currency, the CFA franc, and instability in Ivory Coast has hit investment and confidence across the region.

What is the French interest?

France is the former colonial power and has had a military base in Abidjan since the 1960s.

France guarantees the CFA franc and its businesses still dominate the economy.

Until anti-French protests led Paris to urge "non-essential" citizens to leave, there were 16,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast.

Some 4,000 French troops have also been monitoring a ceasefire line across the middle of the country.

This is why France was so determined to push all the sides together and get them to agree to end the fighting and form a national unity government.

Why the anti-French feeling?

Because of the peace deal brokered by the French.

Rebels say they were promised the key defence and interior ministries under a power-sharing agreement, although this does not appear in the official text.

Supporters of Mr Gbagbo in the commercial capital, Abidjan, accuse the French of forcing him to sign this deal.

Since the conflict broke out, Mr Gbagbo has said the French army should have intervened to protect him, as a democratically elected leader.

So what happens next?

The situation is not looking good.

With the power-sharing government on the rocks, and new clashes between government troops and rebels, any prospect of differences being resolved at the negotiating table is receding.

The presence of international peacekeepers is being seen as increasingly important to prevent a return to full scale civil war and to help with any disarmament if it can happen.

The UN now has some 6,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast to support around 4,000 French troops monitoring a buffer zone between the two sides.

The New Forces and pro-Gbagbo militias were supposed to have started disarming on 15 October but the former rebels refused because laws making it easier for those of foreign origin to gain citizenship and contest presidential elections had not been changed, as agreed at a meeting of West African leaders in July.

Ivory Coast's Gbagbo Appeals for Calm

Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo appealed for calm on Sunday and urged protesters to return home after two days of anti-French mob violence.

In his first public appearance since riots erupted in the main city Abidjan following the destruction of most of the West African country's air force by French troops, Gbagbo said he regretted the mob violence and expressed sympathy to the families of all victims.

"I am calling on people to remain calm, I am asking all the demonstrators to return home. You must not give in to provocation," Gbagbo said.

Thousands of angry pro-Gbagbo supporters had poured onto the streets of Abidjan and gangs of youths attacked foreign nationals and looted shops after French forces destroyed two Ivorian Sukhoi 25 warplanes and five helicopters on Saturday.

French forces said they were acting after Ivorian warplanes bombed a French position in the rebel stronghold of Bouake, killing nine French soldiers and one American civilian.

Gbagbo's forces broke a cease-fire last week by launching air attacks against rebel-held towns in the north of the country. He said he had decided to attack the rebels because "all avenues for dialogue have been exhausted."

"We had to react," he said.

Ivory Coast has been split in two since a civil war broke out of a failed coup against Gbagbo in September 2002. Last week's bombings were the first major resumption of hostilities since a cease-fire was signed in May last year.

France 're-imposing' Ivorian calm

Ivorian and French forces have pledged to work together to re-impose order after days of violence in the country.
A French general denied plans to oust President Laurent Gbagbo after hundreds of people confronted French forces at the president's residence.

French soldiers fired in the air to disperse the protesters.

French troops deployed across Abidjan and took its airport during a weekend of anti-French riots. More than 410 people were hurt, the Red Cross said.

"It is absolutely not the intention of the French forces to overthrow President Gbagbo," insisted General Henri Poncet after meeting UN and Ivorian army commanders.

The BBC's James Copnall in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's main city, says the relationship between the French and Ivorian armed forces had looked in tatters after Ivorian planes killed nine French troops and the French responded by destroying the entire Ivorian air force.
The incidents sparked the wave of anti-French violence over the weekend that continued into Monday.

As rumours spread of a French-backed coup, protesters responded to a call on state radio for people to form a "human shield" to protect the president, descending on Abidjan's Hotel Ivoire.

Presidential spokesmen said France had 50 tanks outside the nearby president's residence, and called on them to withdraw.

French President Jacques Chirac urged national reconciliation saying "France is a friend" of the West African country.


The atmosphere remains tense. Kim Gordon-Bates, a Red Cross worker, spoke to the BBC by phone as protesters surrounded him.
"The situation is far from calm. There is a crisis underway. There has been looting, there has been elements of violence," he said.

At the weekend, tens of thousands of President Gbagbo's supporters march on the French-held main airport in Abidjan.

They also went on the rampage across the city, attacking French targets including setting fire to a French school and bookshop.

Asked how many people were killed in the violence, Mr Gordon-Bates of the Red Cross replied: "God knows."

A French army spokesman told Reuters that French civilians had been rescued from rooftops by helicopters during Sunday night.

The bodies of the dead French soldiers, and their injured colleagues, were flown back home on Monday.


But Ms Alliot-Marie said there were no plans to evacuate the estimated 14,000 French citizens in Ivory Coast.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has been asked by the African Union to help find a political solution to the crisis.

In a televised speech on Sunday, President Gbagbo called for restraint.


It was his first public speech since ordering bombing raids on Thursday that ended the uneasy ceasefire.

He justified his decision by saying the rebel-held north was killing the country economically.

On Monday, the former rebels called for the departure of President Gbagbo to restore "calm" to the country.

France dispatched 600 more troops to back up the 4,000 soldiers it already has in Ivory Coast as part of a UN force of 10,000.

Paris has also drafted a resolution to go before the UN Security Council calling for an arms embargo, a travel ban on key figures accused of derailing the peace process and a freeze on their overseas assets.