Bid to end bitter Ivory Coast violence

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo called on his supporters to end days of violent street protests in the government-held south, telling protesters to go home and asking fearful workers to return their jobs.

The “president asks the population to pull back from the streets and to go home”, said a statement read on state media late yesterday, adding that Gbagbo called on workers to “go back to work from tomorrow”.

Gbagbo’s statement came after he met with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and top UN officials in a bid to end three days of violent demonstrations targeting UN peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, still split between government and rebel-held zones despite peace deals to end the 2002/2003 civil war.

Earlier yesterday, UN peacekeepers fought off armed attackers besieging a military compound, then evacuated all staff from the area. Rebels accused the president of orchestrating the violence to undermine a new transitional government.

The unrest first erupted on Monday after a UN-backed international mediation group recommended that parliament’s expired mandate not be renewed. Gbagbo is leading a one-year government of national unity that has diminished his executive powers.

The parliament, filled with his supporters, is viewed as Gbagbo’s last bastion of power, and the decision angered youth activists and the president’s backers, who sent their followers into streets.

The UN has so far borne the brunt of the protesters’ anger.

At UN headquarters in New York, the current Security Council president called on Gbagbo to rein in the protesters while holding out sanctions as an option and said the world body was following events closely.

In Paris, French Army Chief of Staff General Henri Bentegeat – who has peacekeepers in the former colony – called for UN sanctions against Ivory Coast, saying both sides appear unwilling to resolve the more-than-three-year-old conflict.

In yesterday’s violence, Bangladeshi troops in the government-held town of Guiglo exchanged fire with attackers trying to enter their compound before evacuating all UN employees – between 200 and 300 people – from the town, UN military observer Captain Gilles Combarieu said.

UN force spokeswoman Margherita Amodeo said four people were killed in the gun fight, adding they were not UN staff.

A doctor at Guiglo’s main hospital said two dead bodies with bullet wounds lay at the morgue and there were reports of three more corpses in Guiglo’s streets. Ten others had been treated for gunshot wounds, the doctor said.

Combarieu said about 70 UN peacekeepers stationed at the nearby town of Douekue were also evacuating.

Peacekeepers inside the main UN headquarters in Abidjan fired into the air and launched tear gas grenades at demonstrators for a second consecutive day yesterday, keeping about 1,000 protesters at bay, he said.

Elsewhere in the government-held south, Gbagbo supporters blocked streets with burning tires and stopped vehicles on the road to the international airport.

Businesses shut down across Abidjan amid fears of a return to all-out violence in a country divided between government and rebel control after a 2002/2003 civil war.

There were no reports of strife from the rebel-held north, where insurgent leaders accused Gbagbo of orchestrating the protests to undermine a new transitional government.

“It’s an insurrection against the transitional government organised by Gbagbo and (his political party) to bring power back into their hands,” said Sidiki Konate, a rebel spokesman. Officials at the presidency couldn’t be reached for comment.