IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast asks UN to investigate assassination attempt on prime minister

Record ID: 181765

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast asks UN to investigate assassination attempt on prime minister
  • Date: 12th July 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (FILE - JUNE 30, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SORO'S PLANE AFTER THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
  • Embargoed: 27th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADGZZKVG06AYJ0FQ1JBRTU844F
  • Story Text: Prime Minister and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro has appeared in public for the first time since an assassination attempt last month. The government has asked the United Nations to investigate the attack which threatened to derail the fragile peace process in the world's top cocoa grower. Ivory Coast has asked the United Nations (U.N.) to investigate an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, the former French colony's government said on Wednesday (July 11) at a cabinet meeting in Abidjan.
    The meeting was Soro's first public appearance since unknown attackers fired a rocket at his plane shortly after it landed in the northern rebel stronghold of Bouake last month.
    Soro, leader of the New Forces rebels, was made prime minister in April under a deal to reunite the West African country, split in two since the rebels seized its northern half during a brief 2002-03 civil war.
    "The head of state has given his approval, so there will be an international investigation parallel to the investigation conducted by the relevant national body," said government spokesman Amadou Kone.
    The New Forces said the security at the Bouake airport was compromised because post-war job descriptions have not been clearly laid out.
    "If we know that at our airports, there aren't just our own national armed forces, but also impartial forces, then how do we define the role of each? How do you assign their tasks so that everyone knows what they are meant to do and who's doing what? That's the issue that the New Forces have raised," said the spokesman for the New Forces, Sidiki Konate.
    Many observers suspect disgruntled rebels of the attack on their leader in a bid to thwart progress on a deal which would call on them to disarm and forfeit power, status and wealth.
    Others suspect it could have been carried out by sympathisers of his former arch-enemy, President Laurent Gbagbo.
    Four of Soro's aides were killed and several more injured in the attack. Soro has denied his military chiefs were involved and both he and Gbagbo have said the incident has stiffened their resolve to press on with the peace process.
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