IVORY COAST: Nigerian President calls for calm in Ivory Coast as four are killed as suppporters of President Laurent Gbagbo attack U.N. headquarters in Abidjan.

Record ID: 182567

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Nigerian President calls for calm in Ivory Coast as four are killed as suppporters of President Laurent Gbagbo attack U.N. headquarters in Abidjan.
  • Date: 19th January 2006
  • Summary: IVORIAN PRESIDENT LAURENT GBAGBO, OBASANJO AND IVORY COAST PRIME CHARLES KONAN BANNY IN CONFERENCE ROOM
  • Embargoed: 3rd February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA926SH7Y4NPURUCA00AA0QGLLR
  • Story Text: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on a lightning peace mission, flew in to meet Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, whose supporters have staged three days of anti-U.N. riots to protest what they call foreign meddling in the war-divided West African state.
    Four pro-government protesters died on Wednesday (January 18) in western Ivory Coast when U.N. peacekeepers opened fire to repel an attack on their base in a third day of anti-U.N. riots.
    The deaths were the first reported in violent protests this week by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo who are demanding that U.N. and French peacekeepers withdraw from the West African country, which was divided in two by a 2002 civil war.
    Ivory Coast's president also urged his supporters to end a wave of attacks on U.N. peacekeepers. Ivorian state media reports put the death toll at five.
    "The international working group has no power, no ability, no intention of interfering in the sovereignty, national sovereignty, of Ivory Coast and therefore has no power to dissolve the national assembly," Obasanjo sitting next to Gbagbo, before leaving for the airport on his way home.
    After several hours of talks Obasanjo, Gbagbo, new premier Charles Konan Banny and U.N. special envoy Pierre Schori also made a joint statement saying mediators had not dissolved parliament.
    Obasanjo was a key player in brokering a U.N. peace plan to reunite the country, disarm the rival forces and hold presidential elections by the end of October.
    But the latest violence threatens to derail what has been a fragile ceasefire since 2003 maintained by nearly 7,000 U.N. troops and police and 4,000 French soldiers. Amodeo said there were protests at all U.N. offices in government territory.
    Hundreds of young Gbagbo loyalists clamouring for U.N. and French peacekeeping troops to leave have attacked U.N. bases, residences and vehicles with petrol bombs and stones across the government-controlled south since Monday (January 16).
    Gbagbo supporters on Wednesday (January 18) took over state television facilities and called on other Gbagbo supporters to take to the streets.
    In the country's commercial capital, Abidjan, protesters marched on U.N. headquarters and tried to smash their way in.
    They opposed a weekend call by foreign mediators to end the mandate of parliament, which is dominated by Gbagbo loyalists.
    The attacks revived calls for the Security Council to impose sanctions on those preventing peace when it meets on Thursday (January 19).
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