IVORY COAST: Youths brandishing machetes and sticks took to the streets to protest against foreign mediation

Record ID: 182612

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Youths brandishing machetes and sticks took to the streets to protest against foreign mediation
  • Date: 17th January 2006
  • Summary: UN HELICOPTER OVERHEAD
  • Embargoed: 1st February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6CEOF4UJFAFKG8GTYPBXRR8KL
  • Story Text: Cocoa exporters in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan closed their offices and warehouses on Monday (January 16) and many staff stayed at home as youths blocked roads and burned tyres in a political protest.
    "We weren't at work this morning. We arrived at the office but our managers told us to go back home. The offices are closed now," said a salesman for a large exporting company in the city.
    Youths brandishing machetes and sticks took to the streets in protest at a recommendation by foreign mediators that parliament be dissolved after its mandate ended last month.
    Monday is usually one of the busiest days of the week for cocoa deliveries in the world's top producer, as lorries are unloaded which arrived from the bush over the weekend when the exporters are closed.
    The director of a European exporting company in Abidjan said his office and warehouse staff had been able to work in the morning but they later closed because of the tension and because no trucks were arriving at the premises.
    Ivory Coast has been divided in two since a 2002 civil war which grew out of a failed coup against President Laurent Gbagbo. A string of peace deals have so far failed to bring about disarmament or elections to end the conflict.
    The protesters and pro-Gbagbo politicians say the group of international mediators, which meets once a month in the West African state and is charged with overseeing a U.N. peace plan, had no right to recommend that parliament be dissolved.
    Groups of youths who had gathered outside the headquarters of the country's U.N. mission earlier hurled rocks at Ivorian police officers who in turn fired tear gas at them.
    More protesters were continuing to arrive at the base by mid-afternoon despite the country's interior minister making a televised appeal for calm.
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