Fears rise of attacks on UN peacekeepers in Ivory Coast

Wed, 22 Dec 2010

New York/Abidjan - Fears of attacks against United Nations peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, which is in the grip of a violent post-election crisis, were high Wednesday after the UN peacekeeping chief warned his forces were becoming targets.

Strongman leader Laurent Gbagbo is defying massive international pressure - including European Union and United States sanctions - to cling to power, and has ordered UN peacekeepers and supporting French troops out of the country.

"The situation is at a critical stage on the ground," Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said late Tuesday.

Since the UN Security Council ignored Gbagbo's order and extended UNOCI's mandate by six months on Monday, pressure has grown on the peacekeepers - numbering around 10,000.

According to Le Roy, state-controlled television channel RTI has been broadcasting calls for violence against UNOCI personnel, staff have been evicted and suppliers have been forced to stop providing goods to the mission.

"We hear a lot of provocation again from RTI, and we hear reports of people like the Young Patriots (a pro-Gbagbo youth group) being given lots weapons, AK47s, to try to provoke UNOCI," Le Roy told reporters in New York. "We are very concerned."

The UN's headquarters in the economic capital Abidjan came under fire on Friday, although no injuries were reported.

Gbagbo's rival Alassane Ouattara is widely recognized as the rightful winner of last month's presidential elections. The polls were aimed at healing the divisions of a 2002 civil war that split the country into the mainly Muslim north, which backs Ouattara, and Christian south, where Gbagbo holds sway.

According to Ouattara's camp, around 200 people have been killed in the last week as Gbagbo cracks down on opposition, using Liberian and Angolan mercenaries to operate death squads. The UN confirmed the presence of Liberian forces in Ivory Coast.

Tentative UN estimates say there have been 50 deaths, around 200 injuries, 470 arbitrary arrests and many disappearances.

Ouattara is trying to run an alternative government from the UN-protected Golf Hotel in Abidjan, but pro-Gbagbo forces have erected barricades to prevent food and water getting through.

"The intention of Mr Gbagbo and the security forces loyal to him is clearly to strangle the United Nations peacekeeping mission and to suffocate the Government of President-elect Ouattara," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly on Tuesday.

Gbagbo, in a speech broadcast on RTI late Tuesday, said he did not want the country to be "ravaged by war" and told Ouattara he would not be touched if he emerged from the Golf Hotel.

He also said he would consider allowing an "international and independent assessment and monitoring committee" to review the election - an offer immediately dismissed by Ouattara as insincere.

While Gbagbo extended an apparent olive branch, his feared youth leader Charles Ble Goude - who is under UN sanctions for violent acts carried out against peacekeepers in 2006 - has been holding daily rallies, exhorting thousands of young Gbagbo supporters to combat.

"Be ready! I will invite you to start street demonstrations very soon to claim the departure of UN staff and French military forces and to launch the latest assault to free Ivory Coast, our country," he told a televised rally in an Abidjan suburb Tuesday.

International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, in an emailed statement, specifically mentioned the leader of the Young Patriots in a warning of possible prosecutions.

"For instance, if as a consequence of Mr Charles Ble Goude's speeches, there is massive violence, he could be prosecuted," he said.