Ivory Coast situation

[jerseydevil]

I know most people probably don't really know about what has been going on in the Ivory Coast - even the French News only covers it once every couple of weeks if that. Anyway - today the Ivory Coast Government issued airstrikes against the French peacekeepes and the french retaliated. The UN has now called an emergency session.

8 French killed in Ivory Coast

U.N. Security Council calls emergency session
Saturday, November 6, 2004 Posted: 1:30 PM EST (1830 GMT)

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) -- Ivory Coast warplanes bombed French peacekeepers Saturday, killing eight French soldiers and an American, officials said, prompting a French counterstrike in a confrontation that threatened to escalate Ivory Coast's renewed civil war.

After the French retaliation, pro-government mobs tried to storm a French military base near in the country's commercial center, Abidjan, witnesses said. French troops fired in the air and lobbed tear gas at the crowd.

The violence threatened to drag French and U.N. peacekeepers into the civil war that hard-line military commanders re-launched on Thursday, breaking a more than one-year-old ceasefire with surprise bombing attacks on rebel-held positions in the north.

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session Saturday to deal with the clashes. The United States, which currently holds the council presidency, and France were drafting a presidential statement warning Ivory Coast's government to stop attacks immediately or face "serious consequences," council diplomats said.

France sent three Mirage fighter jets to West Africa in response, and French President Jacques Chirac said he ordered the deployment of two more military companies to Ivory Coast.

Many in the country's fiercely nationalistic south resent the French peacekeeping force, suspecting it of siding with the rebels, though French forces have often served to protect the government from the rebels. France has about 4,000 troops in Ivory Coast, and a separate U.N. peacekeeping force numbers around 6,000.

The confrontation began when government warplanes struck French positions at Brobo, near the northern rebel-held town of Bouake, in the afternoon, U.N. military spokesman Philippe Moreux said.

Eight French soldiers were killed and 23 others wounded, said Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau in Paris. An American citizen was also killed in the raid, the French presidency said, without providing details.

U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Ergibe Boyd in Abidjan said they've been told of the death by the French but haven't confirmed. She said the American was likely a missionary, since there is no U.S. military or diplomatic presence in the area.

In response, French infantry destroyed two Ivory Coast Sukhoi fighter jets on the ground at an airport in the capital, Yamoussoukro, 75 miles to the south, French military spokesman Col. Henry Aussavy said.

Chirac said in a statement that he ordered the strike on the jets that violated the cease-fire and said France was acting within the terms of a U.N. mandate for French forces overseeing a cease-fire in the country.

"Our forces responded in a situation of legitimate defense," Bureau, the spokesman, said. "Now the priority is the immediate end of combat."

After the French retaliation in the capital, mayhem broke out in Abidjan, where crowds of government supporters assaulted a French base near the international airport. An Associated Press reporter saw throngs of other angry loyalist youths streaming toward the area, many clutching chunks of wood and chanting.

There were no immediate reports of injuries. It was not clear whether the base had been breached, or whether Ivory Coast troops were involved.

Ivory Coast military commanders have vowed to retake the north, controlled by rebels since the September 2002 start of the war in the world's top cocoa producer.

In Yamoussoukro, crowds of people streamed from the airport to town after the French retaliation. Edgy-looking soldiers turned away a members of an Associated Press crew seeking to get into the airport, telling them it was not safe.

Col. Philippe Mangou confirmed that government planes were destroyed in the French assault at the airport, though he could not say how many. "The planes were destroyed by shots from the French military ... The planes were on the ground," he told The Associated Press.

Ivory Coast's civil war killed thousands and uprooted more than 1 million, threatening efforts by neighboring countries -- Sierra Leone and Liberia -- to recover from their own vicious civil wars of the 1990s.

Last year's peace deals, brokered under international pressure, ended major fighting but an agreed-upon power-sharing government has never taken hold.

The U.N. Security Council, which has poured billions of dollars and thousands of peace troops into West and Central Africa to support peace accords, expressed alarm at the renewed fighting, as have France, the United States and others.

Fearing a spread of the fighting, the France-based relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said Saturday it was evacuating some staff from its hospital in the western town of Danane, about 20 miles from Ivory Coast's border with Liberia. The west saw some of the most brutal attacks of the war.

Van Schoor said the hospital would remain functioning. She declined to say how many staffers were being brought out or where they were being taken.

Nigerian President Olosegun Obasanjo, current president of the African Union, opened talks with regional leaders Saturday at his farm on the outskirts of Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, to look for a way out of the crisis. Remi Oyo, Obasanjo's spokeswoman, declined to say if Ivory Coast government or rebel representatives would take part.

[Rían]

No, I didn't know anything about this. Wonder what will happen ...

[Insidious Rex]

Jersey: Kudos to you for bringing up a story that would otherwise go overlooked by most americans and most westerners as a "who cares" story about poor silly africans. Im still trying to gather together the background on all this. Not sure if its an actual "colonist revoluton" or more complicated then that.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Jersey: Kudos to you for bringing up a story that would otherwise go overlooked by most americans and most westerners as a "who cares" story about poor silly africans. Im still trying to gather together the background on all this. Not sure if its an actual "colonist revoluton" or more complicated then that.

Well it started out during the summer or 6 months ago[edit - I mean when the french went in there - not when the unrest started]. Can't really remember. The french went in to quell the unrest and things sort of started to go good (although there were initially attacks against the french) - at least there wasn't anything bad being reported anymore - and now all of a sudden this happens.

The US and France were working together today on the reponse to this at the UN.

[Nurvingiel]

I knew a little bit about this. Sweden is thinking of sending troops to Liberia.

Liberia is a very neat country - check our some of their interesting history here.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I knew a little bit about this. Sweden is thinking of sending troops to Liberia.

Sweden? Troops? You mean there's more to Sweden than IKEA and Abba?