Gbagbo slams Chirac 'insult'
2004-11-15 09:22
Paris - Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has dismissed as "an insult" comments by French President Jacques Chirac that France will continue its UN-mandated action in the troubled west African nation and will not stand by while a situation of anarchy or fascism develops.
"President Chirac supported the only party in Ivory Coast for 40 years. What is closer to fascism than a one-party system?
"We were in prison under the regime of the sole party supported by France. It's an insult," Gbagbo said in an interview published on Monday in the Liberation daily here.
Referring to the recent incident in the central Ivory Coast town of Bouake when Ivorian airforce planes killed nine French soldiers, Gbagbo said that "objectively France has taken the side of the rebels".
The attack on the French troops was followed by a French air assault that destroyed Ivory Coast's small air force.
The French retaliation "left me speechless" the Ivory Coast President said, adding that he found himself wondering "what had pushed Chirac to such swift and brutal action".
Gbagbo also accused colonial power France of "navel-gazing" and "forever bringing the Ivory Coast story back to themselves" while "my country is on the road to a transition towards democracy".
President Jacques Chirac said on Sunday that France would continue its UN-mandated action in the Ivory Coast, saying: "We do not want to allow a system to develop that could lead to anarchy or to a regime of a fascist nature."
France has 4 000 men under UN mandate in a buffer zone between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south of the country where civil war broke out in September 2002.
Ivory Coast has been divided into two warring camps since September 2002, when northern soldiers mounted a rebellion against Gbagbo's rule.