Leader sounds call to battle
2004-04-19 15:05
Abidjan - Ivory Coast's pro-government youth mobs were called to battle on Monday by their firebrand leader to force the hand of a new UN peacekeeping mission so as to "liberate" the restive west African state.
"Friends, rise from your lethargy because the struggle will resume in coming days," said "Young Patriots" leader Charles Ble Goude in an open letter carried by several of dailies published in the main Ivory Coast city Abidjan.
"We must be organised so that it is us who may chart the course for the peacekeepers, whose mission is clear: disarm the rebels, reunite the country and oversee free and democratic elections," wrote Ble Goude, who has made no secret of his close relationship with President Laurent Gbagbo.
"Rise, then, from the sleeping spell cast by our enemies with their hypocritical campaigns of disarmament and peace," Goude said.
Nineteen months of political and military crisis sparked by a failed bid to oust Gbagbo in September 2002 have crippled the former regional powerhouse and entrenched partisan divisions that erupt in sporadic violence.
The Young Patriots have been at the forefront of much of the violence that has rocked Abidjan since January 2003, when the streets were filled with massive anti-French demonstrations to protest peace accords signed to end a civil war that boiled over from the attempted coup.
Some 1 300 west African troops who had been patrolling Ivory Coast since last year took up the blue helmets of a UN peacekeeping mission on April 4 that is mandated to include some 6 000 soldiers and 1 000 civilian agents to chart a course towards reconciliation ahead of elections planned for October 2005.