Rebels won't talk to Gbagbo
2004-04-01 12:58
Abidjan - Ivory Coast opposition groupings have refused to hold talks with President Laurent Gbagbo to try to get the country's reconciliation government back on track, until a presidential ban on demonstrations is lifted.
"Before dialogue can resume, we demand that our constitutional right to demonstrate is recognised," said opposition chief Alphonse Djedje Mady late on Wednesday after a crisis meeting to decide what action to take next to protest against the killing last week of hundreds of people in a crackdown on a demonstration.
Mady's Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) was one of seven opposition groups that have pulled out of the government in protest at the crackdown on what was intended to be a "peaceful march" against Gbagbo, and at the president's refusal to abide by a 14-month-old peace pact.
Along with the PDCI, the main opposition Rally of the Republicans, the Union for Democracy and Peace in Ivory Coast of 1999 coup leader Robert Guei, who was killed in an uprising in September 2002, and ex-rebels who sparked that uprising were among groups to attend the crisis meeting.
Time to mourn our dead
"We are open to dialogue but not under just any conditions... We are allowing ourselves time to mourn our dead," said Djedje Mady after the talks.
The opposition has said up to 500 people died when the army, on Gbagbo's orders, cracked down on an anti-government demonstration a week ago. Rights groups have also put the death toll in the hundreds, and said that alleged "massive sweeps, abductions, summary executions, widespread destruction, torture and extortion" took place afterward.
But the government insists on its official toll of 37 dead.
Djedje Mady said the seven opposition groupings had not lifted their "call to march" against the government, and would announce a date for the protest later.
"We remain firm in our position of fighting for democracy," he said, speaking on behalf of all the opposition groups.
The opposition also called for "the safety of all political players" to be "guaranteed by the state" and "impartial" French and west African forces deployed in the country to patrol a ceasefire line that runs through the centre of the country, dividing it into the still rebel-held north and the Gbagbo-loyalist south.
The opposition groups also demanded that "an international committee of inquiry be set up to establish the truth" behind the crackdown on the demonstration.
Gbagbo has also requested an international investigation in response to a plea by an international committee that is supervising the French-brokered January 2003 peace plan for the world's top cocoa producer, which called on the president to cede some of his powers to a prime minister - something the opposition has said he has not done.