Supporters commandeer airwaves
2006-01-19 07:45
Abidjan - Supporters of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo commandeered state television on Wednesday to call for bigger demonstrations and the departure of foreign peacekeepers from the country.
Up to 300 members of the so-called Young Patriots movement invaded the precincts of the official RTI broadcaster after besieging it for two days amid other demonstrations in the city.
A management source said police had "opened the gates" to let in the protestors, who had then threatened engineers to obtain airtime.
"We call youths to come out in the streets to demand the departure of the impartial forces", meaning the 7 000 UN and 4 000 French troops in Ivory Coast, "and totally free our country", student leader Serges Koffi said.
Koffi heads the Federation of Students and Scholars of Ivory Coast (Fesci), the most powerful student union in the country, which is militantly pro-Gbagbo.
RTI director Yacouba Kebe said that he was "not responsible for the content of these messages until the situation returns to normal".
Hundreds of so-called Young Patriots have manned barricades across Abidjan since Monday and tried to storm UN headquarters in the economic capital, after a UN-backed mediation group called for the Gbagbo-majority parliament to be dissolved.
The international working group set up by a UN resolution said at the weekend that the current parliament, whose mandate expired last month but was extended by the Constitutional Council at Gbagbo's request, should step down.
The move was seen as aimed at easing the way for the UN-backed transitional government of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, tasked with disarming the northern rebels, reconciling the warring sides and holding elections by October.
Gbagbo's supporters branded it "an attack on national sovereignty" and his party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) announced on Tuesday it was pulling out of the transitional government and the peace process.
The FPI also called for the departure of the UN peacekeepers and the French troops.