UN arms embargo for I Coast
2004-11-16 07:15
United Nations - The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Monday to impose an immediate arms embargo on Ivory Coast as the exodus of foreign nationals from the troubled west African nation gathered pace.
The 13-month embargo is backed up by a targeted travel ban and assets-freeze on individuals in the divided state on December 15 if key steps are not taken to implement the stalled peace accord in the former French colony.
Resolution 1572 was adopted unanimously despite earlier opposition from China and others, who felt the African Union should have been given more time to mediate a solution before an embargo was imposed.
The 15-nation council agreed to heed a weekend call by African leaders to put the embargo in place without delay in a bid to defuse the tension in the world's top producer of cocoa, which has been divided since a coup attempt in September 2002 against President Laurent Gbagbo set off civil war.
France drafted the resolution earlier this month after nine French peacekeepers and a US aid worker were killed in an air strike by Ivorian government war planes in the north of the country.
French forces retaliated, wiping out the tiny nation's air force in a move that set off deadly anti-French and anti-foreign riots and vandalism that reportedly left dozens dead.
"The Security Council has never stopped saying that there is no military solution for the crisis in Ivory Coast. There is only a political solution," French ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said after the vote.
Some 14 000 French nationals, including 8 000 with dual nationality, were living in Ivory Coast before the violence erupted on November 6.
When civil war broke out in the Ivory Coast in 2002, the French army evacuated about 3 000 foreigners from 23 nations, most of them French.
- AFP