I Coast's rioters overrun airport

2003-01-31 20:46

Austin Merrill

Abidjan - A 5 000-strong stone-throwing mob invaded Ivory Coast's main airport on Friday, storming planes on the tarmac and taunting, slapping and spitting at terrorised French families in flight from their onetime prize West African colony.

"Never come back!" young men, spewing profanities and spitting, shouted after one woman and three children running sobbing under a gauntlet of blows from parking lot to terminal.

French forces deployed on the runway and airport perimeter in cannon-mounted armoured vehicles and in helicopters, at one point squaring off - rifles locked, loaded and aimed - against Ivory Coast forces.

The day marked the most tense yet in a week of often-violent anti-French protests.

Stolen suitcases

France - its decades-old influence in West Africa's economic hub crumbling fast over anger at a French-brokered peace deal here -reluctantly urged its citizens out. The United States, Britain and others did so weeks ago.

Hurled rocks injured at least two French soldiers, one seriously, French military spokesperson Lt Col Philippe Perret said. Rioters terrorised passengers, stealing suitcases and handbags, Perret said.

"Go home and don't come back!" the protesters screamed at families as they grabbed their bags and rushed into the airport. "Idiots!" rioters yelled at the ducking, crouching French.

The airport invasion follows days of mass protests by hard-core government loyalists - angry over a peace deal signed on January 24 in Paris that they say yields too much to Ivory Coast's rebels, who have seized more than half the country in a 4-month-old civil war.

Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, and West Africa's economic hub - accounting for 40% of the gross production of former French West Africa. Decades of stability and prosperity made it the base for French and others doing business in the region.

War here already has killed thousands, uprooted more than one million, and paralysed the country.

Friday's protest began with a march on the airport at the commercial capital of Abidjan. Protestors pledged to keep prime minister-designate Seydou Diarra, picked to help lead Ivory Coast under the French-brokered peace deal, "from touching Ivory Coast soil".

Rushed the terminal

Diarra, instead, remained in Dakar, Senegal, where West African leaders met into the night with Ivory Coast's government and rebels in a desperate effort to salvage Ivory Coast.

Rioters' anger turned on the French instead.

Wrapped in the orange, green, and white colors of Ivory Coast's flag, rioters rushed the terminal, and then the tarmac, blowing whistles. Ivory Coast police and paramilitary police exhorted them to leave.

As they talked, French forces arrived in force. Four French troop helicopters landed on the tarmac. French soldiers spilled out, rushing to secure the tarmac even as protesters set fire to the French flag.

More French forces rolled up in a armoured vehicles with mounted cannon, taking up posts on the tarmac, airport perimeter and the main road in and out.

French and Ivorian forces prodded protesters off the tarmac after 45 minutes.

Outside, militants continued to harass vehicles traveling to and from the airport.

At its tensest, French soldiers and Ivory Coast forces faced off against each other - former colonial ruler and subjects, training rifles, locked and loaded, on each other.

Standoff

The allies' armed standoff started when a line of 100 French directed their firearms on rioters, trying to stop them from hurling stones onto them over the heads of Ivorian solders.

At the sound of French firearms locking behind them, the 120-member cadre of Ivorian forces spun around.

Rioters cheered as Ivorians aimed their rifles at the French forces. Travellers inside the terminals ran away from the glass fronts.

The standoff ended after a minute or so, with no shots fired. French and Ivory Coast officers moved to the nearby French military base for talks - trying to mend the previously unthinkable rift after decades of close military and financial partnership.

Earlier, Ivory Coast Defence Minister Bertin Kadet sought to calm the protesters, assuring them, "I have asked the French military to evacuate the area in order to pacify the crowd."

French forces did not immediately comply. "One thing is sure, we'll be at the airport as long as French nationals are there," French Commander Frederic Thomazo said.

Flights resumed

By end of day, however, French forces had moved out of sight at the airport, but held positions on the road leading into it.

Flights suspended during the confrontation resumed. Air France said it would lay in bigger planes and another flight each day to get the fleeing French out.

In a message posted on the French Foreign Ministry's website, France urged that "French people whose presence isn't indispensable leave the country.

In Dakar, leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Niger entered closed-door talks with representatives of Ivory Coast's three rebel groups and the government.

The January 24 peace deal puts rebels and the government into a power-sharing administration until 2005 elections. Loyalists have objected most strongly to unconfirmed rebel claims that the deal gives them control of Ivory Coast's military and paramilitary.

Rebel leader Guillame Soro, speaking briefly to reporters in Dakar, suggested reluctance to yield the contested Defence and Interior ministries.

Liberia

"These accords for us will mean the return to peace in our country," Soro said. "We call on the heads of state ... to help implement them as fast as possible."

West African leaders most fear seeing Ivory Coast lapse into the kind of bloodshed and upheaval that has laid waste to neighbouring countries.

A 1999 military coup, its first-ever, ended decades of stability. Ethnic and political violence culminated in another coup attempt in September and subsequent civil war.

Rebel groups in the north and west accuse President Laurent Gbagbo of fanning ethnic hatred, and demand his resignation.

Meanwhile, on Friday, neighbouring Liberia threatened trouble on another front - accusing Ivory Coast forces of hunting down and killing innocent Liberian refugees in Ivory Coast. Some Liberian gunmen are fighting on the side of western Ivorian rebels, which has sparked anger here against Liberians in general.

"Liberia will not sit back to see Liberians being humiliated and killed," Justice Minister Lavela Koboi Johnson said in a statement from Monrovia, without specifying what action his government might take. - Sapa-AP

- SAPA