I Coast violence 'orchestrated'

2006-01-18 10:06

New York - The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday held impromptu consultations on the mounting unrest in Ivory Coast as UN officials voiced concern about what they saw as "orchestrated violence" to protest a proposed disbanding of parliament.

The council huddled behind closed doors to review the disturbances in the world's leading cocoa producer.

"Things are very worrying because we have seen in the past 48 hours orchestrated violence - and I say orchestrated because when violence happens simultaneously in several places at once, not only in Abidjan but in Daloa, in Guiglo, this is orchestrated," said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the senior official in charge of UN peacekeeping operations.

Earlier on Tuesday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also condemned "the orchestrated violence directed against the United Nations" and demanded "an immediate end to these attacks which contravene Ivorian law and seriously endanger the peace process".

Several hundred supporters of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, some armed, made a second attempt during the day to get into the base of the UN peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast, but were driven back with tear gas and warning shots, a UN military source said.

The Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Gbagbo's party, then announced it was quitting the current peace process and a transitional government led by Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.

'Only way to avoid violence'

The clashes and statement came after two days of protests by a Young Patriot movement of Gbagbo backers shut down Abidjan because they objected to an international plan to scrap parliament in order to hasten the peace process.

Asked about the FPI's decision to quit the peace process and the Banny government, Guehenno said: "I have seen that declaration. I think every effort must be made so that it is not implemented, the whole spirit of the Ivorian peace process is that all the parties are together in the government."

"That is the only way to avoid violence in Cote d'Ivoire...I think its essential to keep the parties together in the government led by Konan Banny," he added.

The FPI and the once all-powerful Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI) said the proposal made by a large UN-mandated working group on Ivory Coast to wind up the legislature was unacceptable.

The working group, known by its French acronym GTI, was set up to oversee implementation of the UN resolution passed last October, which extended Gbagbo's expired term in office for a year and led to the naming of a prime minister acceptable to Gbagbo and his foes.

The disbanding of parliament aimed to strengthen the new prime minister's hand with a GTI "road map" to end a conflict that began with a coup bid in September 2002.

The plan includes measures to give new tasks to prominent members of a scrapped parliament, but many were livid at the prospect of being ejected from office.

- SAPA