OWN CORRESPONDENT, Abidjan | Thursday
HUNDREDS of people have taken to the streets in Abidjan to protest against Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade’s comments this week about the harsh treatment of Burkina Faso nationals in Ivory Coast.
About 500 demonstrators gathered in front of Senegal’s embassy in Abidjan, yelling “Senegalese get out” and carrying banners which read “Wade is a villain.”
At the opening of a three-day conference in Dakar on racism and intolerance, Wade said “a Burkinabe in Ivory Coast is being treated in a way that a black person would not be treated in Europe.”
The Senegalese president was referring to a wave of xenophobia in Ivory Coast against west African immigrants, namely those from Burkina Faso, that has surged following a failed coup bid in early January blamed on foreigners.
Furious at Wade’s criticism, small groups of young people headed to a main market in Abidjan’s business district where Senegalese merchants operate stalls. The groups threatened to crack down on “foreigners.”
The merchants, fearing trouble, had already closed their shops.
The pro-government press was equally irate.
Notre Voie, a mouthpiece of President Laurent Gbagbo’s socialist party featured the headline: “Abdoulaye Wade insults Ivory Coast. The musings of an obsolete president.”
The state-sponsored Fraternite Matin said Wade’s comments were “irresponsible and liable to create tension between African states.”
“This man is dangerous for peace in Africa,” wrote Le National, a newspaper that supports ousted president Henri Konan Bedie. Bedie fanned the flames of xenophobia before a December 1999 coup by accusing a main political opponent, Alassane Ouattara, of being Burkinabe.
Authorities appealed for calm but let their frustration with Wade be known.
“There is no point in attacking foreign populations and the Senegalese in particular, who are not at all responsible for declarations by their head of state,” the cabinet secretary at the interior ministry said in a television address.
The country has long been dominated by Christians from the south. Muslims from the north living in Abidjan are regularly harassed and accused of being foreign, while west African immigrants have been targetted by youths, militia and police. – AFP