Côte d’Ivoire’s ruling party has accused Prime Minister Seydou Diarra of colluding with a group of coup plotters arrested in France for allegedly planning to assassinate President Laurent Gbagbo.
”We can say the prime minister is guilty of incitation to and complicity with an act of destabilisation,” Ivorian Popular Front leader Pascal Affi N’Guessan told reporters late on Wednesday, alluding to a speech Diarra gave last week.
Diarra, who early this year was named the consensus head of a unity government that includes rebels who rose up against Gbagbo 11 months ago, complained last weeek on national television that he lacks the power to complete his government’s task of reconciling the West African nation.
The rebellion sparked a civil war that split the West African country in two until a peace deal was reached in Marcoussis, France, in January.
”The reconciliation government has been set major, indeed vital tasks to get our country out of the unprecedented crisis it is undergoing,” Diarra said.
”For these missions to succeed it must have the requisite powers envisaged by the Marcoussis accords,” he added.
”With this declaration, the prime minister can be considered to have incited the destabilisation operation,” N’Guessan said, referring to the announcement by France on Monday that it had foiled a plot to stage a coup in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading cocoa producer.
Diarra ”knows a lot about everything that is happening and he should therefore be called to give evidence” to investigators looking into the alleged coup plot, N’Guessan said. — Sapa-AFP
Assassins-to-be detained in Côte d’Ivoire