Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo blasted French media on Tuesday for leaking a United Nations report that implicated his government in a violent crackdown on an anti-government rally.
The report by the human rights commission was presented in full on Monday by Radio France International, although no date has been set for its official release.
”While President Laurent Gbagbo is awaiting the official release of the report by the investigators, whom he himself asked to come to Côte d’Ivoire, it is clear that many radio and television stations failed to exercise that same restraint,” a statement from the presidential office said.
”The president protests in no uncertain terms against this underhanded effort by certain media who, after their military failure, are trying to undermine the cohesion of the state and setting up civilians in confrontation with defence and security forces,” added the statement.
The UN report said the violence that engulfed the March 25 rally by Côte d’Ivoire’s opposition parties and continued for several days killed 120 people and was ”carefully planned and executed” by security forces under orders from ”the highest state authorities”.
The team, which conducted two weeks of interviews before submitting its report, said that ”what happened… was the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the committing of massive human rights violations”.
The statement saved particular vitriol for RFI, which has been accused by many of the hardline supporters of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) as a mouthpiece for the rebels whose uprising in September 2002 plunged the former regional powerhouse into 19 months of political and military crisis.
”RFI has succeeded in sowing hatred in our country and has largely contributed to the war still being waged in an Côte d’Ivoire that sought to turn its back on the cliques, blackmail and other intimidations that are the hallmarks of organised crime,” the statement said. – Sapa-AFP