IVORIAN REBELS BLAME PRESIDENT FOR ”ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION” OF
LEADER
Côte d’Ivoire’s rebels blamed the country’s president Laurent Gbagbo on Monday for what they described as an attempted assassination of their leader and an attack on their positions in a key northern city.
Automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade launchers resounded in the northern city of Korhogo on Sunday evening, in what officials said was a conflict between different rebel factions.
The violence broke out as Gbagbo was returning from an African summit in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, where he promised to quickly announce new proposals for reviving peace efforts in his war-divided West African nation.
Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer and one of West Africa’s most developed nations, has been split into rebel-held north and fiercely loyalist south since a September 2002 coup attempt launched the country into war.
The rebels’ military chief, Colonel Soumaila Bakayoko said in a statement on Monday that Korhogo had been ”attacked by heavily armed elements” on Sunday.
He said the official rebel leadership ”has once again defeated the vain attempts to defeat the current peace process and brought back order to Korhogo”.
A convoy accompanying the top rebel leader Guillaume Soro from Ouagadougou, the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso, to rebel headquarters in Bouake, was also ambushed the same day, rebel officials said.
”Several people having participated in this assassination attempt and in the attack on Korhogo have been arrested. The first interviews clearly indicate the responsibility of the presidents Laurent Gbagbo and Lansana Conte” of Guinea, said Bakayoko’s statement.
He said the two African presidents ”benefited from the internal complicity of people close to Ibrahim Coulibaly,” a former army sergeant in France awaiting trial for allegedly plotting to kill Gbagbo. Bakayoko accused the dissidents of plotting further attacks in other northern Ivorian cities.
Ivorian presidency officials and aides to Coulibaly were not available for comment.
The French army, which has over 4 000 peacekeeping troops in Korhogo and elsewhere in Côte d’Ivoire, said it had no plans to intervene in the Korhogo fighting. The UN, which has a force gradually building up to 6 240 strong, has only a minimal presence in Korhogo.
The peace process in Côte d’Ivoire, a former French colony, has been on hold since March. Both rebels and government suspended involvement in a power-sharing administration then after a demonstration that saw more than 100 anti-government protesters killed. – Sapa-AP