17 January 2006
Abidjan — Cote d'Ivoire's frail peace process came under fire on Tuesday as protests by pro-government youth targeting the UN peacekeeping mission went into a second day and the ruling party threatened to pull out of peace efforts.
Abidjan ground to a standstill early on Monday as protests erupted following a weekend decision by international mediators overseeing a UN peace plan to declare parliament's mandate over.
The Ivorian National Assembly's five-year mandate ended 16 December and in a statement on Sunday, mediators overseeing plans to hold peace-sealing elections by next October deemed there was no call to extend its mandate.
On Tuesday, scores of angry youths blocked the entrance to the headquarters of the UN mission in the country's main city, Abidjan, and pelted it with stones. Elsewhere in the economic capital, traffic ground to a halt as protesters used stones and tree trunks to throw up roadblocks across several main roads.
In the commercial lagoon-side district Plateau, youths clambered out of green pick-up trucks to gather outside the French embassy.
Most businesses remained closed and UN staff remained at home but shops and supermarkets closed on the first day of trouble began to reopen.
"We are tired of foreign intervention," a girl sporting a T-shirt with the national colours of Cote d'Ivoire told IRIN at a barricade as she opened the trunks of passing cars to check what was inside. "We are tired of neo-colonial attitudes."
In the western town of Guiglo, an estimated 1,000 people invaded a UN military base held by Bangladeshi troops. "They are in the base but so far they are just dancing and chanting," a UN official told IRIN. "They demanded we take the UN flag down, though."
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, expressed concern and called for an immediate end to continuing disturbances in Cote d'Ivoire condemning the "orchestrated violence directed against the UN".
Although the demonstrations were small in size, economic activity slowed down in most towns in the government-run south. Cote d'Ivoire has been split between a government-controlled south and rebel-held north for more than three years.
In the southern towns of Daloa, Yamoussoukro and San Pedro, gangs of youth put up ramshackle roadblocks.
The ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) said at the weekend that deputies must remain in office until legislative elections are held.
"They are not competent to take such a decision," FPI member of parliament Emile Guirieoulou said of the decision by the International Working Group, a ministerial-level group set up to monitor and oversee UN Resolution 1633, a peace blueprint for Cote d'Ivoire . "We will continue to work and we will see if they can stop us."
Reuters news agency reported that the FPI was considering pulling out of the peace process, but this could not immediately be confirmed.
According to diplomats, the non-renewal of the mandate of the National Assembly has led to a power struggle between President Laurent Gbagbo and interim Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, who is backed by the international community.
"The ruling party barons in parliament won't just lose their salary, they'll also lose power and prestige," a western diplomat said. "The regime wants to show it still controls the nation. We'll have to see who comes out on top."
Banny was appointed by three African leaders to get the much-delayed peace process back on track and organise presidential elections before October 2006. The International Working Group consults with him and submits progress reports to the UN Security Council.
Under a previous peace plan, one of many that have failed in the last three years, elections were to have taken place last October, when President Gbagbo's mandate expired. But when talks over disarmament broke down, the UN Security Council ruled elections were impossible and extended Gbagbo's mandate an extra 12 months, provided he transferred most of his powers to a new prime minister.
Banny has not appeared in public since Monday, although he was reported to be holding talks with the Young Patriots, a nationalist movement that often uses violence and intimidation to express its support for Gbagbo.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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