Johannesburg — The government in Cote dIvoire announced on state television Saturday night that 270 people had been killed since an attempted coup on Thursday, with another 300 wounded in the continuing bloody uprising by mutinous soldiers.
State media made a further appeal for blood at transfusion centres around the country to help the injured, indicating the gravity of the situation. This crisis is the most serious Cote dIvoire has faced in its 42-year history, with increasing domestic, regional and international concern that it could worsen. A night curfew is in force nationwide.
After initially refusing to negotiate with the dissident troops, unless they surrendered, the Prime Minister Pascal Affi NGuessan offered an olive branch on Saturday, making an appeal to the rebels in a televised address. He said President Laurent Gbagbo was "ready to examine the situation of the mutineers, if they lay down their arms."
Up to 750 soldiers, angry that they were being demobilised from the army against their will, are reported to be behind the mutiny. This has mushroomed into a more serious conflict, that Gbagbos government said was being manipulated by an unidentified neighbouring rogue state from the north, a phrase normally intended to mean Burkina Faso. Relations between the two countries are strained, with mutual allegations of bad faith.
On Thursday, Cote dIvoires first-ever military leader, General Robert Guei, was killed. He came to power after the first ever coup detat in 1999 and was immediately blamed by Gbagbos government of masterminding this latest uprising. The disgruntled rebel soldiers are said to have been recruited by Guei.
NGuessan pledged that the government would look into their grievances and ways to take care of soldiers who were either too old for the army or in poor health.
He also called on young men, who were reportedly being conscripted into the rebel forces, not to follow the route of violence. "We invite the youth to put down the guns, return your arms (or) turn them against the aggressors," said the Prime Minister, adding "Its up to them to choose which side they are on: that of destruction or the Republic".
Rebel representatives meanwhile claimed that the government was trying to play off Ivorians against each other, but refused to allow the blood of "our brothers-in-arms (to) flow needlessly".
Sergeant Major Kouadio Konan Prosper, a rebel spokesman in Korhogo, the key northern city en route to the border with Burkina Faso, told the French News Agency that the mutineers wanted "negotiated solutions (to) our legitimate grievances," including reinstatement in the armed forces.
Korhogo and the strategic central city of Bouake (350km/220 miles north of Abidjan) remain in rebel hands, with reports that other important towns heading north are also under rebel control. The government appears to have quashed the revolt in Abidjan, where government buildings, ministers' houses and key installations came under attack on Thursday.
Kouadio Konan warned "We have been informed that the Ivorian authorities are readying to attack us with mercenaries - we are ready to cross swords".
On Saturday, the authorities sent troop reinforcements northwards, which it said were poised to counter attack on Sunday morning.
The Prime Minister stressed on Saturday that "Our chief concern today is the interior of the country. Our forces are on the move and we hope that, in the coming hours, we will see results on the ground". He assured civilians in Bouake and Korhogo that they had not been forgotten. "Cote d'Ivoire has not abandoned them," said N'Guessan.
Backlash against immigrants
Earlier, Gbagbo pledged all out war against his enemies on his return home, after hurriedly cutting short an official visit to Italy.
The governments accusation of foreign involvement, with mercenary back-up, in the failed coup prompted an immediate backlash against Burkinabe and other West African immigrants living in Cote dIvoire.
Hundreds of their shantytown homes went up in flames Saturday, in raids led by the paramilitary gendarmerie, who claimed this was to flush out rebels. Some residents were reportedly forced out of their dwellings at gunpoint. Thousands of newly homeless immigrants spilled onto the streets of the main city, Abidjan, after packing up the belongings they could save onto their heads and into wheelbarrows.
Gangs of pro-government youths, armed with machetes, are reported to be roaming the streets of Abidjan, targeting foreigners from predominantly Muslim neighbouring countries.
The prime minister's assurances that immigrants have nothing to fear from either Cote d'Ivoire or Ivorians, and that "the fight is not against foreigners, but against those who have taken up arms," will ring hollow in many ears.
Rampant xenophobia has become a common feature of Cote dIvoire, once considered a peaceful country that welcomed millions of immigrant workers who helped to build up the nation after independence from France in 1960. Up to 40 percent of the population of 16m is foreign.
The immigrant issue, linked to the vexatious question of 'ivoirite (true Ivorian identity) has fueled political, religious and ethnic divisions in Cote dIvoire, between the largely Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south and west. These potentially catastrophic splits were kept under control by the countrys post-independence president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny until he died in 1993.
After Houphouets death, the simmering tensions exploded. First there was a brief and bitter power struggle between his chosen successor, Henri Konan Bedie, and Alassane Dramane Ouattara, his prime minister. Bedie, then the parliamentary speaker and the second in line to the presidency, is a Christian Baoule southerner like Houphouet. Ouattara, a Muslim northerner, became the main opposition leader in Cote dIvoire.
But Bedie mishandled what began as an army mutiny and was ousted in the 1999 coup by General Guei. Ouattara, who has come to symbolise the north-south divide in Cote d'Ivoire, was barred from standing in a presidential election the following year.
The bar was imposed because questions were raised about his nationality, with his critics accusing him of being a Burkinabe masquerading as an Ivorian.
Gbagbo eventually clinched electoral victory in 2000 and became Cote dIvoires next leader, with Guei - having tried and failed to steal the presidential poll - being swept out of power in a popular uprising. But immediately after Gbagbo's swearing-in, rival supporters of Gbagbo and Ouattara clashed in violent street fighting that left hundreds dead.
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The political, religious and tribal battle lines were drawn and Cote d'Ivoire has never recovered, though there was evidence of rapprochement between the political adversaries in recent months, after Gbagbo included opposition members in his government. But underlying divisions remained and Ouattaras Ivorian citizenship, confirmed earlier this year, has never been accepted by a significant and influential section of Ivorian society.
Ouattara has himself has taken refuge in the French Embassy residence in Abidjan. Overnight reports said his own home, which was looted on Friday, had also been set on fire.
Early Sunday, the French News Agency reported that France, the former colonial power in Cote d'Ivoire, had sent in troop reinforcements to protect its citizens. Accompanied by helicopters, 100 soldiers were flown in to back up an already 600-strong contingent at the permanent French military base in Abidjan.
"Under precautionary measures decided by the French authorities, to assure the security of French citizens and other foreign nationals, the army chief-of-staff has reinforced the military unit stationed in Abidjan," the French army announced in a statement.
Cote d'Ivoire is home to 20,000 French citizens, about 8,000 of those being dual- or tri-nationals, including a large Lebanese community.
The Ivorian authorities have, so far, not called on French military assistance. But such intervention by Paris used to be almost routine for conflicts in its former colonies, until France announced a change in its relations with the continent.
