SMH Home
Home   >   World News   >   Article  
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
..........

UN to pull out staff as rioters target foreigners

February 8 2003


The United Nations has ordered all its non-essential staff out of Ivory Coast, after thousands of other foreigners fled amid violent loyalist riots and protests.

Rebel groups, meanwhile, insisted the French-brokered peace deal that sparked the two-week-old wave of protests must stand.

The peace deal, reached on January 24, seeks to end the war by bringing rebels into a power-sharing government until elections in 2005.

Supporters of the Government of President Laurent Gbagbo have attacked the French embassy and other national targets as well as foreigners, blaming French mediators for a deal loyalists see as giving too much power to rebels.

Anti-foreigner rampages and mass marches have become a nearly daily occurrence in the southern city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial capital.

Mr Gbagbo appeared on state television on Thursday hinting at a compromise - one that would satisfy rebels and his hard-core followers.

Fred Eckhard, a UN spokesman in New York, said about 80 of the 120 staff in Ivory Coast would remain after the evacuation.

France's Defence Ministry said about 3000 of its nationals had fled the former French colony since January 26.

Rebel leaders spent Thursday arguing about whether to give Mr Gbagbo a last chance to respect the deal or return to a conflict that has killed nearly 5000 people, displaced a million and plunged the world's largest cocoa producer into chaos.

"The agreement will be applied," a western rebel leader, Felix Doh, said.

"We forced no one to sign anything in Paris. And Gbagbo signed it."

Since returning from the Paris peace talks, Mr Gbagbo has increasingly distanced himself from the accord. Initially he said he had no choice but to compromise with rebels since he had been unable to defeat them on the battlefield. But later he seemed to waver, calling parts of the deal only "proposals".

Mr Gbagbo was expected to address the nation on the peace deal last night, aides said.

Agencies


Top

Printer friendly version  Printer friendly version      Email to a friend  Email to a friend



magnifying glass SEARCH ALL FAIRFAX ARCHIVES (*Fee for full article)
 


Also in World

Blair lays down law against using veto

North Korea warns final showdown with US will be a nuclear one

Icy rain hampers search for top secret shuttle device

Refuseniks practise army reserve in Arab territories

UN to pull out staff as rioters target foreigners

A new paper chase to run the refugees out of town

Four years' jail for thief who had a compulsive love of art

Comrade 'turncoat' dies in a hail of bullets

Cussin' Russian MPs to bleep out swearing

Tourism in the crossfire

Humiliated and alone, Mad Dog Adair is finally muzzled

If gran's too long in the bath, it's robot to the rescue

FBI woos Chinese students for a technology check

Europe asks whether it has a place for God

Healing art and the medicine in music

Computer users asked to help fight disease without even leaving home