The Associated Press, Fri 7 Feb 2003 |
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday urged his war-divided country to give a controversial peace accord a chance after four months of war that have crippled this West African economic powerhouse.
Speaking on national television, he dismissed loyalist fears that the French-brokered deal gives the key defense and interior ministries to rebels who have seized half of Ivory Coast.
``Let's try this medicine,'' he told supporters who have staged days of often-violent demonstrations against the deal. ``If we get better, then we keep it. If not, we try something else.'' Gbagbo's repeatedly postponed speech had been tensely awaited since he returned from France following the signing of the accord on Jan. 24.
The deal calls for formation of a unity government in which the rebels say they would control the interior and defense ministries a compromise that outrages loyalists behind days of rioting in the commercial capital, Abidjan.
Gbagbo assured supporters he had not yet decided the composition of a new government, and that there was no possibility the military would be disarmed.
``If I wasn't the president of the republic, I would have been in the streets demonstrating with you. You are right,'' Gbagbo said. But he urged his followers to ``go to work, go to school'' and give the accord time to work.
Earlier Friday, 300 French reinforcements arrived in Ivory Coast. The soldiers, wearing berets and carrying gunny sacks, disembarked from an Air France jet and boarded buses to a French military base adjacent to the international airport in Abidjan.
The troops, which bring France's total deployment in its former colony to 3,000, will help ``protect and secure French and foreign nationals in Abidjan,'' said French military spokesman Lt. Col. Philippe Perret.
Up to 15,000 French civilians remain in Ivory Coast, down from about 20,000 when the civil war erupted out of a failed coup on Sept. 19.
Some army officers, as well as members of Gbagbo's government and political party, have already come out against the peace accord.
Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the war. Rebels are fighting to oust Gbagbo's government, which they accuse of fanning ethnic hatred.
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