Posted on 11/06/2004 6:35:52 PM PST by conservativecorner
PARIS (Reuters) - France has ordered more troops to Ivory Coast to protect French citizens after nine French soldiers and a U.S. aid worker were killed in a government bombing raid and Ivory Coast troops fired on French forces. French President Jacques Chirac ordered the Ivory Coast planes involved in the Saturday airstrike destroyed and a defense source said French forces would also destroy five Ivorian military helicopters, leaving the country with only one helicopter.
Mobs of machete-wielding pro-government supporters rampaged through Abidjan, furious at the French destruction of the planes. Plumes of smoke rose from the plush Cocody suburb.
The French embassy said a French school in Cocody had been set ablaze, four French policemen were evacuated from a building by helicopter before it too was burned down and that there was a loud explosion near the embassy.
The escalating tension between the East African country and its former colonial ruler followed three days of a government air offensive to retake the rebel-held north of the country.
French troops, in the Ivory Coast alongside U.N. soldiers as part of a 10,000-strong contingent to keep rebels and government forces from fighting, came under fire on Saturday, military officials said.
Two additional companies of troops were being sent to the Ivory Coast to protect French nationals there, Chirac's office said. The defense ministry source said the two companies comprised a total of 300 soldiers.
A French military spokesman in Abidjan said Paris was also sending three Mirage fighter planes and one supply aircraft to the West African country of Gabon as reinforcements.
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told a news conference late on Saturday France was holding Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo "personally responsible" for maintaining public order in Abidjan.
Asked whether the bomb attack that killed the nine French soldiers, close to the rebel-held city of Bouake, was deliberate or committed in error, the French army's communications advisor Gerard Dubois told Reuters that that was a question only Ivorian officials could answer.
"For now, error or no error, that's up to the Ivorian government to say," he said.
"The President of the Republic has ordered the immediate destruction of the Ivorian military aircraft used in recent days in violation of the cease-fire," the office of French President Jacques Chirac said in a statement.
A defense ministry source told Reuters France was targeting five MI-24 helicopters, in addition to the Sukhois it has already eliminated. Destroying the seven aircraft would leave the Ivorian airforce with just one aircraft, the defense ministry source said.
there the french go again. rushing to war without a clear plan to retreat....
Brief history on Ivory Coast
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1043014.stm
EXACTLY!! LOL!
This unilateralist adventurism must stop. America must establish a Strong counter balance in the middle east in light of this wanton Franco hemogony in Africa. Where is the world consensus for this unprovoked attack? There must be a global test.
This has been interesting to research. France trying to keep the lid on the kettle to protect their military interests in their former colony.
Brokering peace accords or ...Nation building. Hmmmm. This just could not have boiled over at a better time.
While Jock is wagging his finger at the US from his front porch, his soufle' is burning in the oven!
THE BOSS would have to ride in the wheel well, because with Michael Moore and his 'attaches', there wouldn't be any spare room on that transport. Fortunately, it would be the French that would have to unload all of them.
All Ivory Coast would have to do is threaten the French using the tactic that John Kerry defined as beating America...Kerry even used it in paid political ads.... and the French would go away and pay a ransom on the way out.
Just make sure the Boss weras a courdory shirt and new jeans....
Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Limited
The Times (London)
September 23, 2002, Monday
SECTION: Overseas news; 12
HEADLINE: France flies in troops as foreigners flee Abidjan
BYLINE: Janine di Giovanni in Abidjan
BODY:
France sent troops to Ivory Coast yesterday to reinforce its 500-strong garrison as government forces tried to quell a rebellion in potentially the most serious emergency since the country gained independence from France in 1960.
"This is not to intervene in an internal conflict," Colonel Philippe Bonnel, the French Embassy military attache, said, "but to ensure the safety of French and other Western citizens".
However, the garrison moved out of Abidjan last night and was believed to be heading for Bouake, the country's second city, where 200 schoolchildren, including more than 100 Americans, have been trapped in a basement since the rebels captured it last Thursday.
The Washington Post
September 27, 2002 Friday
Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A18
HEADLINE: U.S. Woos Security Council on Iraq;
France, Russia, China Resist One Resolution Allowing Use of Force
BYLINE: Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, Washington Post Staff Writers
The Bush administration intensified its campaign yesterday to win support for a tough United Nations resolution against Iraq, circulating a draft to the permanent members of the Security Council and dispatching a senior official to Paris and Moscow.
Although British officials agreed to accept the U.S. draft resolution, the other members of the Security Council with veto powers -- France, Russia and China -- for now have opposed a resolution that would authorize military action if the Iraqi government failed to comply with U.N. demands for weapons inspections. Yesterday, the three nations appeared to coordinate their own efforts against the U.S. proposal.
No contradiction here-- just consistent French hegemonic foreign policy.
I'm sure it would be okay for us to supply weapons. I wish we would.
These unilateralist French cowboys have shunned the will of the United Nations!
"nine French soldiers and a (one) U.S. aid worker were killed"
It's Bush's fault!
Are the Ivory Coast folks Muslim, perhaps?
I believe the French were hoping for a more nuanced response from us.
No question, IT'S A QUAGMIRE!!! But, the good news for the French is that they will be able to blame ALL this year's budgetary failures on the quagmire in the Ivory Coast! Germay, of course, will not have any excuse.
GO IVORY COAST!!! Woo-hoo!!!
Ummmm, most recently, they brokered a 'peace' treaty favoring the northern Muslim rebels, and that treaty isn't holding up very well.
How many french snipers does it take, to take out, the french sniper, snipeing his own troops..?
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