Posted on 11/07/2004 8:53:38 AM PST by SmithL
BIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- Machete-waving mobs looted and burned in Ivory Coast's largest cities Sunday, laying siege to a French military base and searching house to house for French families after a day of sudden clashes between forces of France and its former colony.
France's military sent helicopters to pluck trapped expatriates from buildings as other helicopters and armored vehicles moved out to confront the mobs, lobbing volleys of tear gas and percussion grenades that sent rioters fleeing.
French gunships took up positions at bridges in skyscraper-lined Abidjan on Sunday, a day after seizing control of the country's two airports and flying in 600 reinforcements.
Faced with the confrontation with France, the Ivory Coast government reluctantly moved to call off its offensive against rebels who control the northern part of the country. The government broke a more than year-old cease-fire last week by launching airstrikes against the rebels.
The government said Sunday it was willing to cease fire and that it would pull back its troops. French retaliation on Saturday for a surprise bombing of French peacekeepers destroyed Ivory Coast's tiny air force and left its airports under French control.
The government took a defiant tone toward France. Ivory Coast will ask the U.N. Security Council for action against France, presidential spokesman Desire Tagro told The Associated Press.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
France has a military?
Well put...no co-partners in their war??? Why this is a UN outrage.
BWAHAHHAHHAHAAA
Still waiting for the anti-war protest march by ANSWER and other so-called anti-war groups.
How will Bubba handle this when he replaces Kofi?
Memo to State Department: Ask Ivory Coast for a few battalions for the Iraq War and discuss what our nations can do to France.
This is just another Vietnam colonization, imperialistic French policy.
Heyyyyyyyyy, Wait a minute................
Is this a unilateral action?? We need 17 resolutions first... send in inspectors... Paging Hans Brix! Where is the Zimbabwe Commission on all of this? WE didn't approve of French spending money and deploying troops...
He'll call in John Kerry to do the negotiations with the French.
Part of it is probably the best disciplined and the most feared military organization in the world—the Foreign Legion.
Bears repeating. French "peacekeepers" have been protecting the muslim "rebels" (jihadists) in the north from the Ivorian government.
LMAO>...... Oh thats sweeeeeeeet!
Keep our troops in yugo but start fighting on the right side!!!
Oil
By far the most important mineral in Côte d'Ivoire was petroleum. Petroleum was first discovered in the early 1970s on the continental shelf off the coast of Jacqueville, west of Abidjan. A short time later, a second field was discovered off Grand-Bassam, east of Abidjan. The discovery and development of the two fields coincided with the collapse of world cocoa and coffee prices in the late 1970s and was seen by many as the means by which the country could continue moving toward prosperity...
http://countrystudies.us/ivory-coast/54.htm
Machetes have killed tens of millions in Rwanda, Berundi, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Zaire, and other places. The international machete manufacturers are in collusion with our government and various South American sugar cane growers to profit from African civil war. Machetes are a symbol of big arms (and legs) dealers that the world cannot turn a blinded eye to anymore.
Children will not be safe until all assault machetes are banned.
We cannot let one more day go by when one more child suffers.
We must rid the world of assault machetes.
Will you please help us? Please contact MAIM
Mothers Against International Machetes --Evisceration NO MORE!
Machete-waving mobs loot and attack French targets
Should read: Machete-waving Freedom Fighter mobs loot and attack Imperialist Colonial French targets
But but but...I thought the sophisticated, worldly-wise, nuanced French understood how to handle these things without getting into ugly cowboy gunfights.
Surely the media has it wrong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.