Posted on 11/08/2004 5:47:09 AM PST by Clive
After 36 hours of turbulence, Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan is approaching calm again.
Long convoys of French tanks and armoured vehicles snaked down Abidjan's broad boulevards last night, as the French peacekeepers attempted to dissuade supporters of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo from anti-French violence.
After the French destroyed the Ivorian air force in retaliation for an air raid that killed nine French peacekeepers, repeated broadcasts on national television urged Ivorians to take to the streets.
Tens of thousands of President Gbagbo's supporters heeded the call, flooding towards the international airport which had been seized by the French.
'Protestors killed'
French soldiers and helicopters fired shots designed to intimidate the marchers, some of whom were armed.
I saw red flashes zooming through the night sky, and loud explosions on one of the two bridges that join the two segments of Abidjan in half.
The wave of protestors ran in panic as helicopters fired on the bridge.
"They killed about 15 of our young men, and injured dozens," the head of the Nationaly Assembly, Mamadou Koulibaly, told the BBC.
The French have subsequently denied the claim.
French looted
Either way the frustrated youths turned their attention on other French targets throughout Abidjan.
French businesses were destroyed, French schools burned, and the homes of European civilians attacked.
"A group of thugs came to our house," one French woman told the BBC.
"They took what they wanted. We were all terrified. I have a young daughter of 17 and I was so scared of what they would do to her."
The woman and her family were subsequently rescued by UN peacekeepers and taken to a safe location.
Airlifts
The French say that, in conjunction with the UN, they have pulled at least 100 people out of dangerous situations.
French helicopters airlifted Europeans from apartment blocks and the prestigious Hotel Ivoire.
Impromptu road-blocks of burning tires were set up in many of Abidjan's broad boulevards, and in the plush residential district of Cocody, Gbagbo militants went door to door looking for whites.
"Everyone get his white!" crowds shouted along the Rue des Jardins in Cocody.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that many of the masses of young men swarming through the town were more interested in loot that brutality.
"The took my stuff but they didn't hurt me," said Marc, a Frenchman, who has been in Ivory Coast for eight years.
Troop movements
As Sunday progressed, the French military presence got bigger and bigger.
The southern half of Abidjan was quartered by French patrols, and in the night the tanks and armoured cars moved across the two bridges and into the north.
By the morning a precarious calm had taken hold of the city.
Street vendors started selling again, and guards sat lazily chatting in the early morning sun.
That does not mean the situation was completely back to normal however.
Ivorian radio repeatedly played a message demanding people to head to the Hotel Ivoire where many French tanks had been sighted.
Boatloads of people from the district of Yopougon responded to the call.
Yet with the military might at their disposal, it seems likely the French will quell this new show of popular force.
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Did this invasion pass the "global test"? Did the UN Security Council approve? Where is the coalition?
Thanks for the post. Interesting.
Do they call ethnic cleansing if it whites that are the victims...?
Never.
Whites may be victims in this instance, but it's the average people that have to suffer under governments the French support at the behest of their own economic interests. Otherwise, the French are completely selfish and not above oil and sex for food scandals in the UN. You obviously know no one that has had to live in a French colonial area at the hands of French colonists.
I know lots of Canadians...
*lol* point taken
The french are not supporting the government. BTW The cry was "Everyman get his frenchman!" I wondered why they changed it hmmmm?
Who is going to suffer more under a radical muslim run government? Rich French businesspeople or the average black christian? I can tell you that it won't be the first set of people. I find it very hard to believe that many French aren't supporting the government because that's how they usually make the money. That's what they've done in the past when the French were in charge.
The Muslims are not in charge of the government.
The french are supporting the Muslims who want to over throw the elected government which is black and Christian
Thanks. I'm convinced the French government has some financial stake in it, supporting a muslim run government. For all the talk about the muslim religion from these people, they're as big a pack of hypocrites as a lot of others. They like money too.
The Ivory Coast is an independent nation and things were going along fairly well until about 5 years ago when the Muslims began to come in over the northern boarder. Then the french took their side openly about a year ago(maybe a little longer).
The french want a government in there that they can control. A prosperous former colony is not in the french interest, a weak dependent colony that is subject to french interests is.
It's pretty sad. I'd not wish a muslim run government on any nation in Africa. I don't wish it anywhere it the world really. It doesn't speak well of the French government to back such people IMHO.
I had a buddy who was a marine guard at the Ivory Coast US Embassy in the late 80's. He regarded it as the Costa Rica of Africa, its a shame to have this happen.
The dirty secret about the French is that they will support those loyal to the French over English-speaking or groups supported by former British colonies. That's why they supported the Hutus in Rwanda, the Tutsis were supported by English-speaking Uganda.
It's all the French's fault. They obviously began peace keeping without a PLAN for the post peace-keeping phase. If they'd just had a PLAN, this never would have happened.
Sincerely;
the DNC
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