Posted on 01/31/2003 2:53:30 PM PST by Clive
Abidjan - A 5 000-strong stone-throwing mob invaded Ivory Coast's main airport on Friday, storming planes on the tarmac and taunting, slapping and spitting at terrorised French families in flight from their onetime prize West African colony.
"Never come back!" young men, spewing profanities and spitting, shouted after one woman and three children running sobbing under a gauntlet of blows from parking lot to terminal.
French forces deployed on the runway and airport perimeter in cannon-mounted armoured vehicles and in helicopters, at one point squaring off - rifles locked, loaded and aimed - against Ivory Coast forces.
The day marked the most tense yet in a week of often-violent anti-French protests.
Stolen suitcases
France - its decades-old influence in West Africa's economic hub crumbling fast over anger at a French-brokered peace deal here -reluctantly urged its citizens out. The United States, Britain and others did so weeks ago.
Hurled rocks injured at least two French soldiers, one seriously, French military spokesperson Lt Col Philippe Perret said. Rioters terrorised passengers, stealing suitcases and handbags, Perret said.
"Go home and don't come back!" the protesters screamed at families as they grabbed their bags and rushed into the airport. "Idiots!" rioters yelled at the ducking, crouching French.
The airport invasion follows days of mass protests by hard-core government loyalists - angry over a peace deal signed on January 24 in Paris that they say yields too much to Ivory Coast's rebels, who have seized more than half the country in a 4-month-old civil war.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, and West Africa's economic hub - accounting for 40% of the gross production of former French West Africa. Decades of stability and prosperity made it the base for French and others doing business in the region.
War here already has killed thousands, uprooted more than one million, and paralysed the country.
Friday's protest began with a march on the airport at the commercial capital of Abidjan. Protestors pledged to keep prime minister-designate Seydou Diarra, picked to help lead Ivory Coast under the French-brokered peace deal, "from touching Ivory Coast soil".
Rushed the terminal
Diarra, instead, remained in Dakar, Senegal, where West African leaders met into the night with Ivory Coast's government and rebels in a desperate effort to salvage Ivory Coast.
Rioters' anger turned on the French instead.
Wrapped in the orange, green, and white colors of Ivory Coast's flag, rioters rushed the terminal, and then the tarmac, blowing whistles. Ivory Coast police and paramilitary police exhorted them to leave.
As they talked, French forces arrived in force. Four French troop helicopters landed on the tarmac. French soldiers spilled out, rushing to secure the tarmac even as protesters set fire to the French flag.
More French forces rolled up in a armoured vehicles with mounted cannon, taking up posts on the tarmac, airport perimeter and the main road in and out.
French and Ivorian forces prodded protesters off the tarmac after 45 minutes.
Outside, militants continued to harass vehicles traveling to and from the airport.
At its tensest, French soldiers and Ivory Coast forces faced off against each other - former colonial ruler and subjects, training rifles, locked and loaded, on each other.
Standoff
The allies' armed standoff started when a line of 100 French directed their firearms on rioters, trying to stop them from hurling stones onto them over the heads of Ivorian solders.
At the sound of French firearms locking behind them, the 120-member cadre of Ivorian forces spun around.
Rioters cheered as Ivorians aimed their rifles at the French forces. Travellers inside the terminals ran away from the glass fronts.
The standoff ended after a minute or so, with no shots fired. French and Ivory Coast officers moved to the nearby French military base for talks - trying to mend the previously unthinkable rift after decades of close military and financial partnership.
Earlier, Ivory Coast Defence Minister Bertin Kadet sought to calm the protesters, assuring them, "I have asked the French military to evacuate the area in order to pacify the crowd."
French forces did not immediately comply. "One thing is sure, we'll be at the airport as long as French nationals are there," French Commander Frederic Thomazo said.
Flights resumed
By end of day, however, French forces had moved out of sight at the airport, but held positions on the road leading into it.
Flights suspended during the confrontation resumed. Air France said it would lay in bigger planes and another flight each day to get the fleeing French out.
In a message posted on the French Foreign Ministry's website, France urged that "French people whose presence isn't indispensable leave the country.
In Dakar, leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Niger entered closed-door talks with representatives of Ivory Coast's three rebel groups and the government.
The January 24 peace deal puts rebels and the government into a power-sharing administration until 2005 elections. Loyalists have objected most strongly to unconfirmed rebel claims that the deal gives them control of Ivory Coast's military and paramilitary.
Rebel leader Guillame Soro, speaking briefly to reporters in Dakar, suggested reluctance to yield the contested Defence and Interior ministries.
Liberia
"These accords for us will mean the return to peace in our country," Soro said. "We call on the heads of state ... to help implement them as fast as possible."
West African leaders most fear seeing Ivory Coast lapse into the kind of bloodshed and upheaval that has laid waste to neighbouring countries.
A 1999 military coup, its first-ever, ended decades of stability. Ethnic and political violence culminated in another coup attempt in September and subsequent civil war.
Rebel groups in the north and west accuse President Laurent Gbagbo of fanning ethnic hatred, and demand his resignation.
Meanwhile, on Friday, neighbouring Liberia threatened trouble on another front - accusing Ivory Coast forces of hunting down and killing innocent Liberian refugees in Ivory Coast. Some Liberian gunmen are fighting on the side of western Ivorian rebels, which has sparked anger here against Liberians in general.
"Liberia will not sit back to see Liberians being humiliated and killed," Justice Minister Lavela Koboi Johnson said in a statement from Monrovia, without specifying what action his government might take. - Sapa-AP
Even on the first thread, the subject was studiously avoided, as to who was rioting, and why.
Islam is peace has touched yet another country.
The "rebels" the French decided to pacify with new powers, to secure an end to civil war and produce peace, were ...ISLAMIC!
The current defence forces are ..CHRISTIAN.
Is the pattern emerging people?
Instead of helping the govt of IC to crush the Muslim rebels (like an "American cowboy"), Chirac shoved a sellout deal "power sharing arrangement" on the non-Muslim IC govt, a deal which gave the military portfolio to the Muslim terrorists!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incredible!!!!!!!!!!!
The French ALWAYS look for the easy way to appease, surrender, or collaborate. ALWAYS!
That's why Paris will be the capitol of EURABIA in 50 years, and all formerly French women will be wearing burkas and will have had "the operation" to stop their "filthy infidel lust."
It's not a good idea to throw rocks at armed people- Tom
Years of pro-war/anti-war division among the American people culminated during those 13 seconds of bloody mayhem at Kent State. American citizens fired high-powered rifles into a crowd of unarmed American students.
For a brief moment, I assumed they were firing blanks because there was no reason whatsoever to fire live ammunition as they seemed to be retreating over the hilltop. At the moment the massacre occurred, as I stood and watched carefully, I saw several of my fellow-students run away and drop to the ground.
As the bullets began to fly, my survival instinct caused me to make a quick dash behind an oak tree a few feet away--the only tree in the direct line-of-fire. Because I had been taunting the guardsmen, I am convinced they shot at me (and others) intentionally. As I ran behind the tree during the first seconds of gunfire I felt a sharp pain in my right wrist. An M-1 rifle bullet passed through my right wrist.
That would of course depend on their orders and their officers. What I am suggesting is that I would have fired on them, and given the order to my troops do so, had I been the commander on the scene. Rocks can kill and maime, and those who would throw them at armed people or at innocent women and children protected by armed people should think long and hard before doing so, and if they decide to throw 'em, they take their chances at getting shot.
Two French soldiers were wounded -- including one who was hit in the face by a rock -- as their heavily armed forces took control of the airport with helicopters and armored vehicles, said Lt. Col. Philippe Perret, a French military spokesman. "The demonstrators blocked the entrance to the airport, and aggressively threw stones at vehicles with French people," he said. "French citizens were trapped inside the airport, in the departure lounge. The demonstrators looted bags and suitcases."
The exodus of Westerners from this former French colony came as West African leaders gathered in nearby Senegal to try to salvage the peace pact, which is in danger of collapsing after the Ivorian army, key politicians and traditional chiefs rejected it as giving too much power to the rebels. Seydou Diarra, a former prime minister from the rebel-held Muslim north, was scheduled to return Friday from Senegal to head a coalition government designed to end the five-month civil war, which has killed hundreds. He elected to stay in Senegal rather than face the mob.
The thousands of protesters outside the airport were in no mood to let Diarra return. Many felt that France forced Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to sign the peace deal, which was hammered out last week in Paris. The protesters invaded parts of the airport and flooded onto the tarmac, blocking airplanes from taking off or landing. About 100 French soldiers managed to push them out of the airport, where other demonstrators burned a French flag and jeered at the fleeing French citizens.
By midafternoon, French soldiers managed to secure the airport. Cannon-mounted armored vehicles took up positions around the perimeter, but demonstrators kept taunting people in vehicles entering and leaving the airport. "We're going to stay as long as it's necessary," said Col. Frederic Thomazo, the French commander who said he was also hit with a stone. [End]
BTW, it's 75* in SD.
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.