Posted on 02/19/2003 9:30:55 PM PST by Sparta
YAMOUSSOUKRO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The dignitaries at Yamoussoukro's airport craned their necks to get a better view of the two soldiers fighting.
This was no ordinary scuffle between bored army men. One was French, the other Ivorian and the incident highlighted the deteriorating relations between the two sides.
Dug in across no-man's land, lambasted by both sides and occasionally shot at, the elite French forces are stuck in the middle of a five-month civil war in their former colony.
Rebels fighting to oust President Laurent Gbagbo have long urged the troops to leave, saying the French army is all that stands between them and the southern, economic centre of Abidjan.
In the wild frontier lands of the west, near the border with Liberia, rebels have attacked heavily-armed French checkpoints several times after Ivorian troops retreated behind them.
Now, relations between the French and the West African county's own armed forces have plumbed new depths.
"Things are very tense," said one French soldier in Abidjan. "They are doing everything to make the situation worse," he added, referring to Ivory Coast's armed forces.
For decades, France was known as the "gendarme of Africa" -- sending troops to solve crises across its former colonies. But it has taken a back seat on the continent since its intervention in Rwanda in 1994 failed to halt genocide.
When Ivory Coast slid into war, however, the stakes were too high to do nothing. The world's largest cocoa producer had long been the jewel among former French colonies -- a stable, prosperous haven in a region battered by brutality.
More than 3,000 crack French troops -- including battle-hardened Foreign Legionnaires and tight-lipped special forces -- are spread out across Ivory Coast, protecting French nationals and other foreigners and policing a ceasefire.
They have already evacuated thousands of French citizens from rebel-held zones, plucking them out with helicopters or securing roads for people to drive away.
TENSIONS MOUNT
The civil war started in September with a failed coup. Now three rebel factions hold the north and large chunks of the verdant, cocoa-rich west, near the border with Liberia.
A French-brokered peace deal appears deadlocked, rebels regularly threaten to take up arms again, and the army appears increasingly hostile to the French military presence.
Last week's fight, which took place as West African leaders arrived for a mini-summit, was the second incident in two days at Yamoussoukro airport, which is also a French base.
An Ivorian soldier pulled a gun on French soldiers in their control room the day before, military sources said. "Brush with disaster" headlined the independent daily 24 Hours, saying both sides trained their guns on each other during the incident.
According to witnesses, the same Ivorian soldier pulled out a gun in the lobby of Abidjan's premium Hotel Ivoire a few days later and began threatening French troops.
Last week, a French soldier, who was shortly due to finish his tour, took some souvenir pictures with a throwaway camera at the outskirts of Abidjan. Ivorian paramilitary police objected, and the soldier was ordered to smash his camera.
On the frontline, French soldiers say relations with Ivorian commanders depend very much on personal contact, and can be friendly. But in Abidjan, the mood appears to be souring.
In an interview on state radio last week, Defence Minister Bertin Kadet criticised French troops for travelling around without informing Ivorian authorities.
"We have the impression that Ivory Coast has become a colony again. And Ivorians will not accept that," he said. "It's not normal that foreign troops move and patrol across the territory without asking our permission."
Kadet said French troops had also been seen on the roof of the luxurious Golf Hotel in Abidjan, filming Gbagbo's residence.
ANTI-FRENCH SENTIMENT RISING
French army spokesman Philippe Perret, said that if French soldiers were taking pictures it would have been "to deepen our knowledge of the city to improve our capacity to act in the event we have to reinforce the security of French nationals".
Thousands of French citizens have made their homes in Ivory Coast, but many left after violent anti-French riots exploded in Abidjan when the peace deal was agreed last month.
Perret also said the French do inform the Ivorian military authorities of the movements of their soldiers.
Many pro-Gbagbo supporters believe French soldiers are actively helping the rebels -- a charge denied by the French.
The loyalist antagonism to the French has been growing. Last week politicians denounced what they say is the heavy presence of French troops in Abidjan, and pro-government newspapers accused the French of plotting against Gbagbo.
This week, radical student leader Charles Ble Goude called a week-long sit-in outside the French base in Abidjan. His fiery call to arms raised fears of the kind of violence that rocked Abidjan when the peace deal was announced.
But the protest was called off by the authorities, who also announced tighter cooperation between the French and Ivorian armies -- apparently in a bid to soothe public anger.
That ire was summed up by Honorat de Yedagne, managing director of the pro-Gbagbo newspaper Fraternite Matin: "France wants to behave like a rogue state in Ivory Coast. It is up to the Ivorians to take this on board and to react."
The French are always on their backs, it seems.
This line is really funny for some reason...
By elite they mean these troops can form a white flag from a blank sheet of paper and a toothpick in under 30 seconds.
NO BLOOD FOR COCOA!
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