A map of the Ivory Coast that illustrates the military forces loyal to both the incumbent Gbagbo and Ouattara who is supported by the UN and the West. ECOWAS is threatening to enter the country.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
By ADAM NOSSITER
New York Times
Posted: Friday, January 14, 2011 12:00 am
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast • Mobs loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, the president who refuses to give up power after losing an election, burned and stoned five U.N. vehicles, including an ambulance, on Thursday, a U.N. spokesman said.
The attacks appeared to represent an escalation of Gbagbo's campaign against the presence of nearly 10,000 U.N. troops in the country, assigned among other duties to protect the government of Alassane Ouattara, who defeated Gbagbo in last November's presidential election.
Gbagbo has demanded that the U.N. troops leave the country. The patrols have been fired on by men in uniform, and the state television station nightly broadcasts vitriolic attacks, asserting that the foreign troops are in league with rebel forces that control the northern half of the country.
The latest attacks took place at improvised checkpoints staffed by area youths who support Gbagbo, but the U.N. spokesman in Abidjan said that some in the mob included men wearing the uniforms of government security forces. Two of the vehicles were burned, and three others were damaged, said the spokesman, Kenneth Blackman.
The crowd stoned the ambulance, injuring the head of the patient inside, he said.
Late Tuesday, a U.N. patrol was shot at in the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan from both sides of the road — "ambushed," Blackman said — during a Gbagbo security forces assault on the pro-Ouattara neighborhood. Some police officers were also killed in the assault.
"The attack on the ambulance is a bit shocking," Blackman said. "Even where there is a war, no one targets ambulances. It goes against the principles of basic decency."
In New York, the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, strongly condemned the latest attacks, saying they were "crimes under international law."
Meanwhile, the U.N. human rights chief in Ivory Coast reported "phenomena which elsewhere resulted in genocide," according to the mission's account of its weekly news conference in Abidjan. Among the "warning signs," the U.N. said, were 'signs that weapons are being distributed to civilians."
In Geneva, Reuters reported that the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, expressed concern about the potential discovery of a new mass grave in Ivory Coast. Two others have already been reported; as at previously reported sites, government troops have blocked access by U.N. investigators.
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