IVORY COAST: Four pro-government protesters were killed in western Ivory Coast yesterday when UN peacekeepers opened fire to repel an attack on their base in a third day of anti-UN riots, Ivorian and UN officials said.
The deaths were the first reported in violent protests this week by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo who are demanding that UN and French peacekeepers withdraw from the west African country, divided in two by a 2002 civil war.
Government supporters began the protests this week to oppose a call by foreign mediators to end the mandate of the national parliament, which is dominated by Gbagbo loyalists.
UN bases and vehicles have been attacked by hundreds of protesters.
The four protesters were killed when demonstrators stormed a base used by Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers at Guiglo in the west of the country, which is split between a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north.
"The Guiglo camp was stormed at about 4am this morning. They were repelled by Bangladeshi soldiers. . . I know there are four from among the attackers [ who were killed]," UN spokeswoman Margherita Amodeo said.
An Ivorian military commander, who also confirmed the deaths but asked not to be named, said UN peacekeepers had since evacuated from the western towns of Guiglo and Duekoue.
A French army spokesman said the four protesters who were killed had tried to take weapons and had climbed on to armoured vehicles.
He said 12 more demonstrators had been injured.
In the commercial capital, Abidjan, pro-government youths blocked streets and took over state television studios from where they broadcast demands for UN and French peacekeeping troops to leave.
An adviser to President Gbagbo said Nigerian president and African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo, who has helped mediate Ivory Coast's peace process, would arrive in the country yesterday.
UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called on Mr Gbagbo's government to halt what he called "orchestrated violence directed against the United Nations".
France's chief of defence staff said yesterday that he believed the time had come for the international community to impose sanctions to back the peace process.
"The [ UN] Security Council has warned for a long time that sanctions are needed," Gen Henri Bentegeat told Europe 1 radio.
He said world leaders were losing patience with Ivory Coast, where France has around 4,000 troops enforcing a fragile peace alongside more than 7,000 UN troops and police.
"The African Union still needs to be ready to accept these sanctions.
"The UN does not decide without the Africans. And I think the time has come now," he said. France is Ivory Coast's former colonial overlord.
The security council voted in favour of sanctions in 2004, including travel bans or asset freezes, on individuals judged to be blocking the peace process.
However, it has not enforced them, although it renewed them in December. French defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said the situation in Ivory Coast was extremely worrying and urged a return to calm. "The incidents and the provocations will certainly not make the international community turn away from its goal to re-establish peace in that country, guarantee its unity and finally achieve free, transparent and credible elections," she told parliament.
"From this depends the future of Ivory Coast and the future of the sub-Saharan continent and the whole of Africa because we know very well that, little by little, the crisis in Ivory Coast could move beyond the borders of this country," she said.
In Abidjan yesterday, pro-Gbagbo youths were stopping and searching cars at roadblocks thrown across streets.
There was no public transport in many parts of the city.
Around 300 protesters returned yesterday to demonstrate outside UN mission headquarters in Abidjan, which was besieged by hundreds of government supporters on Tuesday.
The UN and international mediators are struggling to implement a long-delayed peace plan that now requires a presidential election to be held by the end of October following a process of disarmament.
The UN Security Council voted for targeted sanctions a year ago, including a travel ban or a freeze on assets, against individuals blocking the peace process. But it has not applied them despite renewing them last December.
In a blow to the UN-backed efforts, Mr Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party (FPI) said on Tuesday it was pulling out of the peace process.