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Gbagbo, right, is set to crush the military coup
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ABIDJAN,
September 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Ivory Coast President
Laurent Gbagbo headed home Friday, September 20, 2002, to tackle a
violent but failed coup bid, while government forces in the west
African country prepared an offensive against mutineers still holding
out.
Gbagbo
cut short a state visit to Italy, cancelled an audience with Pope John
Paul II on Friday, and vowed strong action against the mutineers, whom
he called "terrorists," before leaving Rome, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Government
troops crushed an insurgency, which rocked Abidjan from the early
hours Thursday, September 19, costing at least 80 lives. Mutineers
still controlled the second largest town, Bouake, in Ivory Coast's
cocoa-producing belt.
"The
President is returning as a combatant to tackle the last pockets of
resistance and lead whatever action is necessary against the
terrorists," Presidential spokesman Alain Toussaint quoted Gbagbo
as saying.
Defense
Minister Moise Lida Kouassi told AFP in Abidjan, "The mutineers
are concentrating their forces. We are preparing for an assault"
on Bouake, which has a garrison about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north
of the capital.
The
Minister, speaking after a special meeting of the Council of
Ministers, warned of a tough offensive against the renegade soldiers
and ruled out any negotiations with them.
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| Gen. Robert Guei, coup leader, was killed
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He
said over state radio that the rebels contacted him for negotiations
but stressed that the only item for discussion as far as the state was
concerned was the conditions of the rebels' surrender.
If
this were not done, Bouake "will be cleaned up before
nightfall", he said.
While
Kouassi did not specify how many government troops would be sent to
Bouake, he said an advance team had been sent to the city Thursday to
"evaluate the number of rebel soldiers" there.
Kouassi's
wife and five children took shelter at the residence of French
Ambassador Renaud Vignal since Thursday's coup bid, a source told AFP
Friday.
The
children and their nanny were sent first and the Minister's wife,
kidnapped by army mutineers on the night of Wednesday to Thursday,
joined them after her release.
She
was beaten by her captors and still bore the marks, the source said.
Meanwhile,
France said Friday it will not take sides in the fighting gripping
Ivory Coast, confirming its policy of non-interference in its former
colony despite key interests in west Africa.
France
has 600 troops stationed in Ivory Coast, whose government dubbed
Thursday's mutiny a foiled coup bid staged by a former military ruler,
but Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said "France has no
intention of interfering."
The
clashes in the former economic powerhouse of west Africa, which is a
major cocoa producer and home to some 20,000 French nationals, are
"at the moment, a purely internal affair," she told
television news channel LCI.
"Help
is given under very precise circumstances," the Minister added.
"Under
our cooperation agreements, France could be called on to intervene if
a country like Ivory Coast is attacked from abroad. But only under
those circumstances," the Minister said.
Ivory
Coast and France have had a military cooperation accord since 1962.
The
Defense Minister's statement put to rest speculation raised since
Thursday as to whether the new centre-right government of Prime
Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin would maintain the policy of
non-interference introduced by its socialist predecessors under Lionel
Jospin.
Former
military ruler Robert Guei, who staged Ivory Coast's first coup in
December 1999, Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou and at least 80
government troops were killed and 150 wounded in the fighting which
broke out early Thursday in Abidjan, Bouake and the northern town of
Korhogo.
Guei's
wife was also killed, an informed source said.
The
government charged that Guei was behind the unrest.
Meanwhile,
a non-commissioned officer told AFP over telephone from Korhogo in the
far north of Ivory Coast that the town was under rebel control.
Sergeant
Major Prosper Kouadio, who said he was speaking on behalf of the
mutineers, said the rebels' demands included keeping 775 men facing
imminent demobilization in the army's ranks, and the release of all
jailed soldiers and gendarmes.
"If
this is not done, (rebels at) Korhogo et Bouake will move towards
Abidjan immediately," he said.
The
prefect of Korhogo, Nestor Konan Kouakou, detained by the mutineers,
confirmed the town was held by the renegade soldiers but said it was
"very calm."
