World

Protest Rocks Ivory Coast

October 23, 2000 / 4:41 PM EDT / AP

Security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators Tuesday as thousands took to the streets after the Ivory Coast's military junta leader declared himself the winner of presidential elections intended to restore civilian rule.

At least two people were killed. Opposition officials put the number at nine.

Waves of demonstrators wore blackened faces and leaves in their hair as traditional war symbols. They marched through otherwise deserted downtown Abidjan streets toward barricaded government offices, retreating when soldiers and military police fired machine guns and tear gas at them, then regrouping and surging forward again.

The body of one demonstrator lay on the ground after a burst of gunfire as tear gas wafted over the streets. Witnesses said at least five others were injured.

The clashes came hours after junta leader Gen. Robert Guei dissolved the commission overseeing Sunday's presidential elections — in which he was a candidate — and declared himself the winner.

Furious over Guei's announcement, opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo also declared himself president and called on his supporters to protest the junta's move.

"I cannot let a country be dragged into the mud as Guei would like it," he told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters. "I ask that in all the cities of Ivory Coast and in every neighborhood Ivorians take to the streets."

His supporters, though, had already begun to rally, swarming into the streets of Abidjan and other cities within minutes of the junta announcement and tearing down any Guei campaign poster they came across.

Tens of thousands of protesters set up roadblocks of furniture, rocks and burning tires in neighborhoods across Abidjan, leaving plumes of black smoke streaking across the sky.

Soldiers in riot gear fired tear gas at the crowds, beating some youths with chains and iron bars. Two rioters were stripped naked and thrown into the back of a military jeep in suburban Riviera.

Police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators marching on a highway cutting through the exclusive Cocody suburb, witnesses said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said soldiers on a moving truck aimed and fired three times into a crowd of protesters, who quickly fled. A body was later found in that area, one witness said.

Freedom Neruda, an official with Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front, said nine people were killed in Abidjan in various clashes Tuesday and 13 were badly injured. Those figures could not be confirmed.

Thousands of opposition supporters filled the streets in Gbagbo's hometown of Gagnoa, in western Ivory Coast, where demonstrators burned and looted the home of the junta leaders' local campaign manager and set fire to a Mercedes parked outside.

"We're demanding that Guei resign," said a local Ivorian Popular Front official who identified himself only as Yapi.

The junta declared a state of emergency and a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, in effect until Sturday. As night approached, calm was restored to most Abidjan neighborhoods. Protesters emptied streets and armed soldiers patrolled into the night.

Daniel Bamba Sheik, a senior Interior Ministry official, blamed massive fraud and the inability of electoral officials for the decision to disband the commission overseeing Sunday's vote.

He accused unidentified parties of busing voters from Abidjan to villages in the interior to vote twice.

Bamba Sheik said Guei took 52.72 percent of last Sunday's vote against 41.02 for Gbagbo, with three lesser-known candidates sharing the rest. He also claimed that only 3.6 million voters had been legally registered, down from the 5.5 million announced by the commission before the ballot. Some 153,000 votes were nullified, he added.

Gbagbo, however, declared he had 59.58 percent of the vote to 32.91 percent for Guei.

Neither claim could be independently verified. Electoral commission officials were not immediately available for comment.

Guei later went on state-run television to thank Ivorians who, he said, "like one man, in a great wave of dignity and solidarity, have just taken me to the head of the country." He appealed for peace, saying he was willing to work with his adversaries.

Guei's moves infuriated France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, which keeps hundreds of soldiers based in Abidjan.

"What we are seeing is an attempted coup," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said Tuesday. "France will not accept it, the European Union will not accept it, and there will be consequences."

The vote was controversial from the beginning. The nation's two largest political parties boycotted the ballot after their leaders were barred from running by the Supreme Court. Gbagbo was the only political heavyweight allowed to run against the junta leader.

The United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the European Union and countries such as the United States and Canada withdrew election observers or funding before the vote, saying the exclusion of major opponents made a free and fair election impossible.

Ivory Coast saw its reputation as a bastion of regional calm destroyed in a December coup d'etat that brought Guei to power. The country's economy has also been battered by a steep decline in the prices of its main exports, coffee and cocoa.

The instability has frightened Ivorians and foreign investors alike.