[QODLink]
Africa
One killed in Ivory Coast unrest
Police quash demonstrations by those opposed to Laurent Gbagbo, the president.
Last Modified: 05 Dec 2006 21:19 GMT
Ivory Coast is a former French colony

Police in Ivory Coast killed one protestor when breaking up demonstrations in the town of Agnibilekrou by opponents of Gbagbo who accuse him of blocking the work of Charles Konan Banny, the prime minister.

 

In Agnibilekrou dozens of protestors took to the streets.

 

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said: "They tried to resist the police. A shot was fired and the young man died. After they laid siege to the police station and burnt it."

One Abidjan resident said that youths there had set fire to a bus and shops had closed.

 

Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, who had also turned out in several cities and towns on the previous Thursday.

 

Protests were triggered by a dispute between Gbagbo and Banny over their powers under a UN-backed peace deal for the West African country that hopes for elections within a year.

 

"[Gbagbo] has restored assassins from the toxic waste affair. Ivorians cannot accept that"

Kouadio Konan Berti

The dispute was over the reinstatment of three senior civil servants accused of negligence when toxic waste was dumped in Abidjan in August. Ten people were killed by the fumes.

 

The three had been suspended during an investigation ordered by Banny, who has received the support of UN and foreign mediators.

 

Kouadio Konan Berti, an opposition youth leader, said: "[Gbagbo] has restored assassins from the toxic waste affair. Ivorians cannot accept that. 

 

"We have asked people to take to the streets. For a while the action of the government has been blocked with Gbagbo on one side and Banny on the other."

 

Two previously scheduled election deadlines in Ivory Coast, a former French colony which was once a prosperous West African country, have already passed as internationally backed peace efforts were impeded by political complexities.

 

Diplomats say they fear the latest row could further delay the elections, which requires progression on sensititve issues such as disarmament and an identification process to determine who is eligible to vote.

Source:
Agencies
Topics in this article
People
Country
Featured on Al Jazeera
In the frozen peaks of Afghanistan's Kunar province, a ferocious clash for supremacy rages amid the mountaintops.
Indigenous community with "third world conditions" sits 90km from diamond mine, prompting fight for resource royalties.
There is a unique and dangerous commerce system at work in Amazonia, where children risk their lives for a few pennies.
Organisations that influence social, cultural and political issues in the US have been hijacked by the far right.
<  > 
join our mailing list

Enter Zip Code
Go