ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Nov. 11 -- President Laurent Gbagbo on Thursday challenged French accounts of a bombardment that killed nine French troops and a U.S. aid worker Saturday. Gbagbo accused France of using the incident as a pretext to launch a drastic counterattack to weaken his grip on power.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Gbagbo questioned whether French troops had died in the bombing, saying that only an investigation by his government would clarify the events that led to a massive retaliation by French military forces.
French nationals board a military vessel to leave Abidjan. Violence has reigned in Ivory Coast since Saturday, when bombs killed 10 people.
(Luc Gnago -- Reuters)
|
|
"I haven't see any dead bodies," said Gbagbo, dressed in a dark suit and tie as he sat in the library of his official residence. "I didn't see anything."
The streets of Abidjan were calmer Thursday, with little of the looting and street mob scenes that had reigned since Saturday. But an additional 700 French citizens left the commercial capital on the second day of an airlift to Paris, while hundreds of Gbagbo's supporters controlled sections of the battle-scarred city.
Gbagbo called the Saturday attack a "pretext" for retaliation by former colonial rulers intent on undermining him. He said the French military response was so swift that it must have been planned long in advance of the incident.
He also said that without the French intervention, which destroyed the tiny Ivory Coast air force, his government would have been able to defeat a revolt in the north that has split the country for two years.
The president's comments were immediately disputed by French authorities here. The French military spokesman, Col. Henry Assauvy, said, "It's absolutely false. I know that the rumor is always that France is always preparing a coup. . . . We are not here to prepare a coup."
Assauvy added that the French became involved militarily last weekend because the Ivory Coast air force attacked a position held by French peacekeeping forces. The counterattack destroyed two fighter jets and some helicopters.
"We attacked the warplanes because we were attacked," Assauvy said.
Gbagbo's comments appeared to be part of a public relations push by Ivory Coast officials to portray themselves as victims in the complex standoff that has provoked nearly a week of violent unrest in this West African country.
As calm returned to the streets, the French military relinquished control of the international airport, and commercial flights were to resume Friday. French troops also pulled back from the Hotel d'Ivoire, where their highly visible position had stirred protest because of its proximity to Gbagbo's home.
But signs of the recent unrest were visible throughout the city. Overturned hulls of burned-out cars and trucks lay by roadsides, and coils of hastily laid barbed wire snaked along routes leading to the French military base. Hundreds of Gbagbo supporters, dubbed "Young Patriots," used makeshift barricades such as tree limbs to block passage to sections of the city where they roamed freely.
About 1,500 French nationals have flown to Paris since the outbreak of violence, and nearly the same number remained camped out at the French military base awaiting flights.
Until last week, an estimated 15,000 French citizens lived in Ivory Coast, most of them in Abidjan, a city of wide, tree-lined boulevards that once prompted comparisons to Paris. Since then, the city has deteriorated with a swiftness that startled many longtime residents.
