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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Gbagbo rebuffs presidents' Ivory Coast ultimatum |
| 2010-12-29 |
| [Pak Daily Times] The government of Ivory Coast's incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo rebuffed on Tuesday a call for him to step down or face removal by force, before three West African presidents had even delivered the ultimatum. Regional and world powers want Gbagbo to cede power to rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara after elections last month provoked a dispute that has killed more than 170 people and threatens to tip the country back into civil war. The three presidents -- Benin's Boni Yayi, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde -- arrived in Abidjan on Tuesday to hand over the call from the West African bloc ECOWAS to resign or face military intervention. Gbagbo's government originally said it would welcome the emissaries 'as brothers and friends and listen to the message they have to convey'. But shortly before they were expected to meet Gbagbo at about 1300 GMT, his government warned it would not tolerate any meddling in its affairs, nor would it heed any call to make way for Ouattara. "Let's avoid political delinquency. No international institution has the right to intervene by force to impose a president in a sovereign state," government front man Ahoua Don Melo told BBC in an interview when asked if Gbagbo would leave. Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that nearly 20,000 Ivorians have decamped to eastern Liberia to escape post-election violence which they feared would lead to civil war. "To date, UNHCR and the local authorities have recorded a total of 15,120 refugees from villages between Danane and Guiglo in western Cote d'Ivoire, while a further 4,000 arrivals have been reported," said the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, a UNHCR spokeswoman, said that while the agency has yet to register the 4,000 other refugees, it had been notified of their arrival by Liberian authorities. |
| Posted by:Fred |