A day after toppling the military dictator in a popular uprising, residents of Ivory Coast furiously turned against one another today, and the deadly clashes quickly took on religious and ethnic overtones and spread to smaller cities.
Supporters of two of the main political parties, unified the day before in their opposition to the officer, Gen. Robert Guei, were thrust apart today by religion, ethnicity and their leaders' ambitions.
The winner of Sunday's disputed election, Laurent Gbagbo, was sworn in as president this afternoon in the presidential palace. Mr. Gbagbo, who has the backing of the security forces, said he would not hold a new election despite calls to do so from the country's two other major parties, the United Nations, the United States and the Organization for African Unity. ''I extend my hand to everyone,'' he said after the inauguration, adding that he would form a government of national unity as early as Friday.
But Alassane D. Ouattara, a former prime minister who was barred from running in the election and is insisting on a new vote, took refuge in the German ambassador's residence this morning after security forces surrounded his house and fired tear gas and ammunition.
The attack was led by supporters of Mr. Gbagbo and backed by paramilitary gendarmes in two vehicles, according to Mr. Ouattara's supporters and other witnesses. A motley group of Mr. Ouattara's own forces -- including armed guards, traditional hunters known as dozos and young men carrying machetes, Molotov cocktails and rocks -- guarded the house after he fled. ''Look at what they tried to do the house this morning,'' said Ali Coulibaly, a spokesman for Mr. Ouattara, rejecting the idea that his party could work with Mr. Gbagbo. ''We can't tell the difference now between the security forces and Gbagbo's party. Look at the way Gbagbo seized power today.''
Elsewhere in Abidjan, dozens of people were reported killed, pushing the toll over three days to near 90. Only a day earlier, euphoria had swept the country after tens of thousands of Ivoirians descended on the city center and, in scenes that recalled the popular revolt against Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia but were new to Africa, overthrew General Guei. The general, who had declared himself winner of the election after canceling the count, fled Abidjan, though his whereabouts was still unclear tonight.
Immediately after the general's downfall, Mr. Gbagbo declared himself president, called for national reconciliation and lifted the state of emergency and curfew. But tonight, after it became clear that Mr. Ouattara's supporters were unwilling to accept Mr. Gbagbo's terms, the state of emergency and the curfew were reimposed.
Today, supporters of both men fought one another with machetes and clubs, and mosques and churches were attacked in clashes that have increasingly taken an ethnic and religious cast in a country that until recent years was an unusual model of unity in Africa. General Guei and the unpopular president he overthrew last year, Henri Konan Bedie, had each tried to exploit the ethnic and religious divisions, and hence inflamed them. A court controlled by the general excluded Mr. Ouattara, a Muslim, from the vote Sunday, provoking a boycott by his party and many Muslims, who make up 40 percent of the population in this West African nation. The court also barred the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast, which had governed for most of the country's post-independence history.
In the face of many Muslims' calls for a new election, supporters of Mr. Gbagbo, who like 30 percent of the population is Christian, have vented their anger. His supporters and their gendarme backers seemed to overwhelm Mr. Ouattara's supporters, who began the day with vast demonstrations, and most of those killed today were Muslims. In Abobo, a sprawling working-class neighborhood that suffered the heaviest violence, three mosques were attacked and half a dozen people were reported dead. The neighborhood remained on edge after the morning's riots, with fires smoldering on deserted streets. At one mosque, the imam, Traore Yaya, nervously answered the door when a reporter knocked this morning. Muslim neighbors came quietly out of their houses as he showed two palm-sized tear-gas canisters. ''We were praying on the street in front of the mosque when gendarmes came by and threw tear gas at us,'' the imam said. A jeep filled with gendarmes suddenly passed as he was talking, and the crowd scattered.
On a main street not far away, where a wounded old woman was trying to find help, Muslims also said the gendarmes had backed Mr. Gbagbo's supporters. ''All the gendarmes we saw were from one ethnic group -- Gbagbo's,'' said Sekou Kone, 35, a merchant who had been hiding in his shop. ''This means we are heading into a civil war.'' ''Since the general is gone, the people must now have fair elections,'' he said. ''One-third of the Ivoirian population cannot choose a president,'' a reference to the 37 percent turnout.
By tonight the violence appeared to have died down after two high-ranking officials from Mr. Ouattara's and Mr. Gbagbo's parties appeared together on state television and urged their followers to stop fighting. They announced that the two political leaders would meet, but did not say when. The call for a new election was endorsed by several prominent outsiders, including Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Gnassingbe Eyadema, the president of Togo and the current head of the Organization for African Unity. The United States echoed these calls. ''It's going to be very important for the voices of the disenfranchised Ivoirians to be heard and, in that sense, the holding of free, fair and inclusive elections will be needed,'' said Philip Reeker, a State Department spokesman.
Significantly, however, France, the former colonial power and the biggest foreign power broker here, said it was satisfied with the results of Sunday's election and called for legislative elections to be held as scheduled in December. Mr. Gbagbo, a socialist, has close ties with the Socialist Party in France. According to the final results of the National Electoral Commission, which General Guei dissolved after preliminary figures showed he was trailing, Mr. Gbagbo received 59 percent of the votes, compared with 33 percent for the general. Because of the boycott, only 2 million voted in this country of 15 million people.
Voting was especially light in the Muslim north. In addition to Mr. Ouattara's call for a boycott, the largest Islamic organization told Muslims to stay home. The Ivory Coast was for decades an African anomaly: a country where people of different religions and ethnic groups co-existed peacefully, under policies enacted by President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who led the country for three decades.
But President Bedie, who took over in the early 1990's, stirred up xenophobia aimed at Muslim northerners in an attempt to sideline his main rival, Mr. Ouattara, who was deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund until last year. As Mr. Bedie spoke of ''pure Ivoirians'' and ''foreigners,'' northerners and immigrants became targets of the authorities. Among ordinary Ivoirians, the cleavages widened between Muslims and Christians. General Guei, who seized power last year, adopted a similar anti-northern position. What is more, Mr. Gbagbo, who had been allied with Mr. Ouattara, broke off their union and also inserted ethnocentric language in his political messages.
Source: new York Times
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