UN peacekeepers face a “dangerous” confrontation with contested Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo and the United Nations is investigating reports that he is using mercenaries, peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said yesterday.
“It is clear that President Gbagbo’s camp is doing everything to make life difficult for us, including by blocking our supplies and by harassing our personnel, and carrying out provocations, some armed,” Mr Le Roy said.
“These are clearly very complicated hours for us, very difficult, even dangerous,” he said while adding that the United Nations would give the UN force “complete support”.
Mr Le Roy said there were unconfirmed reports that Mr Gbagbo’s camp was using dozens of mercenaries which UN officials believed were from Liberia.
Diplomats said it was believed there were also mercenaries from Angola in Ivory Coast.
The UN accused Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo of harassing foreign diplomats and peacekeepers yesterday, as tension rose steeply on reports of widespread killings and rights abuses.
Mr Gbagbo has refused to cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara, who is recognised by the international community as the winner of last month’s presidential election, and violence has erupted in the streets of Abidjan.
The UN has rejected Mr Gbagbo’s order to withdraw its 10,000-strong UNOCI peacekeeping force, and its chief human rights official accuses security forces of involvement in dozens of alleged kidnappings and murders.
UN peacekeepers continue to patrol the restive port city of Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s sprawling commercial capital, supported by France’s 900-strong Licorne, a holdover from Paris’s formerly much larger military presence.
“As from December 15, President Gbagbo’s camp began to increase hostile acts against the international community, including the diplomatic corps, impartial forces and UNOCI,” UN head of mission Choi Young-jin told reporters.
Mr Choi accused Mr Gbagbo’s troops of blockading the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, where Mr Ouattara’s camp lives under the protection of 800 UN peacekeepers, and “on and off denying access to food and water supply trucks”.
He complained that gunmen in military uniform had opened fire on a UN patrol, and said that the Gbagbo camp had sent groups of armed young men to intimidate UN staff in their homes at night.
“However, all these acts will not deter UNOCI from doing its job, as we remember one of Winston Churchill’s maxims: ‘If you’re going through hell, just keep going’,” Mr Choi said.
Both Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ouattara have declared themselves president, but the former has retained control of the official armed forces and of Abidjan’s ministries.
Mr Ouattara has been recognised as president by the United Nations, and is supported by the former rebel movement that controls Ivory Coast north of a 2003 ceasefire line that divides the country into two armed camps. In the south, home to the government and the cocoa ports that dominate Ivory Coast’s economy, his movements are limited to the grounds of the Golf Hotel.
Meanwhile, in the poor suburbs of the city, there are reports of gangs in uniform raiding houses at night and killing suspected Ouattara backers.
On Sunday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern about “the growing evidence of massive violations of human rights” in the restive West African country since Thursday.