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Arms Embargo Imposed on Ivory Coast
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“…it is unfair and conducted in an unfair manner,” Djangone-Bi said. (AFP)
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ABIDJAN
, November 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Drawing better
accusations the world body was siding with an African state’s former
imperial power, an arms embargo has been unanimously imposed by the UN
Security Council on
Ivory Coast
, despite opposition from
China
, as foreign nationals fled the troubled west African nation.
The
15-nation UNSC agreed to heed a weekend call by African leaders,
incited by France, the former occupier of Ivory Coast, to put the
embargo in place without delay in a bid to defuse the tension in the
world’s top producer of cocoa, which has been divided since a coup
attempt in September 2002 against President Laurent Gbagbo set off
civil war.
Resolution
1572 was adopted to the effect that a 13-months embargo be effected on
the west African nation and backed up by a targeted travel ban and
assets freeze on individuals in the divided state on December 15 if
key steps are not taken to implement the stalled peace accord in the
former French colony, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Opposition
China
and others, who felt the African Union should be given more time to
mediate a solution before an embargo was imposed, strongly opposed the
resolution.
France
drafted the resolution earlier this month after nine
French peacekeepers and a
US
aid worker were killed in an air strike by Ivorian government war
planes in the north of the country.
French
forces retaliated, wiping out the tiny nation's air force in a move
that set off deadly anti-French and anti-foreign riots and vandalism
that reportedly left dozens dead.
Accusing
French President Jacques Chirac of manipulating the UN body for
France
's purposes, Ivory Coast National Assembly President Mamadou Koulibaly
said the resolution “allows Chirac to hide himself behind other
countries who served as cover for him.”
A
spokesman for President Laurent Gbagbo refused immediate comment,
saying the government was preparing a statement, AFP said.
“We
take note of it (the resolution) but we want to make it clear -- it is
unfair and conducted in an unfair manner,”
Ivory Coast
's UN ambassador, Philippe Djangone-Bi, said of the resolution.
He
accused
France
of becoming “practically party to the conflict” by favoring the
rebels in drafting the resolution and targeted
Paris
for blame, even though the resolution was co-sponsored by six other
council nations.
“The
Security Council has never stopped saying that there is no military
solution for the crisis in
Ivory Coast
. There is only a political solution,” French ambassador Jean-Marc
de La Sabliere said after the vote.
De
La Sabliere in particular cited two crucial stumbling blocks -- the
failure of the rebels to disarm and the delay in amending a
constitutional amendment that critics say is intended to block a rival
of Gbagbo from running in elections next year.
Foreigners
Flee
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De La Sabliere votes yes. (AFP) |
Meanwhile,
the exodus of French and other foreign nationals from
Ivory Coast
continued, with more than 5,000 people evacuated since Wednesday,
following a week of anti-French violence and vandalism in the main
city
Abidjan
.
The
last plane chartered by the French government to evacuate foreign
nationals arrived in Paris early Tuesday, November 16, from Abidjan.
Earlier
fleeing expatriates have told tales of unchecked violence, machete
attacks, rapes and looting, although a French Foreign Ministry
spokesman said there had been no reports of murder.
Similar
flights have been arranged by other nations, with
Switzerland
announcing Monday that it would send a plane out overnight which was
able to pick up 160 people, more than the total of Swiss nationals
living in Ivory Coast.
The
country's lurch back into unrest has led even people with dual Ivorian
citizenship to flee what was once a regional powerhouse.
“It
hurts me when someone is so able to destroy a country that he did not
build himself,” said one man carrying just a small suitcase as he
left his homeland, in a terse allusion to Gbagbo.
Some
14,000 French nationals, including 8,000 with dual nationality, were
living in
Ivory Coast
before the violence erupted on November 6.
When
civil war broke out in the
Ivory Coast
in 2002, the French army evacuated about 3,000 foreigners from 23
nations, most of them French.
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