UN envoy condemns violence in Côte d’Ivoire

A United Nations-sponsored International Monitoring Committee for the peace agreement between the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and its armed opposition has condemned the violence that erupted Monday in the major city, Abidjan, and elsewhere.

Referring to what appeared to be an assault on one rebel group by another in a central town near the ceasefire monitoring line, Albert Tévoédjrè, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative for Côte d’Ivoire and chairman of the Committee, condemned the attack carried out at Gohitafla farming town and demanded an investigation to determine its causes and find those responsible.

He also condemned just as profoundly the violence carried out against embassies, international agencies, including the UN peacekeeping operation, known as UNOCI, and foreign persons and communities, in contempt of diplomatic conventions and human rights observance.

French and UN peacekeeping forces, under separate command, patrol a 400-kilometre-long zone separating government troops and the armed former rebels. Under the 2003 Linas-Marcoussis agreement, the government and opposition formed a transitional government, but have had several serious disagreements.