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Junta leader loses control in Ivory Coast & flees Abidjan

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October 26, 2000 

ABIDJAN (AP) - Junta leader Gen. Robert Guei fled on Wednesday, as many of his security forces turned against him and joined thousands of demonstrators swarming the streets to protest his claim to have won presidential elections, soldiers said.

Guei possibly fled for nearby Benin, said Guei's former information minister, Henri Cesar Sama.

Mutineers battled government troops at a military base Wednesday while some soldiers joined demonstrators swarming the streets for a second day to protest the junta leader's claim to have won presidential elections.

Witnesses said at least two civilian demonstrators were killed and four others wounded.

Guei on Tuesday declared himself the victor in Sunday's presidential elections. Until Guei took power in a Dec. 24 coup d'etat, Ivory Coast was known as an oasis of calm in volatile West Africa.

Laurent Gbagbo, the opposition leader who also claimed to have won Sunday's presidential vote, addressed hundreds of cheering supporters outside his campaign headquarters in suburban Abidjan.

He thanked them for opposing what he called Guei's "electoral coup d'etat."

"I thank you for responding massively to this appeal. You went out in the hundreds of thousands. I pay particular homage to those who died in the cause of this. We will give them a funeral befitting their courage," he said.

The crowd cheered when truckloads of pro-Gbagbo police and military drove into the compound.

Guei's loss of power came in the middle of a tumultuous day, as mutineers - who apparently backed Gbagbo - fought loyalist comrades in an Abidjan military base before dawn. Hours later, thousands of Gbagbo's supporters swarmed Abidjan neighborhoods, setting up barricades, lighting fires and screaming for Guei's resignation.

As the crisis continued, witnesses reported seeing more and more security forces joining the ranks of the protesters.

Divisions appeared to be widening between various army and paramilitary factions.

Several junta members defected from the government Wednesday including Sama, the former information minister, who said pro-Gbagbo troops had taken control of state radio and television. His claims could not be independently confirmed and it was unclear how many mutineers were involved.

Sama said another senior junta member, Capt. Saint Cyr Djikalou, had also defected.

"We want to seize power from Guei and give it back to Gbagbo," Sama said in a telephone interview.

The street protests began on Tuesday when security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators and thousands of civilians took to the streets to protest the decision by Guei.

International radio stations like the British Broadcasting Corp., which have transmitters in Ivory Coast and are the main source of independent news for most Ivorians, had their signals blocked unexplainably Wednesday.

Furious over Guei's announcement, Gbagbo also declared himself president.

"I cannot let a country be dragged into the mud as Guei would like it," he said Tuesday. "I ask that in all the cities of Ivory Coast and in every neighborhood, Ivorians take to the streets."

Downtown, waves of thousands of protesters advanced on soldiers who fired shots above their heads and in some case beat protesters with sticks and rifle butts.

"We will fight until Guei is out," protesters at one suburban road junction in the Riviera suburb chanted before running from a burst of gunfire.

Freedom Neruda, an official with Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front, said nine people were killed in Abidjan in various clashes Tuesday and 13 were badly injured. Those figures could not be confirmed although witnesses saw at least two bodies.

The junta declared a state of emergency and a nightly curfew in effect until Saturday.

Guei dissolved the elections commission, a move that Daniel Bamba Sheik, a senior Interior Ministry official, blamed on massive fraud and the inability of electoral officials. By the time vote-counting was interrupted on Monday, the commission had shown Gbagbo with a slight edge.

Bamba Sheik said that in the final tally Guei took 52.72 percent to 41.02 for Gbagbo (pronounced BAHG-bo). Three lesser known candidates shared the remaining votes.

Gbagbo, however, declared he had 59.58 percent of the vote, compared to 32.91 percent for Guei.

Neither claim could be independently verified.

Guei later went on state-run television to thank Ivorians who, he said, "like one man, in a great wave of dignity and solidarity, have just taken me to the head of the country."

The general came to power in a December coup, the first military takeover in Ivory Coast. Instability since has battered the economy and frightened Ivorians. Guei had promised the elections would mark a return to civilian rule.

But the vote was plagued by controversy from the start. The nation's two largest political parties boycotted the ballot after their leaders were barred from running by the Supreme Court. Gbagbo was the only political heavyweight allowed to run against the junta leader.

Guei's declaration Tuesday infuriated France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, which keeps hundreds of soldiers based in Abidjan.

"What we are seeing is an attempted coup," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said. "France will not accept it, the European union will not accept it, and there will be consequences."