French Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey
Posted on 11/19/2004 8:53:17 PM PST by BigRedState
FRENCH SOLIDERS OPEN FIRE ON INNOCENT CIVILAINS ON THE IVORY COAST (WARNING VERY GRAPHIC VIDEO)
(CBS/AP) French forces opened fire on loyalist crowds Tuesday outside a makeshift French military post, witnesses said. A leading hospital reported seven killed and more than 200 wounded.
The French military force said it was investigating and refused to immediately comment.
Doctor Sie Podipte, the emergency room chief at Cocody Hospital, said the hospital was treating more than 200 wounded in the clash and had received seven people with fatal injuries.
The clash took place as thousands of loyalists massed outside the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, next to a hotel that the French have converted into a temporary evacuation center.
South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Gbagbo on Tuesday, launching an African effort to rein in chaos that has erupted in this west African nation.
Tuesday's clash would bring the number of dead to at least 27 people and the number of wounded to 800, and shut down cocoa exports from the world's largest producer at the height of the harvest season.
The U.N. Security Council, African Union, European Union and a bloc of West African leaders have all condemned President Laurent Gbagbo's government in the violence, which began when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on the rebel-held north.
France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, wiped out the nation's small air force in retaliation, sparking massive anti-French rampages by mobs of thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.
Mbeki said Gbagbo had recommitted to tension-easing measures agreed to in past accords in the country's civil war. A year-old cease-fire ended last week when the government opened three days of bombing of the rebel-held north.
Mbeki declared himself "really very, very pleased" and said he would report back to the African Union for consultations on its next steps in the crisis.
Talks took place at Gbagbo's home with thousands of fervent supporters massed just outside, at a hotel a few hundred yards away that has been commandeered by the French military.
Some of the 1,300 French and other foreign civilians evacuated from their homes by the French military amid looting and burning stared out at the protesters from a protective ring of barbed wire around the hotel.
"We are not going to leave," one loyalist outside the French temporary base said, adding that protesters would take shifts to eat. "If I get the French, I can eat them," he said.
Protesters tried to pull down the barbed wire around the French evacuation point but scattered when two French snipers moved forward and drew beads on them.
After securing Abidjan's airport and bridges over the weekend, French forces on Tuesday appeared to have withdrawn from at least one main bridge in the lagoon-bordered city.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman saw a crowd surround one U.N. vehicle that ventured onto the bridge and kick it until the car withdrew.
Cocoa traders said the violence has shut down cocoa exports, closing ports that ship more than 40 percent of the world's raw material for chocolate.
Clashes that have pitted the government and supporters against French forces come at the peak of Ivory Coast's main harvest, with overall production last year at 1.4 million tons.
Violence has closed the country's two main ports, in Abidjan and San Pedro, since Saturday afternoon, traders and other officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Cocoa buyers are not venturing out into the bush to buy cocoa, they said.
On Monday, top Ivory Coast and French generals jointly appealed for protesters to go home despite a day of urgent alarms on state radio and TV asking loyalists to mass at Gbagbo's home and a nearby broadcast center.
The TV and radio appeals came after French armored vehicles moved into position at the commandeered Hotel Ivoire, with one armored vehicle at one point making a wrong turn and approaching Gbagbo's house directly, the French acknowledged.
"Everything should go back to normal. ... It is absolutely not a matter of ousting President Laurent Gbagbo," French mission commander Gen. Henri Poncet said on state TV, alongside Ivory Coast army chief of staff Gen. Mathias Doue.
French leaders have said they hold Gbagbo — installed in an uprising by his supporters in 2000, after an aborted vote count in presidential elections — personally responsible in the airstrike Saturday and subsequent anti-foreigner rampages.
French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, after a visit Monday to wounded French servicemen flown to Paris for medical care, said their witness accounts suggested the attack was premeditated.
"They all told me that the Ivorian plane passed two times over the (French military base) building and fired on the third pass," she told reporters at St. Mande military hospital outside Paris.
At the United Nations, Security Council diplomats late Monday weighed a French-backed draft resolution for an arms embargo on Ivory Coast and a travel ban and asset freeze against those blocking peace, violating human rights, and preventing the disarmament of combatants.
France has 4,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, where a civil war launched in September 2002 has split the nation between rebel north and loyalist south.
About 6,000 U.N. troops also are deployed to man a buffer zone and try to keep the peace in West Africa's former economic powerhouse, seen as vital to regional efforts to recover from 1990s civil wars.
The bombing of the French military post Saturday came on the third day of Ivory Coast airstrikes on rebel positions, breaking a more than year-old cease-fire.
The African Union dispatched Mbeki with a mandate to seek a political solution.
French open fire on protestersBy Parfait Kouassi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Security forces fired on armed attackers yesterday as thousands of angry government loyalists massed outside a French evacuation post for foreigners, reportedly killing seven persons and wounding 200 in violence pitting France against its former prize colony.
Denying any responsibility, France's military said loyalist demonstrators opened fire as a French convoy left the post, and Ivorian security forces returned fire.
The bloodletting erupted at a one-time luxury hotel French forces have commandeered as an evacuation center for 1,300 French and other foreigners rescued from rampages across the commercial capital, Abidjan.
An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of three demonstrators outside a hospital, their bodies draped in Ivorian flags.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, sent by the 53-nation African Union to find a political solution to the crisis, said before the shooting that Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has recommitted to carrying out tension-easing measures agreed to in past accords in the country's two-year-old civil war.
The U.N. Security Council late yesterday gave wide support to a resolution that would impose sanctions against Ivory Coast if the country's government and rebels don't return to a peace process by the beginning of December, diplomats said.
"It's much more effective if you hold a gun to their head, rather than pull the trigger," said Pakistan's U.N. ambassador, Munir Akram.
The chaos in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's former economic powerhouse, broke out Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an air strike on the rebel-held north.
France wiped out the nation's air force on the tarmac in retaliation, sparking anti-French rampages by thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.
The French set up their evacuation center Monday a few hundred yards from the home of Mr. Gbagbo, and the site has become a flash point for violence.
French forces opened fire yesterday as thousands pressed around the center in protest, witnesses said.
It was not clear what sparked the clash. The French military refused comment, saying it was trying to determine what happened.
Abidjan's Cocody Hospital received seven dead and more than 200 wounded, said Dr. Sie Podipte, the emergency-room chief.
Four days of confrontations have killed at least 20 others, wounded 700 and shut down cocoa exports.
On Monday, Ivory Coast and French generals called on protesters to go home after state radio and TV had urged them to mass at Mr. Gbagbo's home and a nearby broadcast center.
French leaders have said they hold Mr. Gbagbo — installed by his supporters in 2000 after an aborted vote count in presidential elections — responsible for Saturday's air strike and subsequent anti-foreigner rampages.
France has 4,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, where a civil war begun in September 2002 has left the country split between rebel north and loyalist south. About 6,000 U.N. troops are also deployed in a buffer zone.
From - From The Washington Post
Rioters rape Europeans as they flee from Ivory Coast
13.11.2004
6.00pm - By MEERA SELVA
Several dozen white women have been raped in the Ivory Coast over the past week, as pro-government gangs plundered the homes and businesses of Europeans, although last night an uneasy calm prevailed in the capital, Abidjan.
The men from the Young Patriots movement loyal to the Ivory Coast's president Laurent Gbagbo had attacked the women in retaliation for what they felt to be unjust French interference in their country's internal affairs, the French military said yesterday. General Henri Poncet said in Ivory Coast: "There have been rapes. There were ... tragedies for a certain number of women."
#263
Bookmarked
"If the French did this, what's the explanation for them driving by so casually at the end of tape two, as the public looked on with no signs of displeasure?"
I though I was the only person reflecting on John Adams and the Boston Massacre while trying to analyze what happened in this video.
My French is poor, but I'll try.
Attaquons "We attack"
Stop!
Zone du saint esprit "Place of the Holy Spirit"
Dieu Pere "God the Father"
Dieu Fils "God the Son"
Dieu ----- "God (the Holy Spirit?)"
Jesus est Deja Present "Jesus is always present"
Esprit Saint "Holy Spirit"
Just my luck.
it took a long time to load, but i finally got it all and watched it. there is a crowd of people milling about. you can just barely see some mitlitary vehicles in the distance and you can see a tank just beyond the crowd just before the shooting starts. you do not see any commotion or threatening behavior. suddenly the shooting starts, the camera person is moving and not shooting video for some time, presumably running away. then the shooting stops and the camera shows the dispersed crowd and you hear the confusion and distress in the voices. then the camera shows the people tending to the wounded, some unconscious and some apparently dead. near the end, the camera shows a man who head was blown partially off his body now lying in a pool of blood. this is the most horrifying picture i have ever seen. finally the camera shows the french military vehicles leaving the plaza and driving off into the distance. then we as shown some united nations autos on fire.
this video showed no apparent threat to the French. it would seem that the crowd was blocking their intended path thru the plaza area, but its really not clear what caused the French to open fire.
does anyone know what the French have to say about it? is there an investigation? has there been any indication that the French government is going to do anything about this?
it looks like an inexcusable and horrifying application of military force against a peaceful gathering of civilians.
Bump.
I love when Americans reflect on our history and use it as a life guiding force. The more American like you the better. Just because someone claims to be conservative does not mean they know what that means.
It goes in and out of the frame very fast, but it does look like a gun.
To his credit, he watched the whole thing, even when I turned my head, and he asked questions. Was I wrong? I don't think so, because I don't believe in hiding the ugliness of this world from anyone. I gave him a dose of reality.
I seen two APCs with red crosses on them in the retreating convoy.
The un or the french could not have screwed up any bigger at any more inopportune time (depending how you look at it.)
How do you do a screen cap of an mpeg? I tried 4 different ways and cant make it work.
BUSH HELP US. CHIRAC IS A CRIMINAL. CHIRAC IS A TERRORIST.
The french have been reported to be helping the muslims in The Ivory Coast. What's so difficult to understand? It's the same as what went on in Liberia, where Bin Laden was influential. Liberia was often referred to as Bin Laden's Diamond Mine.
I know we can't be everywhere, or save everyone from islam in Africa. But the least we can do is listen to them. What are they trying to tell us?
CHIRAC IS A CRIMINAL.
What else are the french suppose to do? I mean they don't have to clean up the dead bodies as there already being taken out by the others. Its still a little weird to just drive off like that. Chirac should have to answer to the video anyway if this hasn't been cleared up already.
Um Bush helped the Muslim rebels in Liberia - Bush ousted the criminal but still Christian dictator.
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