Ivory Coast UN ambassador warns of genocide risk

[oberliner]

Source: BBC

Ivory Coast's newly appointed ambassador to the UN has warned the country is "on the brink of genocide".

In a TV interview, Youssoufou Bamba said there had been large scale violation of human rights as a result of the ongoing political unrest.

Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to step down despite his rival, Alassane Ouattara, being internationally accepted as the presidential election winner.

The UN has accused state media of inciting hatred against it.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12091738

[oberliner]

1. US says it may evacuate Ivory Coast embassy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has started planning for the possible evacuation of its embassy in Ivory Coast amid concerns that postelection violence could escalate into full-blown conflict, the State Department said Wednesday.

Spokesman Mark Toner said a team of eight Pentagon officials is now in Abidjan to weigh the U.S. options, including evacuating embassy personnel, and to assess the damage caused by an errant rocket-propelled grenade that hit the outer wall of the compound last week.

"They are looking at contingencies," he said, adding that in the event of widespread unrest, evacuations "would be normal and prudent."

Toner said the military team arrived on Tuesday. He also repeated U.S. calls for President Laurent Gbagbo to step down and said he should control his supporters.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jtno5oc-RmcS4UOwPkVtXvJc-wmQ?docId=d79d68855dd24745b388d7be0056475d

[molly77]

2. Former Clinton adviser , Lanny Davis

is in the Gold Coast supporting the former president who was voted out but refuses to leave office. Lanny Davis was supporting the coup in Honduras. Just read on Huff Po that Obama has revoked the visa of the ambassador from Venezuela.

Hillary Clinton should step down.

[pampango]

3. Global Post: African leaders to try again in Ivory Coast

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/101229/gbagbo-ivory-civil-war-election-africa

Three African presidents who met with Laurent Gbagbo on Tuesday will try again next Monday to defuse an political crisis sparked by the defiant Ivory Coast president's refusal to cede power.

Presidents Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, Boni Yayi of Benin and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde met Wednesday with Goodluck Jonathan, president of Nigeria, which chairs the Economic Community of West African State (ECOWAS), a spokesman for the group told CNN.

More than 170 people have been killed in post-election violence, with human rights groups accusing gunmen supportive of Gbagbo gunmen of extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and torture. The dispute threatens to tip the country back into civil war, with Gbagbo's supporters warning against use of force to remove him, citing the possibility of war in West Africa.

ECOWAS has threatened military intervention if Gbagbo does not step down from power, saying it is prepared to use "legitimate force" to remove him and prosecute him and any others responsible for post-election violence in Abidjan in an international court. ECOWAS has previously intervened to defuse similar crises in Liberia and Sierra Leone.


A supporter of Ivory Coast's internationally recognized leader Alassane Ouattara
holds a placard reading "Gbagbo: the Black Hitler," a reference to Laurent Gbagbo,
the Ivory Coast president, during a demonstration on Dec. 28, 2010, at the Golf Hotel in Abidjan.

[Robb]

4. Kick.

Reuters: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6BU00N20101231