Ivory Coast Rebel Forces Seize Towns, Eye Cocoa-Exporting Hubs
March 29, 2011, 10:23 AM EDTMarch 29 (Bloomberg) -- Ivory Coast rebels backing Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of the Nov. 28 election, said they had seized four towns, gaining access to a highway leading to a main cocoa-exporting port.
The Republican Forces insurgents are planning to go move south to the port cities of San Pedro and Abidjan, the commercial capital, said Meite Sindou, spokesman for Guillaume Soro, the prime minister and defense minister appointed by Ouattara.
Ouattara draws support from the rebel group that has its roots in an uprising of mutinous military officers in 2002. Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent who refuses to hand power to Ouattara, retains the loyalty of the security forces.
"Militarily, Gbagbo is weak," said Rinaldo Depagne, a Dakar-based analyst for International Crisis Group. "If he wants to stay, he's got to put all the forces he has in Abidjan and he's got to try to stop the progression of rebels inside Abidjan. Inside the army you've got mass desertions and mass divisions."
The Republican Forces have stepped up their military campaign in the past month, mainly in the western cocoa- producing region, taking the towns of Duekoue, Guiglo and Daloa in the past few days, Sindou said. Fighting has also raged in Abidjan, the commercial capital and another key cocoa-exporting hub. "Except in Duekoue, there was no real resistance," he said.
UN Helicopter
Rebel forces fired on and missed a United Nations helicopter that was flying over the area yesterday, the peacekeeping mission in the country said in an e-mailed statement. The UN "strongly condemns this attack against its peacekeepers, which could be considered a war crime," the statement said.
Duekoue controls access to parts of northeastern Liberia that have supplied militiamen and arms to Gbagbo's forces, Depagne said. "The aim is to close the entrance for Liberian mercenaries and to cut the cocoa road to San Pedro," Depagne said in a telephone interview. "They are putting pressure on Gbagbo."
Cocoa for May delivery fell to its lowest since March 18, dropping $124, or 3.8 percent, to $3,124 per metric ton by 1:41 p.m. in London.
Fighting also spread east for the first time since the disputed vote. Gbagbo's security forces have fled from the town of Bondoukou toward Ivory Coast's border with Ghana, Philippe Digbeu, a resident, said in a phone interview. "They even left unused ammunition on the road."
Last Stand
The incumbent leader's soldiers "aren't really putting up a fight in these towns, so we can't say it's decisive yet," said Henri Boshoff, a military analyst for the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, in a phone interview today from Brussels. "Gbagbo will make his last stand in Abidjan. That's where he really has most of his military might."
After firing overnight, rebels also entered Daloa, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) west of the capital Yamoussoukro, Ibrahima Coulibaly, a resident of the town, said today in a telephone interview.
"They are everywhere, they are wearing camouflage clothes and carrying Kalashnikovs," he said. "They have stopped shooting as they have captured the town."
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said more than 10,000 people have fled into neighboring Liberia in the past week as fighting intensifies.
"We are bracing for further arrivals as refugees tell us that many more civilians are en route to Liberia," the UNHCR said in a statement today. "Several people say they left family members behind in their panic, including children."
Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, has been split between a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north since 2002. The election was meant to end that division.
--With reporting by Franz Wild in Johannesburg and Jason McLure in Accra. Editors: Emily Bowers, Karl Maier.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pauline Bax in Abidjan via Accra at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net.
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