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Fresh rebel gains shake Ivory Coast
( 2002-09-28 15:57 ) (7 )

New rebel gains sent a jolt of fear through Ivory Coast as French troops wound down a mission to help foreigners escape a terrified city in the hands of renegade troops.

Hundreds of people have been killed in a nine-day-long army uprising that has shown signs of turning into a civil war and put a question mark over the future of the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's second-biggest economy.

With the region's main powers stepping up to offer help to embattled President Laurent Gbagbo, the government said it would soon launch an offensive to drive back rebels it accused of planning to seize power.

But the insurgents arrived in the northwestern town of Odienne to consolidate their hold on the north of the country of 16 million, residents said.

Fear quickly spread south down the 170-mile road to Man, the center of the coffee region in Africa's biggest producer of the robusta beans used to give coffee blends their kick.

"The authorities told us to shut up shop and go home in the afternoon," said one coffee buyer in Man. "They told us that they feared that after the fall of Odienne it would soon be the turn of Man."

Further to the east, desperate Ivorians tried to sneak out of the rebel-held city of Bouake, the biggest after Abidjan, while French troops kept open a security corridor meant to allow the escape of foreigners. By nightfall many of scores of soldiers sent by the former colonial power to allow safe passage to foreigners across the uncertain front line had pulled back to a camp at Brobo, some 13 miles east of Bouake.

OFFENSIVE PROMISED

Disappointed Ivorians headed back from checkpoints after being told to go home by rebels who assured them they would be protected from a long-promised government offensive.

"If we have taken our time it is because we want to limit the collateral damage to civilians as much as we can," Defense Minister Moise Lida Kouassi told parliament.

Countries in the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc have pledged their support for Ivory Coast's elected government and are due to meet in Ghana Sunday to discuss the crisis.

Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade said up to 4,000 regional troops could be deployed in Ivory Coast rapidly.

The African Union also added its support.

"One cannot accept today that insurgents take power in a coup d'etat. That's finished," the African Union's top official, Amara Essy, said on a visit to Gbagbo. Essy is an Ivorian himself.

The Ivory Coast conflict has raised fears over cocoa supplies from a country producing 40 percent of the world's crop. It casts a shadow over the future of a region already battered by wars in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Ghanaian officials said the rebels -- whose leadership is unclear -- would not be officially invited to Sunday's regional summit but might still be there in an informal capacity.

A 1999 coup put paid to Ivory Coast's reputation for stability and hundreds died in turbulent 2000 elections, but the latest crisis is the first time rival armed factions have occupied large parts of the country for such a long period.

The government says the rebel soldiers aimed to seize power in a coup planned by former junta leader Robert Guei -- killed by loyalist forces on the first day of fighting.

The rebels say they were mutineers protesting about unfair retirements from the army.