Ivory Coast president must go: African leaders

Allies of the man who the international community says won Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election called Sunday for a general strike that would last until the incumbent concedes defeat and leaves office.

It was the latest form of pressure to force Laurent Gbagbo from the presidency nearly a month after the United Nations said his political rival, Alassane Ouattara, won the run-off vote.

Gbagbo has refused to leave despite international calls for his ouster, and West African leaders say they will remove him by force if he fails to go.

Djedje Mady, the head of Ouattara's electoral coalition, called on "all Ivorians and those who live in Ivory Coast and believe in peace and justice to cease all their activities on Monday, Dec. 27, 2010, until Laurent Gbagbo leaves power."

The UN has said at least 173 people have been killed in violence over the vote, heightening fears that the country, once divided in two, could return to civil war. The toll is believed to be much higher, though, as the UN mission has been blocked from investigating other reports, including an allegation of a mass grave.

On Sunday, the interior minister appointed by Gbagbo accused the UN of only telling half the story.

"The government of Ivory Coast denounces the lack of objectivity and balance in the procedures carried out by the UN Human Rights Council," said Emile Guirieoulou, the interior minister. He said at least 36 of those killed were police or other security forces who "were targeted by gunfire coming from the protesters."

Thousands displaced

Guirieoulou also alleged that the thousands of refugees arriving in Liberia had fled violence perpetrated by rebels who support Ouattara.

The UN refugee agency says at least 14,000 people have fled the violence and political chaos in Ivory Coast, some walking for up to four days with little food to reach neighbouring Liberia.

At least one child drowned while trying to cross a river.

Gbagbo has been in power since 2000 and had already overstayed his mandate by five years when the long-delayed presidential election was held in October. The vote was intended to help reunify the country, which was divided by the 2002-2003 civil war into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south.

Instead, the election has renewed divisions that threaten to plunge the country back into civil war.

While Ivory Coast was officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal, Ouattara still draws his support from the northern half of the country, where residents feel they are often treated as foreigners by southerners.

The UN certified Ouattara as the winner of the Nov. 28 run-off vote, but a Gbagbo ally overturned those results by throwing out half a million ballots from Ouattara strongholds in the north.

The move angered people who had waited for years while officials settled who would be allowed to vote in the election, differentiating between Ivorians with roots in neighbouring countries and foreigners.

Gbagbo defies calls to quit

For nearly a month, Gbagbo has now defied calls from the UN, the United States, former colonizer France, the African Union and the European Union to step aside and hand over power to Ouattara.

Late Friday, West African leaders from the regional bloc ECOWAS threatened a military intervention if Gbagbo does not step down. On Sunday, Sierra Leone's Information Ministry said three leaders from the region would pay him a visit.

"In the spirit of brotherliness in Africa, three presidents have been nominated by their colleagues to confront Mr. Gbagbo in Abidjan to encourage him to leave office without delay," the ministry said.

"The three presidents can fly back with Mr. Gbagbo, as all ECOWAS countries are prepared to grant him asylum."

Gbagbo has shown few signs that he plans to go, though, and his security forces have been accused of being behind hundreds of arrests and dozens of cases of disappearance and torture in recent weeks.

In recent days, the UN has expressed alarm about the actions of men believed to be Gbagbo loyalists.

The world body reported last Thursday that heavily armed forces allied with Gbagbo, who were joined by masked men with rocket launchers, were preventing people from getting to the village of N'Dotre, where the global body said "allegations point to the existence of a mass grave."

While the threat of a military intervention creates pressure on Gbagbo, Africa security analyst Peter Pham said there are "serious doubts that ECOWAS has the wherewithal to carry it out."

Pham also said there is "little chance" that the UN would allow its peacekeepers to get involved in such an effort.

"The precedent would make it very difficult to get future agreement for deployment of such missions by host countries," he said.

Gbagbo has been able to maintain his rule for nearly a month since the disputed vote because he still has the loyalty of security forces and the country's military.

Even that, though, may disappear if he runs out of money to pay them. Gbagbo's access to the state funds used to pay soldiers and civil servants has been cut off and only Ouattara's representatives now have access to the state coffers.

Senior diplomatic sources say Gbagbo only has enough reserves to run the country for three months.