Ally of Ivory Coast's Gbagbo calls for demo against AU mediator

Feb 5, 2011, 17:43 GMT

Abidjan - Supporters of Ivory Coast's defiant leader Laurent Gbagbo are being urged to take to the streets Saturday to protest the inclusion of Burkina Faso's president on an African Union panel aimed at resolving the political crisis.

Charles Ble Goude, leader of the hard-line Young Patriots and one of Gbagbo's most trusted and feared lieutenants, called on youth to gather in the economic capital Abidjan on Saturday.

'(Blaise) Compaore is not welcome in Ivory Coast,' Ble Goude told a rally in the Yopougon neighborhood of Abidjan earlier this week. 'Blaise Compaore has shown to the world that he is not the solution, but rather the problem.'

November's presidential election in Ivory Coast provoked a violent crisis in which over 270 people have died, according to the UN, with both Gbagbo and his internationally-recognized rival Alassane Ouattara laying claim to the presidency.

The AU has agreed to set up a panel comprising five heads of states to deliver 'legally binding conclusions' on the West African nation before the end of February - a step away from earlier threats from African leaders to use force to oust Gbagbo.

Compaore, a seasoned mediator, is on the panel with the presidents of Mauritania, Chad, South Africa and Tanzania, but Ble Goude accused Compaore of allowing northern rebels to train in Burkina Faso prior to the 2002 civil war.

The civil war split the country into the Christian-majority south, which backs Gbagbo, and the mainly Muslim north, from where Ouattara draws his power base.

Guillaume Soro, a former rebel leader serving as prime minister in Ouattara's alternative cabinet, said he did not believe the AU panel would have any more success than previous mediation efforts.

'I know Gbagbo very well from having worked with him,' said Soro, who was prime minister under Gbagbo prior to the elections. 'Gbagbo won't bow down in the face of the AU panel. This is why the AU should not push aside the military option to oust him.'

The last AU mediator, Kenyan premier Raila Odinga, was also rejected by Gbagbo's regime.

November's presidential election was supposed to help consign the negative effects to history. Instead, the West African nation was plunged into a violent crisis when a Gbagbo ally on the constitutional council overturned electoral commission results declaring Ouattara the winner.

Pro-Gbagbo forces have blockaded Abidjan's Golf Hotel, from where Ouattara is attempting to run his alternative government and force Gbagbo from power.

Neither domestic pressure nor a range of international sanctions have budged the strongman leader an inch.