Abidjan, Aug 27: The deaths of two French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast and the arrest of 10 people accused of plotting a new coup in the West African country have fueled tensions in the former French colony, still divided nearly one year after a rebellion.
Ivory Coast has been languishing in a no-man's land somewhere between war and peace since a French-brokered pact signed in January tried to end the rebellion launched last
September by including the rebels in a reconciliation government.
The announcement yesterday that two French soldiers had been killed by rebels in central Ivory Coast - the first members of a 4,000-strong French peacekeeping force to be
killed here since their deployment late last year to monitor a truce - further unmoored an already unstable environment.
So, too, did a statement from Paris on Monday saying France had foiled a coup plot by arresting 10 people, including ibrahim coulibaly, one of the leaders of a 1999 Putsch, as they were about to launch a fresh attempt at a coup.
Coulibaly has been accused of being one of the driving forces behind last year's rebellion, which quickly developed into a low-level civil war and crippled the cocoa-based
economy in Ivory Coast, once an economic powerhouse and model of stability for Western Africa.
He is expected to appear in a paris court today before an anti-terrorist judge, along with seven other alleged coup fomenters arrested by French police.
Bureau Report
