ABIDJAN (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki was in Ivory Coast as an envoy of the African Union in a bid to restore peace to the world's top cocoa producer after days of violence that claimed at least 30 lives.
Mbeki held brief talks with his Ivorian counterpart Laurent Gbagbo, whose government is widely held responsible for the deteriorating situation in the west African state after air strikes on the rebel-held north, in violation of a May 2003 ceasefire, killed nine French troops and a US civilian.
The South African leader emerged "pleased" from the meeting at the presidential residence in Abidjan's upmarket Cocody district, which had been a prime target for anti-French looting and vandalism that left hundreds of homes gutted and dozens of people injured.
A social welfare ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity that "at least" 30 people were killed in four days of violent anti-French demonstrations in Abidjan, the country's economic hub.
"It's the French military who killed them; we haven't yet compiled a final toll, which will no doubt be even higher," the official said.
The latest chapter in the unrest to sweep the former French colony, once a regional beacon of stability, began Thursday with government air strikes on the northern towns of Korhogo and Bouake, key strongholds of rebels whose botched coup in September 2002 sparked a low-level civil war.
In what French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said was a "deliberate" attack, a French base in Bouake was hit, killing nine French troops and a US civilian.
France's immediate riposte leveled the Ivory Coast air force, which US General Charles Wald, the deputy commander of the US European Command, said Tuesday was their absolute right.
"We strongly believe the French took the exact right action," Wald told reporters in Washington.
"They bombed two of the SU-25s (planes) and they disabled two more, and they destroyed six helicopters, which is exactly what should have happened."
On Saturday, French troops used a 20 mm cannon and fired sound grenades from helicopters to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who had been urged into the streets by so-called "patriots" -- Gbagbo partisans who commandeered national radio and television and have been broadcasting anti-French messages.
Their rampage left some 600 wounded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
One in four Abidjan homes of Europeans were believed destroyed. French schools were set on fire and dozens of foreign nationals were plucked from their rooftops by helicopters.
Some 2,300 people are sheltering at the headquarters of the UN mission or at the French military base in Abidjan near the airport, which has been under French control since Saturday.
Though France has no firm plans to evacuate its 14,000 nationals, the foreign ministry announced in Paris on Tuesday that it has chartered aircraft to help those who wish to leave.
A resolution of the crisis cannot come soon enough for the residents of Ivory Coast's increasingly isolated rebel-held north, which has been without power, water and telephone service since Thursday.
"If water is not restored soon, the humanitarian consequences could be catastrophic," Antoine Foucher, Ivory Coast director for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) told AFP from Abidjan.
"We are trying to establish quarantine zones to treat the eventual cases of cholera that we expect will be reported in the coming days."
Ivorian traders have suspended exports of the main cash crop cocoa since Monday and the main processing factory was shuttered Sunday.
"Cocoa production cannot move because the roads are blocked by militants or the French army, which is effectively shutting down the entire country," a trader told AFP in London.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council was to resume debate on a resolution from France to slap an arms embargo and other sanctions on Ivory Coast.
Diplomats told AFP in New York that a vote was not expected until Wednesday amid reluctance from China, which generally opposes sanctions as an instrument of UN policy.
11/09/2004 - 18:48 GMT - AFP