ABUJA (AFP) - Six African leaders sent a tough message to Ivory Coast`s President Laurent Gbagbo, supporting a proposed UN arms embargo on his country and warning him against further attacks on rebel-held cities.
Gbagbo`s envoy to the African Union summit departed in anger, complaining that the presidents had failed to criticise alleged excesses by French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, but insisting: "For us the war is over".
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the current chairman of the African Union, and five fellow African leaders had earlier released a statement calling for an end to both loyalist and rebel attacks in Ivory Coast.
They also made it clear they regarded recent air strikes against northern cities by Gbagbo`s forces as a breach of the ceasefire, and repeated their support for UN-mandated peacekeepers, including the French force.
And they stepped up the international isolation of Gbagbo, calling for the United Nations to pass an arms embargo against his country.
"We support the proposed UN resolution, in particular the arms embargo ... This should be immediate," Obasanjo said, warning that the leaders had heard evidence that both government and rebels were seeking to buy weapons.
The UN Security Council is expected to vote for the embargo at a meeting in New York on Monday.
The leaders also expressed concern over reports that during their meeting electricity and water supplies had been cut off to the rebel-held north, just as they had before an attempted government offensive earlier this month.
"We are alarmed because this has been used in the past as a prelude to an armed attack and we call on everybody to observe a ceasefire and not to start anything that could amount to mounting a further attack," Obasanjo warned.
Gbagbo`s envoy to the summit, the hardline speaker of the Ivorian parliament Mamadou Koulibaly, was clearly angered by the statement.
He told reporters after the meeting that he had complained to the African leaders that French forces had "crushed unarmed civilians with their tanks" during protests in Abidjan and called their presence "an illegal occupation".
He said that the arms embargo would not worry his government, as it had no intention of restarting hostilities. "For us the war is over," he said.
Ivory Coast has been divided into two warring camps since September 2002, when northern soldiers mounted a rebellion against Gbagbo`s rule.
The conflict subsided into a tense standoff early last year after France and West African officials brokered a ceasefire deal and launched a political peace process which brought former rebel fighters into a unity government.
But the interim regime has struggled to make its authority felt, with Gbagbo and his allies retaining real control in the south. The hostilities erupted back into the open on November 4 when loyalist jets bombed northern cities.
One strike killed nine French peacekeepers, triggering reprisal raids from French forces which destroyed Gbagbo`s small airforce.
The president`s supporters reacted with fury, denouncing the former colonial power as an occupying power and provoking a round of anti-French riots in the commercial capital Abidjan.
European troops have since evacuated more than 5,000 foreign civilians, and French peacekeepers have clashed with pro-government mobs.
Even before the leaders -- from Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Gabon, Togo and Burkina Faso -- had arrived in Abuja, Gbagbo had set the scene by unexpectedly appointing a known hardliner to lead his armed forces.
Observers at the talks warned that the naming of Colonel Philippe Mangou -- who is thought to have directed the air raids which killed the French troops -- was a sign that the government was bent on confrontation.
The African Union has asked South Africa`s President Thabo Mbeki to oversee efforts to bring an end to the current escalation in the crisis. This week he met separately with Gbagbo, opposition leaders and some of the rebels.
11/15/2004 - 00:22 GMT - AFP