Ivory Coast sets day of mourning for violence dead

By Alistair Thomson

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Ivory Coast's new government has proclaimed November 9 a national day of mourning and said it would hold a state funeral on that day for scores killed in political and ethnic violence last week.

Finance Minister Mamadou Koulibaly told state television after a cabinet meeting on Thursday there would now be an annual memorial day for those killed.

He said investigations into the violence showed that at least 164 people had been killed in the main city Abidjan.

Others had been killed elsewhere, including five in the western city of Daloa, and more might be discovered in the lagoon around which Abidjan is built, Koulibaly added.

One human rights group estimated nearly 500 people had died.

The inquiry had established that 57 bodies found in a forest north of Abidjan, most bearing gunshot wounds, had been killed elsewhere and then transported to the site, he added. Security forces members have been implicated in those and other killings.

"The investigations begun by the state will be completed, and (those responsible) will be punished," Koulibaly said.

He said a monument would be erected to those killed, and one of Abidjan's boulevards would be renamed in their honour.

Koulibaly said the government would also pay for medical care for those injured in the violence.

The new government was trying to improve the West African nation's image after 10 months of military rule, he said.

New President Laurent Gbagbo and key ministers were to meet President Alpha Konare of northern neighbour Mali, current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in the northern city of Korhogo on Saturday.

Many of those caught up in the violence were from Ivory Coast's Muslim north or from neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso.

The violence followed mass protests by Gbagbo's supporters that forced out army ruler Robert Guei, who had tried to rig the result of a presidential poll which Gbagbo had won.

Supporters of former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, whose power base is in the north, demonstrated for a new election as Ouattara was barred from standing. The security forces were accused of siding with Gbagbo's supporters against Ouattara's.

Abidjan's Roman Catholic archbishop, Bernard Agre, warned at a special service on Thursday that religion and politics should be kept apart or they would "inevitably become a time bomb."

Koulibaly said the government would hold parliamentary elections on December 10 as planned. The former ruling Democratic party had requested a week's delay to prepare.

But Koulibaly said the electoral commission and political parties would discuss whether to put back the deadline for candidate nominations while maintaining the election date.

He also said the new government had decided to move away from politics of the "personality cult," and instructed airports and hotels to replace the hitherto commonplace portraits of the head of state with the green, orange and white national flag.

State television should cease to serve as an apologist for the government and president, he said. Instead state radio and television resources would be improved to enable them to broaden their activities.

Under Guei, state media were used to promote his activities and to boost his profile ahead of the presidential election.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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