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Ivory Coast rebels warn France
BOUAKE, Ivory Coast -- Ivory Coast's three rebel factions have thrown down the gauntlet to France saying if there were any attacks by French troops they would launch an all-out offensive. The rebel groups met in the second city of Bouake, the stronghold of the main faction Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), on Monday to discuss forming an alliance two days after troops from the former colonial ruler blasted three rebel pick-up trucks attacking a town in the west. In a joint statement, the MPCI, the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Peace and Justice (MJP) reiterated their desire for President Laurent Gbagbo to quit and for transparent elections with international monitors. "The MPIGO, the MPCI and the MJP declare that from today any French military attack on one of their positions will be considered a 'declaration of war'," the groups said. "The MPCI, the MPIGO and the MJP will then launch a joint attack on all fronts." France said on Sunday its soldiers would stay in Ivory Coast as long as was necessary to negotiate a peaceful end to the crisis, which has torn apart the region's economic pace-setter and a cornerstone of French influence in Africa. Paris's intervention in the swiftly growing Ivory Coast war marks its biggest role in years in its former African colonial empire. Ivory Coast's war sprang from a failed September 19 coup and has increasingly fractured the world's top cocoa grower of 16 million along ethnic lines. Hundreds of people have been killed in fighting and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes. The main rebel MPCI signed a cease-fire in October and began talks in Togo with government negotiators, but these have brought little sign of a deal to restore peace. The MPCI has held onto the largely Muslim, Dioula-speaking northern half of the country since the failed coup and largely observed the truce, but two new factions emerged last month in the west and seized key towns. However their latest advance was halted by French troops on Saturday when they opened fire to stop rebels from taking a key junction in the cocoa-growing region, effectively holding the line for President Gbagbo's mercenary-backed forces. All three rebel groups who gathered in Bouake on Monday to plot their next move want to see the back of Gbagbo and accuse him of fanning ethnic tension after winning disputed elections in 2000. "I'm currently in Bouake. We started discussions last night and we are continuing today," said Felix Doh of the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) rebel group who were repulsed by the French Foreign Legion paratroopers. "We need to form a common front since we all have the same goals. A decision will be taken today," he told Reuters speaking by satellite phone. MPIGO and another faction in the west want to avenge the death of their Yacouba kinsman Robert Guei, a former junta leader, at the hands of loyalist forces in the early hours of the mid-September uprising. The clash at Duekoue on Saturday was the first time the French had opened fire to stop the rebels since France began beefing up its operation into its biggest African intervention force since the 1980s, with up to 2,500 troops.
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