U.N. calls for end to attacks on Ivory Coast peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS — Ivory Coast radio stations are inciting people to arm themselves and attack the United Nations, a spokesman said Wednesday, calling on the government to immediately halt the hate broadcasts.

"This is unacceptable and must cease immediately," U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, calling the broadcasts "particularly disturbing" as a wave of attacks on U.N. peacekeepers went into a third day.

Hundreds of young people loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo have taken to the streets in Ivory Coast in recent days, clamoring for the withdrawal of U.N. and French peacekeeping troops and attacking U.N. bases, residences and vehicles across the government-controlled south.

The peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone dividing the south from the rebel-held north. Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, has been split in two since rebels seeking to overthrow Gbagbo began a civil war in 2002.

The protests erupted after an international working group charged with overseeing the peace process recommended Sunday that the Ivorian Parliament, which is dominated by Gbagbo loyalists but whose mandate expired last month, should not be reconvened.

U.N. officials have denounced what they called orchestrated violence and pressed Gbagbo to end it.

U.N. peacekeepers Wednesday fought off armed attackers besieging their compound in fighting that left at least four dead and 10 wounded.

Peacekeepers and staff were fleeing the violence in the government-held south. They also were leaving a nearby town where they received threats of violence. In the main city of Abidjan, U.N. soldiers fired shots into the air and launched tear-gas grenades at demonstrators, keeping about 1,000 protesters at bay.

Gbagbo has officially banned street demonstrations but his security forces have appeared to do little to disperse protesters erecting burning barricades in streets and besieging U.N. offices across the cocoa-rich south.

Businesses shut down across Abidjan amid fears of a return to all-out violence. There were no reports of strife from the rebel-held north.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who chairs the African Union and has helped mediate many West African crises, made an unscheduled trip to Ivory Coast to meet with Gbagbo on Wednesday.

Between 200 and 300 U.N. peacekeepers and staff were moving north toward a more secure area Wednesday after Bangladeshi troops exchanged fire with gunmen in the government-held town of Guiglo near the Liberia border, said Capt. Gilles Combarieu, a U.N. military observer. Guiglo residents reached by telephone said rioters were looting the offices of humanitarian groups.

France's Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urged peace talks. The French army chief of staff, Gen. Henri Bentegeat, called for U.N. sanctions against Ivory Coast on Europe-1 radio, saying both sides have shown they are unwilling to resolve the conflict.

France retains economic interests in Ivory Coast, its former colony, and has peacekeepers in the country alongside a U.N. force. In all, there are 10,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.