Uneasy calm follows attack on president's home

The streets of Le Plateau, Abidjan's central administrative district, were deserted on Monday after a pre-dawn attack on the residence of Cote d'Ivoire's leader, General Robert Guei. "It's calm for now", a humanitarian source told IRIN. There was a heavy military presence in Le Plateau throughout the day and the few taxis to be seen were loaded with gendarmes and members of the military, rather than their usual civilian passengers. Offices and businesses remained closed and the few civilians who tried to reach the city centre were searched by security forces, the source said. Monday's attack was staged by "a few isolated elements", Minister of Communication and Culture Henri Sama said on state radio. The assailants tried to take the residence of the president but were repulsed, he said. International media organisations reported that two people had died. Local radio said a number of members of the military were detained and questioned. Sources told IRIN the shooting began at about 03:00 GMT and that there was "sustained firing" up to 05:30 GMT although shots could still be heard at 10.30 GMT. The streets in Le Plateau were deserted except for truckloads of soldiers, the source told IRIN. There was a heavy military presence around state radio, which was cordoned off by the armed forces. Security at the state television company in Cocody, a 10-minute drive from Le Plateau, was also beefed up. The attack came about two and a half months after a 4-5 July mutiny by soldiers demanding allowances which, they claimed, had been promised them when the military overthrew President Henri Konan Bedie on 24 December 1999. It capped a tense week in Abidjan that began with the Ivoirian students' union giving the ruling Conseil national de salut publique (CNSP) an ultimatum to deal with a dissident faction whom it blamed for clashes that left many students wounded, failing which the student union's members would take things into their own hands. About two dozen students were reported to have sustained machete wounds during the clashes that occurred on one of the university campuses in the Abidjan area. The rival faction was said to be linked to the opposition Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR). On Sunday, Guei promised to crack down on student agitators and the politicians behind them. Two days before, hundreds of RDR supporters flocked to the residence of party leader Alassane Ouattara in Cocody after reports that the military had surrounded it and were about to arrest him. Some of the RDR youths vowed to give their lives, if necessary, to protect him, a media source told IRIN. Ouattara is considered one of the frontrunners in presidential elections scheduled for 22 October. However, at the start of the week, lawyers contracted by the government had presented what they said was proof that he was ineligible because he had had Burkinabe citizenship. Ouattara's opponents have long claimed that he is a Burkinabe national. One of the conditions governing eligibility for the presidency is that candidates must be able to prove that both of their parents are or were Ivoirian and that they had never had any other nationality. Reacting to the lawyers' claim, Ouattara had challenged Guei to prove his origins, stating that he did not bear his father's name. The RDR leader had also charged that Cote d'Ivoire was under a dictatorship. Sama said on Monday: "Certain Ivoirians are developing a siege mentality, a besieged-tribe mentality". He said that, after many discussions and attempts at dialogue, the CNSP was no longer prepared to accept that "a few adventurers, imbued with their persons and because of personal ambitions, end the quietude that was the daily bread of Ivoirians". The struggle Guei and the CNSP are waging today, he said, "is about the sovereignty of Cote d'Ivoire, which we do not want to see made into a vassal state by countries which it has always been our obligation to assist". He did not mention Ouattara or any of Cote d'Ivoire's poorer neighbours, such as Burkina Faso, by name.