ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) — Ivory Coast accused French media Tuesday of seeking to undermine President Laurent Gbagbo by publishing a U.N. report that said security forces and pro-government militia had killed innocent civilians.

France said earlier in the day it was concerned by the report which said at least 120 people were killed in a “carefully planned and executed operation” during a two-day crackdown in March on a banned opposition protest.

A statement from Ivory Coast’s presidency accused foreign media, in particular Paris-based Radio France Internationale, or RFI, of trying to destabilize the country by publishing details of the report ahead of its official release.

“For RFI, the deaths of March 25 are solely interested in contributing to the isolation of the president of Ivory Coast, whom they hope will lose power as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

It said certain media organizations hoped to undermine the “cohesion within the state apparatus” by pitting civilians against the defense and security forces in the former French colony, which is the world’s top cocoa producer.

Foreign media and French radio and television channels in particular were accused of pro-rebel bias during Ivory Coast’s civil war, which blew out of a failed coup attempt in 2002 and claimed thousands of lives before being declared over last July.

Gbagbo has repeatedly said only 37 people were killed in March’s violence, which he has called an attempted armed insurrection against the West African country’s institutions.

France, which helped broker a peace accord last year, condemned the killings and said the perpetrators must be punished.

“We are very concerned by (the report’s) elements and particularly by those that underline the primary responsibility of parallel security forces,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The political leader of the country’s rebel movement, Guillaume Soro, likened Gbagbo to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, on trial in The Hague on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“I call on the U.N. to create an international criminal tribunal for Ivory Coast which Gbagbo should appear in front of. In the meantime they should give him a cell next to Milosevic,” Soro told supporters in the western rebel town of Vavoua.

The presidency’s four-page statement said the Ivorian authorities had nothing to hide and had always invited the support of the United Nations in investigating alleged human rights violations since the start of the war.

Source: CNN
URL: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/05/04/fr…/p>