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Africa

Are Things About To Get Worse in Ivory Coast?

Global Voices have recently posted a chilling piece on the situation in Ivory Coast.

Over the last weeked, the situation in Côte d’Ivoire has taken a turn for the worst. On Saturday March 19, leader of the Student Federation of Côte d’Ivoire (FESCI), Charles Blé Goudé, called on the pro-Gbagbo youth movement Jeunes patriotes (Young Patriots) to enrol in the national Ivorian army (loyal to Gbagbo) this Monday, 21 March, by registering at the Armed Forces headquarters in Abidjan [fr].

During his speech [fr] Blé Goudé, nicknamed the “Minister of the Streets” rallied his troops:

Je demande à tous les jeunes de Côte d’Ivoire [fr] qui se sentent aptes, qui sont prêts à mourir pour leur patrie, qui ne supportent plus l’humiliation que subit la Côte d’Ivoire, de se rendre dès lundi à 07H00 (locales et GMT) à l’état-major pour se faire enrôler dans l’armée afin de libérer la Côte d’Ivoire de ces bandits

I’m calling on the youth of Côte d’Ivoire [fr] who feel apt, and are ready to die for their country, who cannot bear the humiliation imposed on Côte d’Ivoire, to gather at the Army headquarters from 7am this Monday (local time) to be drafted in the army and thus liberate Côte d’Ivoire from those bandits…

… Is the worst yet to come? Will Côte d’Ivoire be the stage for a civil war? To recruit and arm young volunteers is a terrifying move and a sinister reminder of the Interahamwe Hutu paramilitary organization during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Even if the bloodshed does not reach the magnitude of the Rwandan tragedy, widescale attacks on civilians are to be feared.

Global Voices has been one of the best places to get regular, reliable information on the situation in Ivory Coast, if you are at all interested in the situation there, I strongly reccomend that you point your RSS reader in their direction or that you look up their special coverage Côte d’Ivoire Unrest 2011.