Ivory Coast atrocity claims embarrass Ouattara's backers

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

Two charred corpses lay in a pile of ash on the road, their blackened skulls and rib cages reflecting off the window of a luxury car showroom. Nearby, young men in T-shirts taunted a French military patrol at a makeshift roadblock, jabbing their fingers and shouting: "Gbagbo! Gbagbo!"

Abidjan remained on a knife edge on Sunday, with no end in sight to Ivory Coast's civil war. There is growing evidence of atrocities being committed on both sides, with the UN's 9,000 peacekeepers unable to make a significant intervention. What had seemed to be a morally simple contest between democrat and dictator is turning altogether murkier.

The reputation of Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of last November's election, has taken a battering in recent days. A Human Rights Watch report – detailed on Saturday in the Guardian – said forces loyal to Ouattara killed hundreds of civilians, raped his rival's supporters and burned villages in the country's west. Survivors described how the soldiers "summarily executed and raped perceived Gbagbo supporters in their homes, as they worked in the fields, as they fled, or as they tried to hide in the bush".

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10/atrocities-ivory-cast-supporters

[Mojeoux]

1. %@**#@#$^$&*%^*^*%)*(%UI&^%& @

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