We’re at Brink of Genocide------Cote d Ivoire UN Ambassador

By Williams Ekanem

Cote d’Ivoire’s new Ambassador to the United Nations UN,  Youssoufou Bamba says his country is virtually at the brink of genocide following the disputed elections.

According to Bamba, “he has been elected in a free, fair, transparent, democratic election. The result has been proclaimed by the independent electoral commission, certified by the UN,”

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, the Bamba who is appointed envoy to the United Nations by Ouattara, stated that “to me the debate is over, now you are talking about how and when Mr. Gbagbo will leave office.” He said there had been a “massive violation of human rights,” with more than 170 people killed during street demonstrations in Cote d’Ivoire.
“Thus, one of the messages I try to get across during the conversations I have conducted so far, is to tell we are on the brink of genocide. Something should be done,” Bamba told journalists.
Bamba said he planned to meet every member of the United Nations Security Council.
This is even as Canada has rejected the Ivorian Ambassador to Canada appointed by embattled Gbagdo.

Canada on Wednesday said it no longer recognized the Ivoirian ambassador to Ottawa appointed by Gbagbo, and that it would welcome new diplomatic representation from the West African nation. “The tenure of Louis L.B. Bony as ambassador of Cote d’Ivoire to Canada has ended,” Melissa Lantsman, spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, told Agency France Press (AFP). Bony was appointed in 2008 by Gbagbo, who is now clinging to power in Abidjan despite international calls for him to relinquish control to Ouattara following last month’s disputed elections. “Canada will only accept a new head of mission appointed by President Ouattara,” Lantsman added. “Canada respects the right of President Alassane Ouattara to select Cote d’Ivoire’s diplomatic representation abroad,” the spokeswoman said, adding that, like the United Nations and several world powers, “Canada has publicly recognized Alassane Ouattara as the legitimately-elected president of Cote d’Ivoire.”

Cote d’Ivoire’s embassy in Ottawa refused comment on the matter, saying the ambassador was currently abroad and expected to return to Canada next week. The UN has accused Gbagbo’s security forces of continuing to block access to mass graves, saying investigators believe as many as 80 bodies may be in one building that UN personnel were kept from entering.
Gbagbo’s government has repeatedly denied that such graves exist, and the interior minister has gone on state television to dismiss the allegations.  Simon Munzu, the head of the UN human rights division, yesterday urged Gbagbo’s security forces to allow investigators to corroborate that. “We would be the very first to say that these stories are false if they turn out to be false,” Munzu said.  “Our findings on the matter and their announcement to the world would have a greater chance of being believed than these repeated denials.”

The United Nations has said that security forces accompanied by masked men with rocket launchers were preventing UN personnel from reaching the scene of one mass grave identified by witnesses in the area. Munzu said investigators got as far as the front door of a building where between 60 and 80 bodies are believed to be kept before they were forced to leave.
Meanwhile, a fiery member of Gbagbo’s Cabinet urged supporters to seize a hotel where the internationally recognized winner of last month’s election has been organizing a shadow government under UN protection. Charles Ble Goude was quoted by a pro-Gbagbo newspaper yesterday as saying that Ouattara, whom the UN declared the winner of the November 28 vote, and his prime minister “have until January 1, 2011 to pack their bags and leave the Golf Hotel.”
West African leaders on Wednesday took possible military intervention off the table for now so negotiations can continue next week to have Gbagbo hand over power.

ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, has sent combat troops to several nations in the past two decades. Defense officials from the member states met on Wednesday in Abuja, Nigeria, where the bloc is based.  “He who attacks Laurent Gbagbo will sorely regret it,” the newspaper Le Temps reported Ble Goude as telling Gbagbo supporters in the Yopougon neighborhood, where a UN patrol was surrounded by a mob on Tuesday and one peacekeeper was wounded by a machete. “No one can remove our president from power.”
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Leroy said the UN has become a target of violence after a campaign of “disturbing lies” on state television suggested that the UN is arming and transporting anti-Gbagbo rebels.