Bodycount

3:27 pm, 11/22/04

Bodycount
Note: Please check the bottom of this post for updates, as I'm adding any new info I dig up.

From the Guardian, November 9th:

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Security forces opened fire Tuesday as thousands of angry government loyalists massed outside a French evacuation post for foreigners, reportedly killing seven people and wounding 200 in violence pitting France against its former prize colony.

France's military denied responsibility, saying it was loyalist demonstrators who opened fire as a French convoy left the post, and Ivorian security forces who returned fire.

Uh, well, that isn't going to fly, because the French are on video discharging their weapons, quite extensively at that. Nice try, though.

However, the 7 dead, 200 wounded looks plausible. (So does the 60. This is a very initial report from the AP and the Guardian, literally the day of, so who knows.)

The bloodletting erupted at a onetime luxury hotel French forces have commandeered as an evacuation center for 1,300 French and other foreigners rescued from rampages across the commercial capital, Abidjan.

An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of three demonstrators outside a hospital, their bodies draped in Ivorian flags.

The French set up their evacuation center Monday a few hundred yards from the home of President Laurent Gbagbo, and the site has become a flashpoint for violence.

Automatic weapon fire Tuesday as thousands pressed around the center in protest, witnesses said.

What does that mean? Automatic weapon fire from protestors, at protestors, in protest of the earlier automatic weapon fire at protestors?

Four days of confrontations have killed at least 20 other people, wounded 700 and shut down cocoa exports from the world's largest producer.

On Tuesday, stunned protesters filled the hospital, and survivors lay out the bodies of some of the dead. A woman lay on the ground, screaming.

My French is a joke, but this LeMonde article seems to say that 7 were killed, as well as an Ivorian soldier, in a confrontation near the Hotel Ivoire. Anybody who speaks French who can translate in full?

Update: I can't get anything good from online translators, but the word "scuffle" keeps coming up, and based on something else I saw (but managed to lose) it seems like maybe they're saying that the French were supposed to be firing warning shots, and there was a stampede? That's a good excuse, and at least acknowledges that the French opened fire, but it also doesn't jibe. Essentially, it seems LeMonde reported it as fact that the French fired warning shots and the Ivorians trampled each other, while the AP headlines French troops firing on the crowd, but reports inside the story that France says they were Ivorian troops.

We do know they were French troops. Both stories are dated the 9th of November, and last week they seemed to be saying simply that they aren't responsible. I wonder what the French government line is now?

Update: Or... Reader Mark gives this translation in comments:

Abidjan, where the violence has continued since November 4, with a high toll already, was the scene of new conflict on tuesday november 9, provoking the death of 7 protesters and 1 ivorian soldier. As the government in Paris is troubled by the situation, the Ivory Coast government wishes to condemn France at the UN.
Seven Deaths at Abidjan.
French soldiers fired into crowds setting off a panic and killing 7 people and injuring several others. The "Young Patriots", supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo had been meeting not long before, in the vicinity of the Hotel Ivoire, which is controlled by French soldiers.

So, depending on how you read it, LeMonde appears to be confirming French troops firing at the crowds, something the French government apparently denied to the AP.

The tricky part seems to be the passage "des tirs de sommation", which I've seen translated as "firing warning shots" and "firing into crowds". Machine translators read it simply as "shootings of summation", and a French-English dictionary translated "sommation" as "summary", so now I'm curious.

Update: OK, there we go. In comments, reader Martin Adamson says his dictionary translates "tirs de sommation" as "warning shots". So, LeMonde was apparently told the French military fired warning shots that, by implication, caused a panic in which 7 people were killed.

When France tells the truth, how will we know?

Update: Is it possible that the first half of the video depicts the warning shots, but the second half depicts a direct attack on the crowd? I don't know, it seems to me that the French clearly shouldered their weapons in the first half, as though firing at the crowd, but it looks like almost everybody got back up. In the second half, you can also hear larger explosions, as though heavier munitions are being used as well.

Update: You're going to want to read the comments in this post from a Swiss fellow, Seewen. The French are saying some really surreal things about this that the Swiss are picking up, and it's worth reading. If you can, you can watch the interview links, too.

Update: Other passing references in the media that nobody noticed...

Australian Broadcasting Company:

French troops have fired in the air to disperse thousands of protesters gathered in the upmarket Cocody district of the main Ivory Coast city Abidjan, an AFP correspondent on the scene said.

BBC:

When French tanks and armoured vehicles massed at the Hotel Ivoire, a luxury hotel not far from the state television and the presidential residence, state media implored Ivorians to form a human shield around the president.

According to the radio, the French tanks were intending to oust President Gbagbo.

Again, thousands of people responded to the call, and again, hundreds of people were injured and at least 10 died.

ABC News:

- Gunfire killed at least 10 and wounded hundreds in a clash involving French troops, protesters and local security forces in Ivory Coast on Tuesday, the fourth straight day of chaotic violence in the West African country.

Shooting broke out as French soldiers tried to leave a hotel in the main city Abidjan. France said Ivorian forces trying to help them leave opened fire after being shot at by protesters. But the demonstrators said the French had fired on the crowd.

International Herald Tribune/New York Times, in the ridiculous smear job against the Ivorians already mentioned here previously:

That anti-French sentiment was bolstered by what government supporters say was the excessive force used by French troops during a demonstration the week before last outside the Hotel Ivoire, once a shining symbol of this country's affluence and sophistication.

Pravda:

French soldiers fired to disperse protesters in Ivory Coast on Tuesday after days of rioting in the main city Abidjan.

Three people lay dead after the shooting. One was an Ivorian paramilitary policeman, one man had his head blown off and a woman lay lifeless on the ground with a large wound in her back.

Demonstrators said the gunfire had come from French troops in a hotel while the French military declined immediate comment.

Demonstrators in Abidjan ransacked the Hotel Ivoire after French troops pulled out and smoke rose into the sky. The hotel was a towering symbol of the post-independence boom the West African state enjoyed thanks largely to its plentiful cocoa.

CBS News:

In Abidjan, the capital, French forces were firing warning shots to hold back crowds of thousands trying to block the road around Gbagbo's home, said a worker at the hotel, the Hotel Ivoire, reached by telephone.

The worker, who refused to be identified, gave the same number as Tagro for the number of armored vehicles.

"Their presence here is scaring people, they're crying and they think that President Gbagbo is going to be overthrown," Tagro said by telephone.

Hard-liners have called for loyalists to form a "human shield" around Gbagbo's home as French forces deploy in Ivory Coast's largest city, quelling mob violence that erupted after France destroyed the fledgling air force of its former colony on Saturday.

VOA:

More than 30 French tanks were positioned Monday around the city's main hotel, Hotel Ivoire, which is near the residence of President Gbagbo and the French embassy. French troops fired their guns to disperse angry crowds, causing panic and, reportedly, injuring several people.

Catholic News:

Father Cesare Baldi, an Italian member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, said eyewitnesses reported that French troops had fired into a crowd of protesters near the airport outside Abidjan Nov. 6, leaving at least six civilians dead and perhaps many more.

"It was a slaughter. The French soldiers pointed their weapons on the crowd and opened fire," Father Baldi told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Father Baldi, who was stationed at a parish building nearby, said he obtained his information from a young Catholic who was among those demonstrating.

It's amazing how virtually every news outlet can refer to the same incident and every single account can contradict almost all the others. The French excuse changes with every account. The only thing they all agree on is that it happened, but they conveniently stuck it on the proverbial page 15 so nobody would know it.

Update: More - Expatica:

PARIS, Nov 10 (AFP) - France denied Wednesday that its soldiers had opened fire on demonstrators outside a hotel in the main Ivory Coast city of Abidjan, killing at least seven people.

The victims were not killed by French soldiers but had been caught in the crossfire between so-called "Young Patriots" - hardline backers of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo - and Ivorian soldiers and police, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told reporters as she left a cabinet meeting in Paris.

"The massacre of civilians by French soldiers amounts to 50 dead (since the start of the unrest last week) of whom 10 were killed yesterday alone," Alain Toussaint told Europe 1 radio.

News.com.au:

AT least seven people were killed today when French troops fired warning shots to disperse crowds of protesters in the main Ivory Coast city Abidjan, a hospital source said.

The hospital director earlier said that 126 injured, many of whom had suffered gunshot wounds, had been admitted for treatment.

"Warning shots, into their foreheads!" Xinhua:

ABIDJAN, Nov. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 10 people were killed andhundreds wounded in a clash involving French troops, protesters and local security forces in Cote d'Ivoire city Abidjan on Tuesday.

LA Times:

French soldiers opened fire on a crowd of pro-government demonstrators near the residence of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, killing five people, witnesses said.

The bloodshed by peacekeepers stationed at the nearby Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan seemed likely to fuel more anti-French sentiment in the cocoa-producing West African nation.

Update: I have moved all Ivory Coast posts into a single category called "No Blood for Cocoa". Click the link below this line to see the latest posts on the subject.