At least four dead in Ivory Coast protest - witnesses
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Security forces loyal to Ivory Coast incumbent Laurent Gbagbo used live rounds to break up a protest by supporters of presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan on Thursday and witnesses said at least four died.
Gunfire and bursts of heavy arms rang out across the Ivorian economic hub on the day allies of Ouattara, who is backed by the U.N., said they would try to seize the state TV building from forces loyal to Gbagbo, who says he won the November 28 poll.
Along with the United Nations, the United States, African states and France recognise Ouattara as the winner of the election but Gbagbo, backed by the nation's top legal body, has held on to the presidency, alleging mass vote-rigging.
Sustained machine gun and rifle fire was heard in the city earlier on Thursday, as was tear gas in districts where pro-Ouattara supporters were gathering for the march on the building of the state broadcaster RTI.
"I saw four killed and many wounded. They fired guns to push us back when we tried to march down the street," one protester said of live rounds fired by military at a crowd marching near a military police school on their way to the state TV building.
Telephone interviews conducted by Amnesty International with people at the scene of the march indicated there were nine dead, the rights group said. It said the interviews were with five pro-Ouattara protesters and two local human rights workers.
Some protesters close to the state television building had been arrested, stripped and beaten, Andre Kamate, president of local rights group LIDHO said by telephone.
An army spokesman declined to comment on the reports.
U.N. helicopters flew over the city as the shooting erupted. The United Nations has about 10,000 soldiers and police in the country. The force has a mandate to protect civilians but said its job was not to protect the march.
Fear of a disruption to supplies in the world's top cocoa grower pushed futures prices close to four-month highs reached last week. May cocoa on Liffe stood 18 pounds or 0.9 percent higher at 2,030 pounds a tonne at 1:40 p.m. British time.
AFRICAN PEACE TALKS
Earlier, heavy arms were briefly heard near the Abidjan hotel which Ouattara is using as the base for a parallel administration.
"There is shooting all over the place. There is artillery. There are explosions. It is all coming from the direction of the Golf Hotel," said one witness. A second witness living near the hotel also confirmed heavy weapons fire.
One of Ouattara's officials in the Golf Hotel said he did not think the UN-guarded hotel itself was coming under attack from pro-Gbagbo forces who have taken up positions in pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns around it.
Gbagbo, declared election victor by Ivory Coast's highest legal body, controls state institutions, police and troops.
Tensions have been steadily mounting in the world's top cocoa grower after a poll intended to heal a north-south division created by a 2002-2003 conflict but which instead has raised fears of unrest and a potential return to all-out war.
A top-level African Union delegation was due to meet Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, current chief of the West African bloc ECOWAS on Thursday, in efforts by African countries to resolve the crisis peacefully.
Election commission results showed Ouattara won last month's election. But the pro-Gbagbo Constitutional Council scrapped nearly half a million votes in Ouattara bastions to hand victory to Gbagbo on grounds of fraud, causing international outrage.
In a move that could threaten a key source of revenues for Gbagbo's administration, Ivory Coast's chamber of commerce this week wrote to its members and advised them not to pay any taxes.
In the letter, seen by Reuters, Jean-Louis Billon, the president of the organisation, said businesses have had to bear the brunt of Ivory Coast's crisis and the status quo with two administrations made paying taxes impossible.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa and Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Joe Brock in Abuja, Richard Valdmanis and David Lewis in Dakar; writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Mark John and Philippa Fletcher)