Gbagbo has last chance for peaceful exit - Ouattara
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara told his presidential rival Laurent Gbagbo Tuesday that an African Union offer of a safe exit was his last chance to leave power peacefully.
Ouattara also called on security forces backing Gbagbo to defect to end an increasingly bloody power struggle in the world's top cocoa grower, which has seen three weeks of gun battles between forces loyal to each.
Ouattara won a November presidential election, according to U.N.-certified results, but Gbagbo has refused to step down and has used a military still loyal to him to crush dissent.
An AU effort at mediating the dispute re-affirmed the pan-African body's backing for Ouattara's claim to the presidency and offered Gbagbo a safe exit if he agreed to step down. His aides rejected the offer.
"I ask (Gbagbo) to seize this new initiative by the African Union. He needs to understand that this is for him the last chance for a peaceful and dignified exit," Ouattara said in a speech to his newly launched television station.
Rebels controlling the north of Ivory Coast have backed Ouattara in the power struggle and gunmen in the main city Abidjan have expanded their presence from a northern Ouattara bastion closer to the centre of town and strongholds of Gbagbo.
The conflict has underpinned cocoa futures' 32-year highs, until they fell because of Japan's earthquake.
"I launch an appeal to the military, gendarmes, police, paramilitary elements," he said. "It is not too late for you to put yourself at the disposal of your nation."
VIOLENCE ESCALATING
Gunmen shot dead four people Tuesday near a roadblock run by youths in a leafy Abidjan suburb.
"I'm not sure what happened but we heard a burst of shooting near the youth roadblock just behind the Sococe supermarket," said resident Marco Abade.
"We heard screaming and there were four bodies of youths on the road," Abade added, saying he did not know if any of the dead were members of a pro-Gbagbo youth militia, who have set up roadblocks across town, many armed with automatic weapons.
Fighting has also spread to the west, across a north-south cease-fire line in place since the end of the 2002-3 war, increasing fears that an election meant to reunite the country will instead reignite the conflict.
Army chief General Philippe Mangou, whose immediate neighborhood in west Abidjan was the scene of gun battles on Monday, told the pro-Gbagbo newspaper Notre Voie Tuesday that his forces were ready for war.
"If they push us towards war, we'll make war. This is what we in the process of doing," he was quoted as saying.
Ouattara has international recognition but is stuck in a hotel protected by United Nations peacekeepers while Gbagbo has remained defiant deste international sanctions.
Former colonial power France said Tuesday that sanctions would eventually force Gbagbo from power.
Monday pro-Ouattara gunmen advanced as far as Adjame, close to the central business district and launched two simultaneous attacks in the Gbagbo stronghold of Yopougon.
"This place was in a state of total combat. There were grenades and artillery shells launching everywhere," a car parts trader told Reuters TV as he surveyed the wreckage of his shop, destroyed by an explosion.
Buildings in the nearby area of Williamsville were still smoking. The body of a dead civilian lay on the main motorway.
(Additional reporting by Media Coulibaly and Loucoumane Coulibaly; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Elizabeth Piper)