Pro-Government Protests Continue in Ivory Coast
17 January 2006
Demonstrators remain in the streets of Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, denouncing foreign mediators who called for parliament to be dissolved.
VOA correspondent Joe Bavier says supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo have manned barricades throughout the city. He says that several hundred of them massed outside the French embassy Tuesday.
Their protests began Monday, one day after an international working group assigned to oversee a U.N. peace plan in Ivory Coast recommended that parliament's mandate not be extended.
The lawmakers' term of office expired last month, but Ivory Coast's Constitutional Council has said parliament should continue to meet. The chamber is controlled by supporters of President Gbagbo.
The United Nations has been trying to move Ivory Coast toward peace following a 2002 civil war that divided the country into a rebel-held north and government-held south.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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