ABIDJAN, 20 January 2011 (IRIN): Such is the concern about the role the Ivoirian media are playing in ramping up the tension in Ivory Coast that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently warned that International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments could eventually be handed down on those inciting violence (opfordrer til vold og had).
Most of the Ivoirian media is deeply polarized. The state-run Radiotélévision Ivoirienne (RTI), the most widely accessed source of news in the country, is an unwavering champion of the self-appointed President Laurent Gbagbo and a persistent vilifier (tilsviner) of his internationally-backed rival claimant to the presidency, Alassane Ouattara.
RTI regularly depicts Ouattara’s supporters as posing a threat to peace and has even accused some of them of bribing (bestikke) and drugging children to enforce a stay-at-home, or “dead city” protest called to press home Ouattara’s case.
Ivoirian TV has also set its sights on the UN mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI), accusing the UN’s troops of shooting and injuring civilians during recent skirmishes in Abidjan, and interviewing the alleged victims on its news bulletins.
There have been a series of attacks and incidents involving ONUCI personnel and vehicles in recent days. On the night of 13 January, shots were fired at one of the mission’s patrols in the Abobo district of Abidjan.
According to an ONUCI statement, the attackers came from security forces aligned to Gbagbo. A day earlier an ONUCI food convoy was blocked and looted, again, according to the mission, by forces from Gbagbo’s camp.
Several ONUCI vehicles have been torched in Abidjan. On 18 January, the peacekeeping mission issued a statement “deploring the repeated acts of aggression – backed by the forces of President Laurent Gbagbo’s camp – against its patrols.”
It made reference in particular to an episode during the recent visit of African Union (AU) mediator Raila Odinga, noting that: a “group of youths from President Gbagbo’s camp surrounded peacekeepers who were waiting for Odinga.
The armed troops supporting the youths opened fire towards the [UN] vehicles, obliging (tvang) the ONUCI soldiers to respond by firing in the air.” ONUCI strongly criticized the version of the incident provided by RTI, which said that the peacekeepers’ actions had left several people carrying gunshot wounds.
ONUCI stressed the bulletin in question “does not conform to (svarer til) the facts” and denounced it as “part of a propaganda campaign aimed at inciting hatred among President Gbagbo’s supporters against ONUCI”. Partisan press
Læs videre på http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91690
