AFRICA/IVORY COAST - “MURDER OF INTERNATIONAL RADIO FRANCE SYMPTOM OF CLIMATE OF VIOLENCE AND SUSPICION INTO WHICH IVORY COAST HAS BEEN PLUNGED”

Abidjan (Fides Service) – Police have arrested a member of the security forces with regard to the death of Ms Jean Helene, Radio France International reporter, killed in circumstances still to be clarified on 21 October near the nationalPolice Headquarters in Abidjan, economic capital of Ivory Coast.
So far there has been no official statement with regard to the reason for the crime.
Helene was in front of the Police Station waiting to interview some of the 11 people taken in custody, and later released, for being involved in a plot denounced by the Ivorian authorities to kill certain Ivorian political leaders. Eyewitnesses say the journalist received a mortal head wound with a bullet fired from the gun of a policeman immediately arrested by his colleagues.
Local sources contacted by Fides say “this act of violence is a symptom of the tension which prevails in Ivory Coast despite the cessation of hostilities between army and rebels on the basis of an agreement signed in France in January. The atmosphere is one of suspicion, as the arrest and release of 11 opposition members accused of plotting against the state” .
Since the outbreak of civil war in 2002, and despite a peace agreement reached in 2003, Ivory Coast is still divided with the north and east of the country in the hands of different rebels groups now joined to form “New Forces”. (L.M.) (Fides Service 22/10/2003, lines 24 words 257)