Reply #279: tell it to the French...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

those mavens of diplomacy appear to have gotten a little trigger happy...



French Troops Fire Into Ivory Coast Crowd...

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - French forces opened fire Tuesday as thousands of angry government loyalists massed outside an evacuation post for foreigners, reportedly killing seven people and wounding 200 in violence pitting France against its former prize colony.

The bloodletting erupted at a onetime luxury hotel French forces have commandeered as an evacuation center for 1,300 French and other foreigners rescued from rampages across the commercial capital, Abidjan.

An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of three demonstrators outside a hospital, their bodies draped in Ivorian flags.

The chaos in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's former economic powerhouse, broke out Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on the rebel-held north.

France wiped out the nation's air force on the tarmac in retaliation, sparking anti-French rampages by thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4605431,00.html