ABIDJAN, Nov 25 (AFP) - Ivory Coast's Transport Minister Marcel Amon Tanoh,
a member of opposition figure Alassane Ouattara's party, on Thursday quit
to protest alleged abuses by the government as it battles a rebellion.
   "I have decided, two months after the events of September 19 to resign
my post as transport minister of Ivory Coast," Amon-Tanoh said in a
statement sent to AFP in Paris.
   "My conscience can no longer take the atrocities, rapes, summary
executions, assassinations, carried out by death squads against innocent
victims, in all impunity," the minister added.
   Amon-Tanoh said he was resigning also because the government "has failed
to come up with an adequate response to the crisis in Ivory Coast in spite
of all the initiatives I have personally proposed to the president."
   He was one of four cabinet ministers who are members of Ouattara's
Rally  for Republicans (RDR). The others hold the higher education,
technology and foreign trade portfolios.
   The party on Monday called on Ouattara, a former prime minister and
President Laurent Gbagbo's main political rival, to withdraw from a
broad-based government formed in August.
   Ouattara said he was mulling the matter.
   He has been accused of masterminding the rebellion against Gbagbo that
began on September 19 and has divided the country in two with the rebels
holding the largely Muslim north.
   Ouattara comes from the north and was barred from standing in the
presidential elections in 2000 that brought Gbagbo to power because of a
row over his nationality.
   He has been holed up in the French embassy in Abidjan since the start of
the rebellion because he fears for his life and Gbagbo has said he wants
him to leave Ivory Coast.
   His party on Monday said the Gbagbo government was "going downhill" and
"there are numerous violations of human rights in Ivory Coast, notably
summary executions."
   "The leadership of the RDR believes that the party has proved its
desire  for peace in Ivory Coast, particularly at this time of crisis in
our country, but those in power want to muzzle and annihilate the RDR," the
party said.
   The decision follows accusations by the secretary general of Gbagbo's
Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Sylvain Miaka Oreto, last week that army
mutineers launched the September uprising on Outtara's orders.
   The RDR said the charges were "fascist" and proved that "those in power
have already decided who the culprits are so that they can give the names
to their death squads."
   The rebels and the Ivorian army signed a ceasefire in mid-October. But
human rights groups claim at least 50 people have been assassinated in
recent weeks while peace talks between the two sides have faltered.
   The party of former military ruler Robert Guei pulled out of the unity
government more than a month before the rebellion began.
   The Union for Democracy and Peace in Ivory Coast (UDPCI) had only one
post in the government and quit on August 14, days after the government was
formed.
   Guei was shot dead in Abidjan on the day the rebellion began.

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