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The prime minister
of Cote d’Ivoire presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara urged the
international community to consider using force to oust incumbent
Laurent Gbagbo saying it was the “only solution”.

Gbagbo has refused
to quit following a November 28 election that African countries and
western powers say he lost to Ouattara, in a dispute that the United
Nations says has already killed 50 people and threatens to restart a
civil war.

Speaking on French television network I-Tele, Guillaume Soro said Gbagbo had raised the military stakes leaving few options.

“Mr Gbgabo has got
the tanks out … 200 people have fallen under the bullets of Liberian
and Angolan mercenaries … the security situation is very worrying,”
Soro said.

“It is obvious the
only solution to the crisis is the use of force.” Gbagbo has shown no
sign of caving in to the pressure and late on Tuesday invited an
international committee to re-examine the results of the vote, a move
that a Ouattara spokesman dismissed as a delaying tactic.

“I ask the U.N. Security Council, European Union and ECOWAS to consider the use of force,” Soro said.

Ouattara had
rejected also on Wednesday the incumbent leader’s offer of an
international investigation into a disputed election as a political
“game”.

Laurent Gbagbo on
Tuesday invited an international committee to re-examine the results of
the presidential election of Nov. 28 to prevent a bitter power struggle
with his rival from escalating into civil war.

Gbagbo said the
committee could be headed by the African Union and also involve the
West African organisation ECOWAS, the United Nations, the United
States, the European Union, Russia and China, all of whom have
recognised Ouattara as winner.

“We’ve finished with these games,” Patrick Achi, a spokesman for Ouattara’s rival government told Reuters by phone.

International divorce

France, Germany and
Britain advised against travel to the country on Wednesday and urged
their citizens there to leave, a day after Nigeria said it evacuated
diplomatic staff from the country following an attack on its embassy.

France asked its
citizens to leave Cote d’Ivoire and the World Bank froze funding to the
West African state on Wednesday, as a violent power struggle deepened
between incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his rival presidential claimant
Alassane Ouattara.

World Bank head
Robert Zoellick said funds for Cote d’Ivoire had been cut off, in a
move to squeeze Gbagbo financially. According to the World Bank
website, the global lender has aid commitments to Cote d’Ivoire of $842
million as of January 2010.

“They have already been frozen,” Zoellick said in Paris after a meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The European Union
and the United States have imposed sanctions on Gbagbo and members of
his inner circle in an attempt to force him to step down, and African
countries have offered him a soft landing in exile.

But Gbagbo has
shown no sign of caving in to the pressure and late on Tuesday invited
an international committee to re-examine the results of the vote, a
move that a Ouattara spokesman dismissed as a delaying tactic.

Earlier Kader
Coulibaly’s younger brother vanished when gunmen raided his sleepy
suburb in Cote d’Ivoire’s main city last week, and like hundreds of
supporters of presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara, he fears the
worst.

“It was about 6 or
7 in the evening on Saturday. He was out in a local bar near our house
when two pickup trucks of military men drove through the neighbourhood
shooting. There was panic,” he said.

Gbagbo’s camp denies that abductions or killings are taking place and accuses Ouattara’s of trying to soil their name.