ICoast-politics
   Ivory Coast is "going to explode" says reggae star

   ABIDJAN, Sept 19 (AFP) - Ivory Coast is "going to explode" said Ivorian
reggae singer Alpha Blondy Tuesday, accusing the country's military leaders
of
being agreed on a collective suicide.
   Blondy said soldiers "armed to the teeth" had searched his home Monday a
few hours after an attack on junta leader General Robert Guei's residence.
   The attack is being blamed by the military regime on supporters of
popular
opposition presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara, who is running against
Guei in elections next month.
   The singer said the raid on his house was related to a recent article in
an
Ivorian paper in which he was accused of hiding weapons for Ouattara's
party,
the Rally of Republicans (RDR).
   "As far as they are concerned my name is proof of my membership of the
RDR," Blondy told AFP.
   "Coming to my house on the basis of rumours tells me they are desperate,
this search was an admission of desperation by the junta," he said.
   "I am going to talk to my lawyers, I would like to sue General Guei, if
it
is he who sent them. I say 'the general', not 'the president'...You can't
impose a president on the Ivorian people by armed force," said Blondy.
   Guei was swept to power in a coup last December, pledging he would not
try
to remain in office. He said then that power did not interest him and that
he
was only there to "clean up the Ivorian household".
   His decision to stand as presidential candidate has met with fierce
criticism, both at home and from the former colonial power France and the
United States.
   Blondy, who as an outspoken critic of ousted president Henri Konan Bedie
had welcomed last year's coup, said: "From the moment (Guei) put forward
his
candidacy (for the presidential elections set for October 22) he was acting
illegally."
   "His fear comes from the knowledge that he has has broken his officer's
oath," said Blondy.
   Blondy said that Ivory Coast's first president, Felix Houphouet Boigny,
who
died in 1993 and whom Guei "quotes all the time", also "entrusted him with
the
country".
   The singer quoted Houphouet Boigny as saying: "When you are famous you
do
not belong to yourself, you belong to those who have put their faith in
you,
you do not have the right to betray them."
   "In Africa, one coup d'etat leads to another, I would like to avoid this
spiral," the singer said.
   "I will not let them do the same stupid things that happen in other
countries...The sources of this political chaos will find me in their way,
I
cannot support a situation which sees our army - it is not his - tearing
itself apart. They do not have the right of life and death over themselves,
still less over the Ivorian people," said Blondy.
   "Like everyone, I am afraid, that's why I am opening my big mouth...I am
afraid of their weapons, but I am even more afraid of what is going to
happen," he said.
   "These are people who want things to fall apart whatever the cost. You
cannot speak for the Ivorian people and at the same time condemn them to
the
slaughterhouse...I will not let them do it, I will not allow this
collective
suicide," Blondy said.
   sa/crl/kc

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