Sanctions move forward

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – African leaders backed an arms embargo and other immediate U.N. sanctions against Ivory Coast on Sunday, isolating President Laurent Gbagbo’s hard-line government even further in its deadly confrontation with its former colonial ruler France.

As a French-led evacuation of Ivory Coast builds to one of Africa’s largest, French President Jacques Chirac denounced President Laurent Gbagbo’s “questionable regime” – and said France would not tolerate much more.

Presidents from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo and Gabon, meeting in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Sunday, backed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freezes against anyone blocking peace in Ivory Coast.

The arms embargo “should be immediate,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current African Union chairman, told journalists after the meeting at the presidential wing of Abuja’s airport. The call gives African approval to a tough stand in today’s expected Security Council vote on the sanctions.