ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's best-known religious sect leader
and self-proclaimed prophet, Papa Nouveau, has died, the government newspaper
reported Tuesday.
Papa Nouveau began his ministry before World War Two in the Atlantic fishing
village of Toukouzou and had the ear of Ivory Coast's most prominent
politicians.
Daily Fraternite Matin gave his age as more than 100 years, although other
sources have said he was around 97.
Papa Nouveau was a Protestant preacher in the 1930s, when some local fishermen
became convinced he had the gift of prophecy.
They began to call him Papa Nouveau, implying that he brought news --
"nouvelles" in French -- from the future, and he founded his sect in
1937.
These days the village -- known as Toukouzou-Hozalem by his followers -- boasts
around 2,000 followers, a cathedral and the lavish palace where he lived with
some of his 30 or so children.
Papa Nouveau became known as "the prophet of the liberation of black
men." He was influential with some of Ivory Coast's French colonizers and
became a central figure in the West African country's religious and political
landscape.
He was consulted by founding President Felix Houphouet- Boigny, who ruled from
independence in 1960 until his death in 1993, and by his successor Henri Konan
Bedie.
Gen. Robert Guei, who seized power in a 1999 coup, took refuge with Papa
Nouveau after he was chased from power following a controversial election that
he had tried to rig.
President Laurent Gbagbo, who won the election, visited the village while on
the campaign trail.
In a rare interview given recently to independent newspaper l'Inter, Papa
Nouveau called for all parties to sit down together and resolve Ivory Coast's
ethnic and political tensions at a reconciliation forum scheduled for Oct. 9.
"Let no one lift a weapon against another. Let everybody keep calm,"
he said. "I don't want to hear that there is war among Ivorians."
11:43 09-25-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.