By Loucoumane Coulibaly ABIDJAN, Oct 22 (Reuters) - One person was killed when local villagers in northeast Ivory Coast tried to occupy a rebel military post to protest extortion by rebel soldiers manning roadblocks, authorities said on Monday. Several hundred youths armed mostly with sticks and stones and at least three automatic rifles attacked the New Forces rebel headquarters on Sunday at Bouna, a town on a crossroads which leads to Burkina Faso in the north and Ghana in the east. Since a 2002/2003 civil war split the West African country into two, northern Ivory Coast including the Bouna region has been in the hands of New Forces rebels, while the government controls the south of the world's top cocoa producer. Reunification and elections next year are foreseen under a national peace plan signed in March by the two sides. Before the assault on the rebel military post at Bouna on Sunday, a market day, young villagers had attacked and disarmed three rebel soldiers guarding the Borontchara road corridor outside the town, seizing their AK-47 assault rifles. "The villagers are unhappy with the rebels. Every time they leave their settlements to sell their goods in town, they are subjected to extortion by the rebels. Yesterday, tempers boiled over," said a local politician, who asked not to be named. Since the war, military roadblocks manned by rebel and government forces have multiplied and travellers say police and soldiers from both sides demand money from passing vehicles. The New Forces rebel movement said in a statement a civilian was killed in Sunday's unrest at Bouna. "Calm has returned since yesterday evening. There are no more problems," Sidiki Konate, the minister for tourism in the coalition government and the New Forces spokesman, told Reuters. A peace deal signed in March between President Laurent Gbagbo and the rebels led to rebel leader Guillaume Soro being appointed prime minister. The two sides agreed to reunify the country, begin disarmament and start a national identification process so that national elections can be held next year. Ivory Coast's electoral commission said last month the vote, which was originally due in October 2005 but has been postponed twice due to political bickering, could be delayed until October 2008 because of the need for the identification process. The government re-started the identification process last month but it has yet to fully get underway. It seeks to establish who among hundreds of thousands of undocumented people will be eligible to vote and officials say it will require at least three months to complete.
