Ivory Coast's 'Young Patriots' key to peace

"Their clout lies in their capacity to be disruptive," says Jeanne Maddox Toungara, a history professor at Howard University who has studied the Ivory Coast. "Blé Goudé is manipulated - he manages the crowds with the money he gets from the president."

Others also suspect Goudé is financed by Gbagbo's regime. When asked, Goudé refuses to reveal where he receives his financial support.

Ivorian reggae singer Alpha Blondy, who was recently named a United Nations ambassador of peace in the country, has met with Goudé and says the president is using him for political leverage.

"The politicians are using Blé Goudé and Guillaume Soro," he says, referring to the leader of the New Forces rebels.

These days Goudé's venomous speeches against French interference have cooled and been replaced with passionate pro-Gbagbo speeches and a continued call for the rebels to disarm.

That wasn't the case last November when more than 8,000 French fled the country as the Young Patriots took to the streets and attacked French businesses and soldiers, convinced France was hatching a plot to overthrow Gbagbo.

The attacks reinforced the perception that Goudé's Young Patriots are violent, something that he denies.

"When you have a mass of people ... you can't control everybody. What a minority of people have done, they are destroying the image of all the movement," Goudé says, making sure to point out, he is "working on" weeding out and calming the rogue elements.

Before leading the Young Patriots, Goudé, the youngest of 12 siblings born to cocoa-farming parents, was member of the University of Abidjan's powerful student federation.

While studying English at the university, he helped organize rallies, parading through the dorms with a megaphone, announcing meetings. Ironically, the head of the student union at the time was none other than current rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

Goudé, who also studied politics and communication at the University of Manchester in England for a year, now says Mr. Soro is leading a terrorist rebellion. He says that there are better ways to deal with their grievances than taking up the gun against the government.

Yves Maurice Abiet was a friend of Goudé's while at the University of Abidjan. He now works for one of the more vociferous opposition newspapers but still chats on the phone with Goudé and considers him a friend.

"The students liked his tough talk against [former president Henri Bédié]," says Mr. Abiet. "He was very comfortable in his role of firing up the crowd," but Abiet adds, "If he doesn't have a mass [of followers], I think he is weak."

After the crisis is over, Goudé says he will stay in politics, but move behind the scenes. "We'll work for politicians, to polish their images. Like Karl Rove works for Bush."

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