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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
COTE D'IVOIRE: Rebel fighters display heavy weapons in Bouake
BOUAKE, 18 November 2003 (IRIN) - Cote d'Ivoire's rebels rolled out a massive display of heavy weapons in Bouake, 379 km north of the commercial capital, Abidjan on Tuesday, hours after declaring a state of emergency in areas under their control. They said their actions were in response to government preparations to launch attacks on their positions.
A convoy of trucks, loaded up with heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns and rocket-propelled grenades, drove around the city in the early afternoon with heavily armed soldiers perched on the sides of the vehicles.
Some trucks headed along the highway from Bouake to the north. More heavily armed fighters, dressed in combat gear, patrolled the streets, telling civilians they were searching for infiltrators.
Bouake is the headquarters of the rebels, who call themselves the "Forces Nouvelles" or "New Forces". They have controlled the northern half of the country since the outbreak of hostilities with the government in September 2002. While they signed a peace agreement with the government in January, there has been no real rapprochment between the two sides.
On 23 September, the rebels backed out of a government of national unity, alleging that the President Laurent Gbagbo had sidelined its ministers and was not serious about implementing the French-brokered peace deal.
On Tuesday the Chief of Staff of the main rebel organisation, the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI), Colonel Soumaila Bakayoko, said the rebels had declared a "state of emergency" and recalled all MPCI military commanders to Bouake because of an "act of war" that had been signed by Ivorian army chief of staff, General Mathias Doue, and President Laurent Gbagbo.
The act, he claimed, directed the army to resume fighting the rebels.
"The declaration by Doue during the ceremony commemorating soldiers killed in the frontline and the declaration by Gbagbo that he will do away with us in a few days, is what made us put our men on alert", Bakayoko, a defector from the Ivorian army, told IRIN in Bouake.
Speaking on Saturday at a ceremony commemorating soldiers and policemen killed in the conflict, Doue warned: "the war can restart at any moment". Bakayoko added that Gbagbo had made a speech during a mini summit of ECOWAS heads of states in Accra on November 12 where he said that his army was well equipped and could flush the rebels out within two weeks.
According to Bakayoko, these statements represented a call to war. He said the Ivorian army had made Bouake and the western town of Man its immediate targets.
But Ivorian army spokesman, Aka N’goran, denied the rebel claims. He said that the accusations by the rebels against Doue were "completely untrue", adding that the army was still committed to the peace process.
Colonel Georges Peillon, spokesman of the 4,000-strong French contingent that monitors the French-brokered ceasefire between the fighters and keeps the army and rebels apart, told IRIN the French had heard the rebel declaration but were not sure exactly what they planned to do.
The French troops were deployed after the rebellion broke out in and have since formed a buffer between the two sides. They recently stepped up their operations in Bouake following a bank raid in the city.
Despite the heightened security in Bouake, Bakayoko said the Secretary-General of the New Forces, Guillaume Soro, had flown to Accra in neighbouring Ghana, to discuss preparations for a peace meeting with the government and other Ivorian political parties.
Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, who heads the government of national unity, met Soro in Burkina Faso on Saturday and agreed that the various Ivorian parties involved in the peace process should meet this week to try to break the current deadlock.
Diarra did not say when the meeting would be held, but President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso told reporters he had called Ghanaian President John Kufuor to arrange the meeting. Kufuor is the current chiarmen of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
ECOWAS, which organised another meeting on Cote Ivoire last week for heads of state from neighbouring countries, hopes another meeting involved all parties to the conflict could be useful, especially after last week's meeting achieved nothing.
Although there has not been any fighting for the last six months, the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire appears to have lost all momentum in recent months, the problems highlighted by the departure from government of the rebel ministers in September.
Disarmament, which was scheduled to begin three months ago, has yet to start. Bakayoko told IRIN on Tuesday that the rebels would not disarm until Prime Minister Seydou Diarra was given full powers by Gbabgo and until the defense and security ministers were chosen by all parties which had signed the Marcoussis agreement brokered by France in January.
In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac reiterated on Monday the need to “swiftly and fully” implement the Paris Marcoussis accord. His call followed on from an appeal from the European Union, which said last week that it would continue to withhold aid to Cote d Ivoire until it saw real “progress” in the process.
The once prosperous West African country sunk into political turmoil in September 2002 following a failed coup attempt. Rebellious soldiers seized control of the northern and western areas and have since divided the country into two. The 14-month conflict has brought the former French colony, the world's top cocoa producer, to the brink of economic collapse.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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